The Marlborough Book Festival

The Marlborough Book Festival
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The Marlborough Book Festival

The Marlborough Book Festival is an annual readers and writers festival held in July in Marlborough, New Zealand. Listen to our podcasts to hear discussions with our featured writers, as they explain the challenges and the highlights of creating their various works and their lives as writers.

  1. APR 4

    Nici Wickes - A Quiet Kitchen

    Nici Wickes was the Instagram foodie we all needed during lockdown - down to earth, great fun, and cooking up a storm with mostly pantry ingredients. Her gorgeous cookbooks A Quiet Kitchen and the just-released More from a Quiet Kitchen include many of those recipes along with her honest reflections on her struggle to find contentment in mid-age, how she finds happiness in living alone in a quiet coastal community, and where she draws inspiration from. Most of her recipes serve one or two and serve to inspire those who also live alone, though many are easily scaled up if you have friends over. Nici says: “I want this book to be a cookbook but also a guide to becoming accomplished at living alone, healthily, joyfully, quietly, whilst still feeling engaged and connected to the world and staying open to the mystery of it all.” Hear Nici talking with Tania Miller at the 2024 Marlborough Book Festival about her cookbooks, her mid-life sea change, and how choosing to eat well goes hand in hand with choosing to live well.

    1h 4m

  2. FEB 13

    Anna Smaill - Bird Life, A Novel

    Anna Smaill in conversation with Jane Forrest Waghorn Anna’s latest novel moves between reality and magical realism, as two women navigate intense personal loss in a wonderfully hyperrealist, slightly eerie, Tokyo. Dinah is a New Zealander, teaching English in Japan, grieving her twin brother who was a gifted, but troubled, musician. Yasuko, who has talked to the natural world since her teens, is grieving her adult son’s move to independence. In this exquisitely written novel, Anna explores the feelings that come with losing a loved one and teases out the tension between our internal and external lives. Don’t miss hearing Anna in conversation with Jane Forrest Waghorn at the 2024 Marlborough Book Festival.

    54 min

  3. JAN 26

    Ron Crosby - Te Kooti’s Last Foray

    Marlborough-based historian Ron Crosby has tramped the Urewera forests to retrace the steps of Te Kooti and his pursuers. That legwork deeply informs his latest book Te Kooti’s Last Foray. He discusses his findings and the adventures he had along the way. Ron was in conversation with Pete Anderson at the 2023 Marlborough Book Festival.

    1h 2m

  4. JAN 12

    Tessa Nicholson - Writing Marlborough's Wine Stories

    Marlborough-based Wine journalist Tessa Nicholson has interviewed industry players and been witness to challenges overcome and enterprise rewarded. Speaking to journalist Mike White at the 2023 Marlborough Book Festival, Tessa discusses her book Fifty Years, Fifty Stories, Marlborough the Region That Turned The Wine World Upside Down.

    51 min

  5. 12/17/2024

    Joanne Drayton - The Lives of Others

    Joanne Drayton is an art historian, biographer and nonfiction writer. Her personal memoir The Queen’s Wife was published in January this year. Her book Hudson & Halls: The Food of Love won the non-fiction award at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in 2019. The Search for Anne Perry was a top-10 non-fiction on the New York Times bestseller list. Joanne discusses the art of biography writing and shares stories about researching her acclaimed biographies of Ngaio Marsh, Frances Hodgkins, Anne Perry, Hudson and Halls, Rhona Hazard and Edith Collier. How does one unlock the secrets of other people’s lives and turn them into such great reads? Joanne was in conversation with Nikki Macdonald at the 2023 Marlborough Book Festival.

    1h 5m

  6. 11/18/2024

    W J Moloney - Invincible

    W J Moloney discusses Invincible, a novel based on the incredible story of one man’s journey through a world war and onto worldwide sporting glory. The novel follows Son White, a Southland man who went to WWI with his horse Ben and returned a mentally scarred man who found redemption on the rugby field. After joining a local club in 1919 he managed to be selected for the All Blacks by 1921 and captained the team that was famously undefeated on their 1924 tour of the British Isles and France. W J discusses his five years of research on the book and reflects on his family’s experience of the intergenerational effects that the Great War had on families. He was in conversation with Tessa Nicholson at the 2023 Marlborough Book Festival.

    1h 6m

  7. 10/21/2024

    Luke Elworthy - The Last Letter of Godfrey Cheathem

    Luke Elworthy discusses The Last Letter of Godfrey Cheathem, a satire that explores being the average sibling in a family of creative geniuses and pokes fun at Kiwi life. Luke reflects on his teen years at a conservative boarding school and a commune, his publishing work, and life in Marlborough. Luke Elworthy was in conversation with Jason Henry at the 2023 Marlborough Book Festival. Please note that Luke's readings from the book contain some strong language. If you're around kids or would rather avoid swearing, you might want to listen later or grab some headphones.

    1h 1m

  8. 10/02/2024

    Dr Peter Meihana - Exploding a Pākehā Myth (Wairau launch)

    Growing up, Dr Peter Meihana often heard that Māori received special treatment and had advantages that other New Zealanders did not. However, this idea didn’t match with his life experience as Māori nor did it match with what he learned when he became hooked on studying history. He blew the myth apart in his doctorate thesis and has kindly encapsulated his argument for the lay reader in his important new book, Privilege in Perpetuity, Exploding a Pākehā Myth. Peter was in conversation with Emma Tucker at the 2023 Marlborough Book Festival.

    1h 6m
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About

The Marlborough Book Festival is an annual readers and writers festival held in July in Marlborough, New Zealand. Listen to our podcasts to hear discussions with our featured writers, as they explain the challenges and the highlights of creating their various works and their lives as writers.

Information

  • Creator
    The Marlborough Book Festival
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2025
  • Episodes
    72
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2024 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    The Marlborough Book Festival

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