Acclaimed Kiwi author Emily Perkins launches festival programme
Queenstown Writers Festival is returning for another year and has a fresh new look. The full programme runs from 1-3 November and will launch this Sunday, 8 September, with special guest, Ockham Award-winning author of Lioness, Emily Perkins.
Perkins will be in conversation with Queenstown-based journalist and festival trustee Debbie Jamieson, discussing Lioness, as she contemplate the unravelling of middle-aged women, class privilege in New Zealand and peeing outside. The book is set post the Covid-19 pandemic and follows Therese Thorn as she grows used to a life of luxury after marrying into an empire-building family. Her social status is then damaged and she starts to look at her own privilege with new eyes.
Perkins says her novels are influenced by the phrase “every story should contain the facts of blood and money”. Taking home the Ockham Award for her latest book was an amazing feeling for her and big surprise, too.
“It’s a very significant recognition, so I feel hugely grateful for it,” Perkins says.
“One of the things that awards do is provide a book with a little bit more attention and a bit more time on people’s radar, and that’s a real gift given how quickly the publishing world moves these days. They work as a really lovely spotlight on literature.”
She’s looking forward to the festival and having the opportunity to meet different readers and hear different responses to the book, along with getting to share some of her thinking as she was writing. “It’s a really great opportunity for writers and readers to connect. The event is going to be fun – it’s going to be a relaxed convivial conversation.”
Festival chair Tanya Surrey says that even if you’ve not read Lioness, you’ll love hearing Emily Perkins in conversation at the programme launch. The trustees aredelighted to be her to the region.
“We have proudly hosted several previous Ockham winners and when we were told Emily would be unavailable during this year’s festival, we invited her to join us in launching our programme,” Surrey says.
Perkins is equally as delighted to be back in Queenstown, where she’s come to do some work on her book in the past, as she is to be able to launch the festival. She finds herself coming back to this part of the country often to fill her cup with energy and beauty.
“It’ll be great to launch the festival and hear about all the good things that are coming, and going to be a part of it. I think New Zealand literature and New Zealand fiction is in such great shape at the moment, and it’s wonderful that readers are connecting with it.”
The festival is held over three days from 1 November at Te Atamira and will include 20 visiting writers including non-fiction writers, poets, novelists, children’s writers, Kiwi icons and literary legends. In addition to the on-stage conversations there will be writing workshops, a book launch, panel discussions, a writing competition and the return of the popular Sampler Session featuring local writers. Keep your eyes peeled for the full programme.
Emily Perkins In Conversation with Queenstown Writers Festival and the programme launch will be this Sunday, 8 September, at Te Atamira – you can get your tickets and find out more info through eventfinda. The event will also be held at Hello Ranger in Wānaka with tickets available at booketybookbooks.co.nz/collections/book-club
