Writers are often advised to write about what they know, but writing about what she didn't know in her first published novel The Sound of Butterflies gave Rachael King's imagination free rein. The novel, about a young Edwardian lepidopterist, who pursues an elusive butterfly into the Amazon, was about asfar as she could get from her own life. "I found the process of stepping right away from my own personal experience incredibly freeing for my imagination. Funnily enough The Sound of Butterflies ended up being about a long distance relationship I was in at the time," Rachael says. Rachael is the author of two books for adults, the second being Magpie Hall, and one for children, Red Rocks. Magpie Hall is a modern-day ghost story with a twist, set in New Zealand. The heroine Rosemary Summers is a collector of tattoos and vintage clothing, and an amateur taxidermist. Rachael's work has been translated into eight languages and has been acclaimed worldwide. Rachael is the daughter of Michael King (who died in 2004), who was one of New Zealand's most prominent authors, and her mother Ros Henry is a publisher. The Sound of Butterflies won the best first novel award at the 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards; Red Rocks won the country's longest-running literary award, the 2013 Esther Glen medal for junior fiction, and was short-listed for the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards. Rachael is currently Literary Director of the WORD Christchurch Writers & Readers Festival and is working on two new novels, one for adults and one for children. The Whanganui Literary Festival is supported by Creative New Zealand. ¦For information about the Whanganui Literary Festival www.writersfest.co.nz/ Venue: Concert Chamber, War Memorial Centre Bookings: Royal Wanganui Opera House