Writing
Pasifika playwright Victor Rodger
Victor Rodger is sending out a challenge to other Pasifika writers. Where's the PI book that a nui generation will cherish? Audio
Ashleigh Young: essays and exercise
Ashleigh Young is a poet, essayist and editor, and teaches creative science writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her first collection of personal essays is Can You Tolerate This… Audio
Beyonce, a Haka and a Viral Video
Beyonce's response to a spontaneous haka performed backstage during the singer's 2013 New Zealand tour, was an online sensation - not entirely in a good way. Beyonce posted a video of the spontaneous… Video, Audio
From Fargo to Before the Fall - Noah Hawley
Screenwriter and author Noah Hawley is behind the television adaptation of the classic Coen brothers movie, Fargo. He is a much in demand film and television producer and scriptwriter. His latest… Audio
Stella Duffy: in Ngaio Marsh's world
Stella Duffy is a New Zealand writer and theatre-maker based in London. She has just been awarded an OBE for her services to the arts and she is also writing a new Ngaio Marsh novel, based on four… Audio
Steve Braunias announces the winner of his writer's residency
The announcement of the winner of the inaugural Surrey Hotel Steve Braunias Memorial Writers Residency in Association with The Spinoff. The residency received over 50 entries, and a selection panel… Audio
Westside takes in the 1981 Springbok tour
The classic New Zealand TV series Outrageous Fortune has become the gift that keeps on giving. Not only did it run for a record-breaking six series, it's turned into a franchise. We've already seen… Video, Audio
Paula Morris - Academy of NZ Literature
A newly launched academy for New Zealand literature has sparked a war of words between writers who're for and against it. Writer Paula Morris wants to support mid career authors by encouraging… Audio
Michel Faber: grief, creativity and faith
Kim Hill talks to Michel Faber, award-winning author of a range of writing, including the novels Under My Skin and The Book of Strange New Things, who is a guest at the Auckland Writers Festival. Audio
Vivian Gornick: re-reading, love, and living alone
Kim Hill talks to the New York journalist, essayist, critic and author about her memoirs Fierce Attachments (1987) and The Odd Woman & the City (2015). Audio
Jeanette Winterson: the disguised written self
Kim Hill talks to the British novelist who has published over a dozen works of fiction since her 1985 debut novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit; her latest is The Gap of Time, a "cover version" of… Audio
Too Much Information
TMI is the name of a free, pop-up creative writing course created and run by poet Hera Lindsay Bird in Wellington; one of the guest teachers at the class was fellow poet Gregory Kan. The eight-week… Audio, Gallery
An uncritical critical culture - Iain Sharp
One of the big cliches about this little country of ours is our Tall Poppy Syndrome - the famous Clobbering Machine that reduces our so-called betters to the mundane and ordinary. To which critic Iain… Audio
Much Ado about Shakespeare - Donovan Bixley
Donovan Bixley is an award winning writer and illustrator who's latest work focuses on one of the world's greatest in literary history, William Shakespeare. Donovan Bixley is bringing The Bard to life… Audio
Leading literacy
University of Auckland student Adena Emanuel and Professor Janet Gaffney from the Faculty of Education and Social Work talk about their research showing how the development of young readers and… Audio
Top slams: Anis Mojgani
Anis Mojgani has been called the best poetry slammer alive. He is a two-time champion of the US Individual National Poetry Slam, and has been touring around the world for more than a decade, holding… Audio
Eli Kent: 'Peer Gynt Recycled'
Playwright Eli Kent's latest work 'Peer Gynt Recycled' premieres this weekend with the Auckland Theatre Company. He talks about his inspiration: Henrik Ibsen. Audio
Anna Jackson: Poet
Poet Anna Jackson has been awarded the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship for 2015. She tells Eva about her plans. Audio
Trick of The Light Theatre
Ralph McCubbin Howell and Hannah Smith are travelling the country with three shows, have just opened a play challenging ANZAC mythology, and are working on another production that will premiere at… Audio
Roger & Bernadette Hall - Prime Minister's Awards winners
Forty years after he first started packing out New Zealand with his plays, Roger Hall has received a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement and he's the first playwright to do so. Roger's… Audio