Queenstown Writers Festival returns

The Queenstown Writers Festival starts at the end of this month, presenting a diverse programme filled with award-winning writers, big personalities and a slew of talented southerners. Highlighting some great literary talent, the festival is for anyone who loves books, words and insightful conversation.

There’s something for all ages and interests, with workshops, panel discussions, an award-winning illustrator doing a live sketch of a story, and some of Aotearoa’s finest writers taking a deep dive into their work. Three of the writers who will be talking about their works are Duncan Sarkies, Diana Wichtel and Olivia Spooner.

 

Duncan Sarkies

Sarkies first got into writing when he wrote the movie Scarfies, a Kiwi black-comedy classic. He’s always loved writing and his latest novel, Star Gazes, is a timely satire, reflecting on the political climate around the world: an allegory about the collapse of democracy within a society of alpaca breeders.

“It’s a response to being concerned about the world that I’m living in and the way people are just watching democracy fragment,” Sarkies says. “My natural response is to do it with comedy because it never feels like a lecture.”

He’s taken what he’s seen happening in the world and placed it in “the smallest organisation I could imagine, which is an alpaca breeding organisation”. During his research he spent quite a bit of time talking to people within the organisation, describing it as such an interesting world to step into.

“It was so cool and interesting, and the creatures themselves are so remarkable. It just felt like the perfect vehicle to use to explore these concepts.”
His In Conversation, Serious People, is on Sunday, 2 November at 10.30am and will dive into all things Star Gazes, as well as when to be serious and when not to be, how you can use comedy as a tool, and more. He’s also doing a script writing workshop on Monday, 3 November.

Diana Wichtel

The Listener’s television critic for more than three decades, Wichtel’s latest book is a memoir Unreel: A Life in Review. Born in Vancouver, she was the daughter of a Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor and a Kiwi mum. Her parents met when her mum had travelled to Canada for her OE after the war. Her family fell apart when she was 13 – Wichtel, her brother and her mother moved to New Zealand, her father was meant to follow but never joined.

Wichtel’s first book Driving to Treblinka: A Long Search for a Lost Father was a family memoir, where she tried to find out what happened to her father after they moved to New Zealand and contact was lost. Unreel: A Life in Review is a memoir through the lens of television, which she always loved.

“I grew up with television in Vancouver from babyhood, and when we came to New Zealand in 1964 television was just starting up here, quite belatedly, so I was able to watch – not that I knew what I was doing – but watch it being constructed again,” Wichtel says. “I ended up somewhere with one channel that started in the afternoon and finished at 10.30 on Sundays with a prayer – it was very different.”

The two books look at the same life from different perspectives – the latest one a bit of a slice of cultural life through TV. Wichtel’s Remote Control In Conversation will be on Saturday, 1 November at 9am, and she will be on the Everyone’s a Critic panel discussion at 5.30pm.

Olivia Spooner

Historical fiction writer Olivia Spooner will release her latest book The American Boys just in time for the festival. It centres around a vivacious young woman navigating life in Wellington during World War II. It explores what’s happening on the fringes, the impact of American servicemen on New Zealand society during this time and the cultural changes and personal conflicts that arose, particularly among young women.

“We were a fairly conservative, largely British society and the arrival of the American servicemen certainly brought about some pretty big changes,” Spooner says. “And the effect it had on young women in New Zealand, who suddenly there were these very wealthy, sweet-talking Americans in town and a lot of the Kiwi soldiers were overseas at the time, so it caused quite a bit of conflict as well.”

Spooner now lives in Auckland, but had her first two children in Wellington, so feels a connection to the city and really enjoyed bringing 1940s Wellington to life on the page. In her research she was able to read through many old papers, look through photos of the time and chat with people who grew up there.

At her In Conversation, The American Boys, on Saturday, 1 November at 1pm, she will be delving into bringing the time to life, and the aftermath – what happened after the Americans left and what happened to the war brides.

The Queenstown Writers Festival runs from Thursday, 30 October – Monday, 3 November.

The festival is a run by a charitable trust on volunteer power – to support the festival, buy tickets and see the full programme head to qtwritersfestival.nz