2026 Writers Festival Programme Launch

Queenstown Writers Festival is returning for another year and the programme launch is this weekend. Two renowned Kiwi journalists, Naomi Arnold and Barry Soper, will share stories from their recent memoirs during an afternoon of entertaining and insightful conversations at Te Atamira.

Barry Soper, a giant in NZ’s political journalism scene, will sit down with Tracey Roxburgh to discuss his memoir, One More Question, Prime Minister. His book is packed with entertaining yarns and his own, at times, controversial analysis of Aotearoa’s political leaders in an evolving word.

Naomi Arnold is an award-winning journalist who will discuss her memoir, Northbound, Four Seasons of Solitude on Te Araroa, with Stuff journalist Nikki Macdonald. Her book documents her nine month journey, walking the 3,000km length of Te Araroa, walking in difficult winter conditions, experiencing painful loneliness, fear, injuries and exhaustion among moments of exhilaration.

“I have always wanted to walk Te Araroa – since the early 2000s when I first hears about it,” Arnold recalls. “It has taken me this long to get around to starting it.”

Arnold’s journey started on Boxing Day in 2023 and extended, unexpectantly, through winter after delays with some of her freelance work. She’d work at libraries and holiday parks along the way, and used a dictaphone on the trail to record over 1,200 voice notes during her walk – her longest stint lasting 36 hours.

“I just talked to myself really, and I was taking notes as I was walking – I did start off knowing that I would write a book.”

She would talk about what she was seeing, about her state of mind, and picked up the dictaphone no matter how she was feeling. She would also transcribe as she was walking, typing notes on her phone as she listened to her voice from earlier days.

“I got home in September 2024 and I had about 10 days to finish off the book and submit it. It was very much written on trail, and because I walked through winter I had a lot of long, dark nights to just chip away at it.”

Her memoir is full of different moments from the journey, but one that stands out is when she was caught in a flash lightning storm at Mount Martha Saddle near Hāwea. She’d gotten over the saddle, which is at 1,680m and stopped to have a bite to eat when dark clouds came overhead and it suddenly started raining.

“I still had about 8km to walk and then this lightning storm just erupted all around me. I was up super high – way above the bush line and it was just this big bowl of stone. I got completely drenched and the lightning was exploding around me. I felt it in my teeth. I just felt this electricity buzzing and then a big boom – it was striking right where I was.”

She ran and cowered by a rock and threw away any metal she had. She says she was convinced she was about to end her life, but eventually the storm cleared and she was able to head to the hut.

Arnold learnt a lot on her journey, which uncovered a level of determination she didn’t know she possessed. She explained it as being “driven by a line on the map.” She refused to come home, even though she admits it would have made more sense – her husband nudging her to head home, too.

“I’d only had a week off from Arthur’s Pass to Marlborough Sounds and I was getting really tired and I was thinking ‘I don’t want to do any more’. I was just driven by this idea of doing it in one hit – the idea of this line on the map, and respecting this line, and the community around it was really powerful for me,” Arnold says.

The Queenstown Writers Festival Programme Launch will be this Sunday, 6 September, at Te Atamira. Barry Soper’s discussion will be at 2.30pm and Naomi Arnold’s will be at 4pm – if you buy a ticket to both, you can enjoy drinks and an exclusive preview of the 2026 programme. More information and tickets can be found at qtwritersfestival.nz