Books and the people behind them
Arrowtown Creative Arts Society (ACAS) is presenting a rare opportunity to hear from one of the leading voices in the literary world. Artistic Director of Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki Lyndsey Fineran will share insights into the evolving landscape of books and writers festivals, her current favourite reads, and offer a sneak peek at the exciting line-up for the Auckland Writers Festival in May 2025.
Auckland Writers Festival is one of the largest, and best-attended, of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. It showcases over 220 writers from Aotearoa and around the world in more than 150 events. The 2024 Festival – the first co-led by Fineran and Managing Director Catriona Ferguson – ushered in a new era for the Festival, breaking all prior audience records with 85,000 attendances and saw book sales increase by 50% on the previous year, with 11,000 copies sold.
Fineran originally hails from the UK, working on Cheltenham Festival for the best part of a decade. She was asked to take up this role and while it’s been a big personal shift, she’s really enjoying it.
“I’m fairly new to Aotearoa, I moved over here in July 2023, so I’ve been here for about a year and a half,” Fineran says. “Last year’s festival was my first one and I’ve been under the excellent leadership of Anna Brian for many years.”
She first travelled here in her early 20s before returning for a work visit as part of her role at Cheltenham. This helped her to get to know lots of the publishers and people involved in the festival here, gaining funding to have Kiwi authors to her festival in the UK. She loved her first year running the festival.
“The reception was just really wonderful. It felt busy and buzzy, and I was also really pleased with how warm the atmosphere was and how inclusive and welcoming it was. I think any arts event, but particularly any arts events that are centred on books, can be perceived as a bit elitist, or perhaps a bit scary if people don’t see themselves as readers. It’s really my mission, and I think it’s a Kaupapa shared by the rest of the team, that we want to be a festival for everybody. We want to be able to make books open, accessible, fun, and a festival is a great chance to do that.”
Julian Knight of ACAS is a trustee for Auckland Writers Festival, which is how the idea of bringing Fineran to Queenstown came about. The previous festival director had come down to Queenstown to talk about the programme in the past, too, which was well-received by locals.
“It’s just spreading the word about the festival, linking up the two islands and encouraging a good dialog. Auckland’s such a big city, but we don’t want to feel like we’re out on our own. This is the festival that represents the whole country, the whole New Zealand author ecosystem.”
When heading to a writers festival, you’re able to hop between different events and explore different genres of books. The festival in Auckland will include some South Island names including Laurence Fearnley from Dunedin, who was one of 16 finalists in the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. There’s also Ruth Shaw from Fiordland, who wrote the memoir, The Bookseller at the End of the World, as well as the editorial team from Books of Mana, which celebrates the rich tradition of Māori authorship, which is published by Otago University Press.
“We have over 220 writers coming to us over the six days of the festival. There’s upwards of 180 events and happenings across those six days, so lots of big literary hitters, meaty non-fiction, lots of dynamic new formats and lots of formats that bring books to life in quite interesting ways as well.”
Fineran is looking forward to soaking up some of our beautiful scenery while she’s down here, as well as meeting up with some members of Queenstown’s Writers Festival. While part of her talk will be about Auckland Writers Festival, it’ll delve a lot deeper into the industry in New Zealand and beyond.
“We’ll be talking about writers festivals more generally, general book culture, and giving some reading recommendations. It will be nice and varied, and send people away with lots of other books and authors to discover,” she says.
Lyndsey Fineran will talk at Dorothy Brown Cinema in Arrowtown on Monday, 14 April at 5.30pm. For more information and to grab tickets, head to acas.nz
