There are approximately three million robots working in factories around the world, and another 30 million in people’s homes. Soon robots will outnumber humans. But what happens if an autonomous AI harms or kills a person, deliberately or accidentally? It will happen. In fact, it already has. In Machines Behaving Badly, Professor Toby Walsh – Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at UNSW Sydney, and a leading advisor to the UN on lethal autonomous weapons (aka killer ...
Nov 28, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Pip Williams’ best-selling novel The Dictionary of Lost Words tells the story of motherless Esme who spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers gather words for the first Oxford English Dictionary. Over time she discovers words relating to women’s experiences often go unrecorded. The novel won numerous awards including the 2021 ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year. In Williams’ latest novel, The Bookbinder of Jericho, her talen...
Nov 28, 2023•56 min
The judges for the winning 2022 Booker Prize praised Shehan Karunatilaka’s novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida for the ‘ambition of its scope, and the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques’. Set in Sri Lanka during the 25- year civil war, a murdered photographer has seven days to solve the mystery of his own death. It’s a philosophical tale but at the heart of the novel is the horror of a devastating conflict. ‘Sri Lankans specialise in gallows humour. It’s our coping mechanism’, sai...
Nov 28, 2023•1 hr 2 min
The Book of Roads and Kingdoms brings to life a dazzling culture of science, literature, philosophy and adventure arising out of the flourishing metropolis of Baghdad during Islam’s Golden Age. Australian writer / broadcaster Richard Fidler recounts how medieval Persian and Arab wanderers ventured by camel, horse and boat into the unknown, bringing back tales of wonder, horror and delight. Ever curious, Fidler’s previous bestsellers have also delved entertainingly into the history of worldly pla...
Nov 28, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Delightfully inventive and witty, Daniel Lavery (as Mallory Ortberg) was the cofounder of The Toast, the pop-culture platform with literary depth that described its target audience as ‘librarians’. The best-selling author of Texts from Jane Eyre and Merry Spinster, next wrote Something that May Shock and Discredit You, an exhilarating series of essays combining personal revelations with cultural deepdives. With chapter introductions such as ‘When You Were Younger and You Got Home Early and You W...
Nov 28, 2023•1 hr 1 min
In the opening paragraphs of Stella Prize shortlisted Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong, author Louisa Lim is torn between journalistic neutrality and her love of Hong Kong as she is invited by guerrilla sign painters to grab a brush and help produce pro-democracy banners. An award-winning journalist who reported from China for a decade, Lim’s first book The People’s Republic of Amnesia – Tiananmen Revisited resulted in her being unable to visit the mainland again for years...
Nov 28, 2023•1 hr 1 min
With open source AI chatbots capable of generating text that appears increasingly human, will they eventually replace writers altogether? Some claim that AI will never have enough creativity, empathy or originality – but over time could even these qualities be assimilated by robotwriters? Canvas editor Sarah Daniell recently experimented with getting a bot to write her column. Alongside novelist Catherine Chidgey, she will interrogate two experts on whether they could relinquish the empty white ...
Nov 23, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Two-Spirit is a pan-Indigenous expression (FNMI – First Nations, Metis and Inuit) from Turtle Island (North America) reflecting complex understandings of gender roles, spirituality and a long history of diversity. Two-Spirit writer Joshua Whitehead (Oji-Cree member of the Peguis First Nation) took the word Indigenous and braided it with the word queer to create a new kind of worlding for his poetry collection Full Metal Indigiqueer. Next came awardwinning novel Jonny Appleseed with a triumphant ...
Nov 23, 2023•1 hr 2 min
In Another Day in the Colony, Mununjali and South Sea Islander health activist Chelsea Watego has a chapter called F**k Hope. She urges her mob to be nihilistic because hope is the dream deferred, better to embrace sovereignty and take matters into your own hands. Sharing the conversation is podcaster and author Dr Emma Espiner (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Porou), who has an upcoming memoir There’s a Cure for This, and is an outspoken advocate for including Te Ao Māori within our healthcare system. Th...
Nov 23, 2023•1 hr
How do fiction writers deal with Covid? Full-on or sideways? Stephanie Johnson embraces it with gusto in her new satirical novel Kind, a thriller set in lockdown, with devious plots, social blunders and superyachts. Fiona Farrell’s The Deck is set a little way into the future and borrows a motif of Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron in which a small group gather to avoid contagion and pass the time telling stories. Both provide perspectives on what we have all recently endured, and together they...
Nov 21, 2023•1 hr 3 min
In his book No Excuses Dave ‘the Brown Buttabean’ Letele shares how he overcame poverty, depression and crime to become an award-winning community leader inspiring people to turn their lives around. Willy De Wit was a regular on TV shows such as Funny Business, and a brekkie host on Radio Hauraki. In Drink, Smoke, Snort, Stroke he charts his journey from fame to drug addiction to a life altering debilitating stroke. Together, Letele and De Wit discuss the highs and lows, and what it has taken fo...
Nov 21, 2023•1 hr 1 min
When I hear my father dead I flew 10 hours into the sun next morning I put black on The 2023 TS Eliot Prize award-winning Sonnets for Albert by Anthony Joseph was cited by the judges as ‘a luminous collection which celebrates humanity in all its contradictions and breathes new life into this enduring form’. Born in Trinidad, with calypso, surrealism, jazz and the spiritual Baptist church as early influences, Joseph’s poems wrestle with his father’s intermittent presence in his life. ‘While some ...
Nov 21, 2023•1 hr 1 min
‘Whatever its subject, when a novel is powerful enough, it transports us readers deep into worlds not our own. That’s true of Moby Dick, and it’s certainly true of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, which renders the process of designing a great video game as enthralling as the pursuit of that great white whale.’ Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air. Gabrielle Zevin’s 10th novel, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was an instant New York Times Bestseller, a Sunday Times Bestseller and a USA To...
Nov 21, 2023•1 hr
Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Colson Whitehead is the only writer to win for consecutive books. His best-selling novels 'The Underground Railroad' and 'The Nickel Boys' addressed racial injustice with what has been described as ‘lived wit’. Also the winner of many other prestigious awards, Whitehead’s wide cultural impact was signalled when Time featured him on the cover with the strapline ‘America’s Storyteller’. He has written 11 books of fiction and non-fiction. His most ...
Nov 21, 2023•1 hr 3 min
The word ‘Powwow’ is often used to refer to a quick impromptu meeting, but in Northern Plains Indigenous cultures, there is nothing quick or casual about their traditional gathering and ceremony. Rejecting misappropriation, where a cultural element is taken out of context and used in another – such as ripping off the Haka, or joking about didgeridoos– writers stand up for the cultural references that are dear to them and should be protected. First Nations series supported by the High Commission ...
Nov 21, 2023•1 hr 3 min
The impacts of climate change are upon us, we know that, and the recent brutal weather events have shown we can’t sit idly by. It’s time for fresh thinking and radical action. Veteran journalist Simon Wilson, the author of several searching newspaper articles on our post-flood, post-cyclone future, will discuss new ways of approaching climate risk and future sustainability with Jade Kake (Ngāti Hau me Te Parawhau/ Ngapuhi, Te Arawa, Te Whakatōhea), Papakāinga architect in Northland and author of...
Nov 21, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Three young fluent te reo speakers producing inspirational work across a variety of genres, talk about the bravery and passion it took to take the unmapped uncharted leap into a creative life. Founding member of award-winning slam poetry group Ngā Hine Pūkōrero Arihia Hall (Te Arawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Tūkorehe); the youngest director ever selected for the NZ International Film Festival, Qianna Titore (Ngāti Hau, Ngāti Kaharau); and children's author Brianne Te Paa (Ngāti Kahu, Ngāpuhi, Te ...
Oct 27, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Aotearoa’s most anticipated book release of 2023 has been Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood, coming ten years after she won the Booker Prize for The Luminaries. A psychological thriller set in the South Island, Shakespearean in scope, a battle between good and evil – it has a complex intellectual core and also a great sense of mischief. Catton now lives in the UK, and between books has adapted both The Luminaries and Jane Austen’s Emma for the screen. She has returned to our shores to talk with Noell...
Oct 27, 2023•1 hr 4 min
Is The Axeman’s Carnival the great Kiwi Gothic classic? Plenty of reviewers think so. Catherine Chidgey surprised everybody when she revealed her next book was going to be narrated by a mimicking magpie. Would it work? It sure does. Not only is it funny and magical, it’s also a bird’s-eye view into the very real struggle of farming life, a nuanced portrayal of love and domestic violence, and a 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards finalist. Following on from her 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Award ...
Oct 27, 2023•59 min
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards shortlisted novel, Kāwai, by Dr Monty Soutar ONZM (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngā Tai ki Tāmaki, Ngāti Kahungunu) has remained on the New Zealand bestseller list ever since it was released. The first in a planned trilogy, it met an appetite to bring to life the pre-colonial history of Māori. Soutar had an epiphany that told him to leave his job, sell his house, and write the series as a takoha – his gift to the nation. A historian with a ONZM for services to Māori...
Oct 27, 2023•58 min
2023 marks the centenary year of Katherine Mansfield’s too-soon demise from pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of 34. She is still cherished today in New Zealand and across the world, having played a part in shaping modernism, experimenting with style in a body of work that redefined genre. Some literary critics have called her the best short-story stylist of all time. In the tradition of closing the Festival with an Honoured Writer, we will honour and celebrate her in sparkling fashion with six ...
Oct 27, 2023•48 min
It’s the Oscars of the writing world – winning the Booker Prize supercharges a writer’s career, immediately lifts sales, multiplies overseas deals and opens up opportunities all around the world. But what does this kind of superstardom feel like for the writer on the inside? Three Booker Prize winners, Eleanor Catton, Bernardine Evaristo and Shehan Karunatilaka share their experience of being awarded the world’s most esteemed literary prize with broadcaster and author Karyn Hay. Supported by the...
Oct 27, 2023•1 hr 2 min
In night, suspense, lawlessness, hazard, sensuousness and awe are evoked simply by stepping outside,” says Annette Lees, author of 2022 Ockham NZ Book Awards longlisted After Dark – in which she walks readers into the nights of Aotearoa, in the company of bats, owls, moths and seabirds, on a fascinating exploration of stories beyond the dusk. Spend a magical lights-dimmed hour with Lees, storyteller Rewi Spraggon and taonga pūoro player Riki Bennett, as they lead you on an evocative journey from...
Apr 05, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Chris Long, author of 'The Boy From Gorge River', grew up in a remote off-grid corner of the South Island, two days walk from the nearest town; writer, UNICEF goodwill ambassador and philanthropist Jo Morgan, author of 'Dancing With The Machine', lived with her husband Gareth, son Sam (founder of Trade Me) and their three other children on a Bedford house bus, travelling the country and doing everything from picking carrots to gutting fish. Both have taken long-honed resilience and a sense of ad...
Oct 24, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Author Tessa Duder began her adult life as a representative swimmer, winning a silver medal at the 1958 Cardiff Empire Games in the 110 yards butterfly. This incredible achievement would inspire the Alex Quartet, for which she is probably best known. Loved by generations of teenagers, and garnering Duder three New Zealand Children’s Book of the Year awards and three Esther Glen medals, it was adapted in a 1993 movie and has just been re-published in one volume. The acclaimed author of more than ...
Oct 24, 2022•1 hr 5 min
Shaped by the forces of 1970s Ireland and by a mother raging against her hemmed-in life, broadcaster, writer and podcaster Noelle McCarthy escaped Ireland for party town Auckland in the early 2000s – seeking a new world far away from the cultural fabric of her homeland. Many years later, and now a mother herself and a recovering alcoholic, she returns to bid her mother farewell and to reckon with her ghosts. The resulting memoir, 'Grand', is a moving meditation on mothers and daughters, on runni...
Oct 24, 2022•58 min
The traditions of fable and myth – Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the tales of Aesop and Grimm, Homer’s Iliad and the pūrākau of Polynesia, to name a few – have acted as compasses for millennia, exploring human experience and answering timeless questions. Join two contemporary writers at the height of their powers – Commonwealth Prize winner and Man Booker-shortlisted Lloyd Jones ('The Fish') and 2022 Ockham NZ Book Awards Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize Fiction winner Whiti Hereaka ('Kurangaituku') – in conv...
Oct 24, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Breathtaking in scope, ambition and artistry, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki’s’ 2020-2021 survey exhibition of Māori contemporary art from 1950s to present day, Toi Tu- Toi Ora broke all attendance records and forged new ways of presenting and understanding Māori art. It was also the touchpoint for a critical conversation about who should lead and author such projects. Curated by artist and curator Nigel Borell (Pirirākau, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Te Whakatōhea), the exhibition was fram...
Oct 07, 2022•55 min
In 2010, the National Government signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, joining more than 140 other countries; in 2019 the Labour Government set up a working group tasked with creating a plan to realise that commitment. The result is He Puapua, a discussion document whose title refers to the break between waves and evokes the concept of a disruption to political and legislative norms. Within days, it would become a political football, with some demanding a “national conve...
Oct 07, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Of 2021 Nobel Prize-winning writer Abdulrazak Gurnah’s book 'By the Sea', The Times said, “Rarely in a lifetime can you open a book and find that reading it encapsulates the enchanting qualities of a love affair... one scarcely dares breathe while reading it for fear of breaking the enchantment.” It’s a sentiment that could be applied across all his fiction and essays, including Booker-shortlisted 'Paradise' and most recent novel 'Afterlives'. Born in Zanzibar, which is now part of Tanzania, Gur...
Oct 07, 2022•58 min
