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2022 EVENT CANCELLED

"It is with deepest regret that the Whanganui Literary Festival Trust has decided to cancel the 9th bi-ennial festival. ‘With the rapidly increasing number of COVID cases, we felt we owed our patrons and our visiting authors a duty of care,’ Trust Chair, Mary-Ann Ewing explained.  ‘We have tried everything to make the event safe and are so disappointed that we will not be able to hear a wonderful line-up of authors speak in Whanganui.’ Refunds will be available at the Royal Whanganui Opera House who will be advising those who have pre-booked how to go about that".

To keep up with our news please visit our Facebook page.

Friday 25 February
Grand Opening 6.00 – 7.00 pm
NOTE: EVENT CANCELLED DUE TO COVID
The evening begins with drinks and nibbles as you
mix and mingle with fellow booklovers and authors. Whanganui Mayor Hamish McDouall will officially open the main weekend of the Literary Festival.


ALL AUTHOR READINGS AND THE DINNER ARE GOING AHEAD
​DETAILS BELOW . . . . . . 

Friday 25 February
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Dr Hinemoa Elder

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Dr Hinemoa Elder
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Friday 8 October  7.30 – 8.30 pm
A Contented Life
Dr Hinemoa Elder may be best remembered as a television presenter, but she is much more than that. After graduating, she specialised in psychiatry and currently is a child and youth forensic psychiatrist.
She is also a Māori strategic leader for Brain Research in New Zealand and a member of the New Zealand Health Review Tribunal. 
During her doctoral research, she developed a clinical tool that uses cultural and whānau wisdom, alongside clinical knowledge in assisting children with trauma from brain damage. The well being of people and our earth are interconnected, and an understanding of indigenous knowledge is part of a healing process. 
Summed up in the subtitle of her book, Aroha: Mãori Wisdom for a Contented Life Lived in Harmony with our Planet. Written for everybody, Hinemoa is certain to elucidate its contents.

Venue: Relocated to the Royal Whanganui Opera House, St Hill Street.
Bookings:  Royal Wanganui Opera House
Admission: $15. Door sales available. 


Saturday 9 October
Kyle Mewburn

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​ Kyle Mewburn
Saturday 26 February 10.00 – 11.00 am
Life in Transition
Kyle Mewburn grew up in the sunburnt, unsophisticated Brisbane suburbs of the 1960s and ‘70s with little love, no books and a lifelong feeling of being somehow wrong – like ‘straw- berry jam in a spinach can’.
Kyle describes this and her journey to becoming her own person – a celebrated children’s book author, a husband and, finally, a woman.
Her awards include the 2010 NZ Book of the Year for Old
​Hu-hu 
as well as numerous Children’s Choice awards.
She shares dreams, prejudice and the agony of growing up trans, plus a lengthy ordeal of facial feminisation surgery.
Candid, funny and emotionally powerful, this is writer Kyle Mewburn’s true story of growing up transgender.
Venue: Relocated to the Royal Whanganui Opera House, St Hill Street.
Bookings:  Royal Wanganui Opera House
Admission: $15. Door sales available.

Mary Holm

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Mary Holm
Saturday 26 February 11.30 – 12.30 pm
Stories from a Financial Agony Aunt
​
Mary Holm is New Zealand’s most trusted personal  finance journalist. She writes a Q & A column for the Weekend Herald and is a regular contributor to the ‘Afternoons with Jesse Mulligan’ RNZ programme. 
Mary receives thousands of pleas for financial advice. ‘I feel like a financial agony aunt,’ she said. And just like the romantic agony aunt, she has sensible answers for every-one. 
Mary’s down–to–earth approach demystifies money ‘magic’, and her books are hugely successful. 
Of her latest book, A Richer You: How to make the most of your money, Jane Wrightson, Retirement Commissioner, said, ‘If you read one book to help yourself financially this year, make it this one.’ 
Mary will talk about some of the topics in A Richer You, and discuss her key messages.


Venue: Relocated to the Royal Whanganui Opera House, St Hill Street.
Bookings:  Royal Wanganui Opera House
Admission: $15. Door sales available.


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Brannavan Gnanalingam 






​Brannavan Gnanalingam
Saturday 26 February 1.30 – 2.30 pm
The Incident
Brannavan Gnanalingam, lawyer and author, has written six novels since 2011. He was shortlisted for Sodden Downstream in the 2018 Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize, and now, shortlisted for the 2021 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction with his latest novel, Sprigs — this is arguably the one he is going to be best known for. 
Sprigs is a fearless examination of New Zealand’s attitudes towards entitled male behaviour in New Zealand. His characterisation is honest and real. During an after–match function, ‘The Incident’ occurs. Here, Brannavan opens a window for the reader to clearly examine the roles privilege and power play in our acceptance of what is right and what is wrong in this country. 
Kiran Dass talks to Brannavan about what it means to be a Kiwi male and New Zealand’s reaction to his most confrontational book.

Venue: Relocated to the Royal Whanganui Opera House, St Hill Street.
Bookings: Royal Wanganui Opera House
Admission: $15. Door sales available.​


Tom Sainsbury

Tim Wilson
Tom Sainsbury
Saturday 26 February 3.00 – 4.00 pm
A Cast of Comic Characters
Tom Sainsbury, comedian, actor, director and writer, hails from Matamata and currently lives in Auckland. He is also everywhere – finding real-life people to create into characters – always watching, whether he’s in a food hall, a park, at the cinema, in a city centre or the isolated countryside. Inspiration is everywhere. After years of mimicking quirky individuals, celebrities and politicians, Tom has put his favourite generic Kiwi personalities into a book, New Zealanders:The Field Guide, which affectionately demonstrates their weird and wonderful traits.
There is quite a cast, and he hopes they are recognisable. Tom will chat with Paul Brooks about his career, the inspiration for his characters, how he turned them into a book, and the public’s reaction to his work.

Venue: Relocated to the Royal Whanganui Opera House, St Hill Street.
Bookings:  Royal Wanganui Opera House
Admission: $15. Door sales available.



Saturday 26 February
Dinner with the Stars
6.30—9.00pm

An opportunity to mingle and chat with our authors over dinner.
Numbers limited – bookings essential.
Venue: Mint Cafe and Bar
Bookings: Royal Wanganui Opera House
​Admission: $55 (incl. meal and a glass of wine)​

Sunday 26 February

Christine Leunens

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Christine Leunens
Sunday 26 February 10.00–11.00 am
The Oscars Experience
Christine Leunens is the author of Caging Skies, the book on which the film Jojo Rabbit was based. Of Italian and Belgian parentage, she has lived in New Zealand since 2006. 
She has always been interested in film, and won a screenwriting award in 1996 for Best Original Screenplay in France. 
However, a summer session in English Literature at Oxford University changed her path and she began writing novels. Primordial Soup was her first book. Caging Skies followed. Written in a war museum in Normandy it was nominated for two prestigious French awards. Her books have been translated into over 20 languages. 
In 2013 Christine attended the Whanganui Literary Festival, sharing the stage with Witi Ihimaera. They discussed having a novel turned into a film script. This time, she discusses with Melita Farley the reality of the experience — from film script to screen, the Oscars experience and worldwide acclaim.

Venue: Relocated to the Royal Whanganui Opera House, St Hill Street.
Bookings: Royal Wanganui Opera House
Admission: $15. Door sales available.


Cynric Temple Smith

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Cynric Temple Smith
Sunday 26 February  11.30 – 12.30 pm
Reflections on Death: chance, observations and opinions
Cynric Temple–Camp moved from Cape Town, South Africa, to New Zealand in the 1980s and lives in Palmerston North where he is a director of Medlab. He has been a pathologist for over 30 years and is regarded as one of New Zealand’s leaders in the field. He is also the author of two riveting memoirs about death, mystery and murder. 
He describes himself as an aficionado of death and shares his passion in these first–hand accounts. 
His 2017 work, The Cause of Death, was a bestseller, and his second collection of macabre stories, The Quick and the Dead, has proved just as popular. 
Both books contain true stories of life and death and outline the unlikely, extraordinary, obscure and often tragic ways humans meet their end. 
As he lifts the lid on his arcane occupation, Cynric Temple–Camp will provide fascinating insights for his Whanganui Festival audience.
Venue: Relocated to the Royal Whanganui Opera House, St Hill Street.
Bookings: Royal Wanganui Opera House
Admission: $15. Door sales available.

Pip Adam

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Pip Adam
Sunday 26 February  1.30 – 2.30 pm
Talking About Sound
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Pip Adam — reviewer, podcaster and writing workshop facilitator, is best known as an award winning author, regarded as New Zealand’s newest top novelist. Her collection of short stories, Everything We Hoped For, was described as an unusually strong first book. In 2018, she won the Acorn Foundation Fiction prize in the Ockham awards, for The New Animals. 
She is also shortlisted this year with Nothing to See. Dan Kois (culture editor of US website Slate) describes Pip’s novel as ‘a total masterpiece. Gripping, weird, funny, close to the bone. An intense portrait of sobriety, a mystery, a sci-fi novel, an urgent book about living…’ 
Pip’s interests are wide and varied. Her PhD topic was the built environment, the result of which was her 2013 novel, I’m Working on a Building. Her current interest is in sound. She will talk about this, and the shift in her work from realism to the unreal.
Venue: Relocated to the Royal Whanganui Opera House, St Hill Street.
Bookings: Royal Wanganui Opera House
Admission: $15. Door sales available.


David Hill

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David Hill
Sunday 26 February 3.00 – 4.00 pm
Forty Years On
David Hill is a man of many parts – author, playwright, poet, columnist, critic and reviewer – spanning four decades, and still going strong. 
He began his working life as a high school teacher, and after publishing his hugely successful first novel, See Ya Simon, became a full–time writer. Forty years on, he remains a highly regarded author, especially for young readers, from picture books to young adult fiction; he has over 40 books to his name. 
His latest book is the recently published Coast Watcher, set in New Zealand during WWII. This tense and exciting war adventure, for 8 – 12 year olds, was inspired by the coast watchers of Operation Pacific. David has been widely published internationally and received many awards. He will talk about the vicissitudes, pleasures, and changes that have occurred over his four decade career. He will also address the particular issue of writing for children and young adults.


Venue: Relocated to the Royal Whanganui Opera House, St Hill Street.
Bookings: Royal Wanganui Opera House
Admission: $15, numbers limited – bookings essential



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  • Home
  • Meet our Authors 2022
  • Fringe Festival 2022
  • About the Festival
    • With Thanks
    • Our Team
    • History
    • Contact Us
    • Come to Whanganui
  • Tickets
  • 2022 Programme
  • 2019 Gallery
  • News and Media