Going West Audio Going West Festival

At the 1997 Going West Festival, author Keri Hulme made a rare public appearance to discuss and read two excerpts from her unpublished novel BAIT, a story of “death and fishing”.
Having New Zealand’s first and notoriously media shy Booker Prize winner at New Zealand’s first literary festival was something our founder Murray Gray had been doggedly pursuing for a number of years.
Hulme eventually acquiesced, appearing on the festival stage for a reading from what was to be her second novel, BAIT. In two engaging excerpts, she carries the audience away to a remote part of the country that’s home to a shifting lagoon, larger than life characters, mystery and whitebait. 
BAIT was never published, but her reading is a tantalising taste of what might have been.
Thanks to Bowmore Islay Malt, who sponsored the original session back in 1997; to the executors of Hulme’s estate, who gave their generous permission for us to share this recording; and to Huia Press, Hulme’s  publisher, for their support in bringing her words to a new audience.

Beloved west Auckland poet Serie Barford was nominated in the NZ Book Awards for Sleeping With Stones, traversing oceans of feeling, expressing the tragic loss of her lover. 
Michael Steven’s third poetry collection in five years, Night School, won the Kathleen Grattan award. His live delivery of his work embodies judge’s David Eggleton’s comment: “lucid precision”.
On the night, as we recorded these readings live at Going West’s Shifted Ground event in April 2022, Michael and Serie held the audience enthralled with every line. We know they’ll do the same for you.

Lucy Mackintosh, Richard Shaw and Pita Turei discuss stories of Taranaki and Tāmaki Makaurau, both ancient and personal, with journalist Tania Page. 
Lucy’s Shifting Grounds: Deep Histories of Tāmaki Makaurau and Richard’s The Forgotten Coast both discuss – from their Pākeha perspectives – the deeply contested narratives of Aotearoa, and how histories become rewritten over time.
In this engaging, illuminating and at times challenging conversation, they unpack the past with manu kōrero Pita Turei — who brings perspectives grounded in the stories of mana whenua — and Tania Page in the interviewer’s chair.

Casting lines out into Moana Pasifika and pulling words back to West Auckland, Tongan, Samoan and Pālagi poet Karlo Mila reads from her book The Goddess Muscle and Fijian poet Daren Kamali performs his poetry and accompanies himself on traditional Fijian musical instruments.
These two exceptional performance poets trade poems across the stage of the Glen Eden Playhouse and the imagined waves of Moana Pasifika as part of Going West’s 2021 Gala Night, touching on the personal, the cultural and the political.
The session is introduced by the evening’s MC, Pita Turei.

A deep dive into the life of Robin Hyde, aka Iris Wilkinson, exploring her contribution to New Zealand literature, her travels, motherhood and her life in Auckland, including her relationships, homes, and the time she spent in Whau Lunatic Asylum (later Carrington Hospital and now the Unitec campus).
Hyde’s story is told by author Paula Morris, with archival photographs curated by Haru Sameshima. In 2020 the two worked together to produce the book Shining Land: Looking for Robin Hyde.
We apologise for the slightly distorted audio quality of this item.

From Going West’s second year in 1997, master storyteller Maurice Shadbolt, celebrates the near forgotten lives from New Zealand’s history, and talks of his path to writing history to life, particularly in the context of his novel The Season of the Jew.
Shadbolt, is a major New Zealand writer with an international reputation. He published numerous books and won every major New Zealand literary prize, some multiple times, and sometimes to the chagrin of other writers. His most renowned work is his trilogy on the New Zealand Land Wars. The first book The Season of the Jew, is a semi-fictionalized account of the story of the Māori leader Te Kooti, told from the perspective of one of his pursuers. It explores issues of racism and injustice and is told as a romping read. Shadbolt was one of the few writers of his time to feel at home with the myths, stories, and legends of his own country, and championed bringing those stories to life and to a broad readership.
His home in Titirangi, at 35 Arapito Road, where much of his work was written, is soon to become a writers’ residence and form part of the West Auckland literary landscape, thanks to the mahi of the Shadbolt House Trust, the Waitakere Local Board, and the Waitakere and Auckland Councils. Tino pai rawa atu!