Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival 

Featherston Booktown Karukatea 2022 Festival is all on from 8-12 June! Check out the programme at www.booktown.nz and snap up the remaining tickets at www.eventfinda.co.nz for talks, debates, workshops, readings and spoken-word performances. From novelists to slam poets, illustrators to seed-bombers, paper making and story building, there is something fun for everyone.

In its 7^th year, the Festival attracts award-winning writers and illustrators including:

• Literary heavyweights Fiona Kidman, Witi Ihimaera, Joy Cowley and Patricia Grace
• Boundary-breaking poets Selina Tusitala Marsh, Rachel O’Neill, Jenny Bornholdt and Gregory O’Brien
• Children’s authors and illustrators Christopher Candy, Sonya Wilson, Rose Northey and Melinda Szymanik

A chance to try something different

Captivating and thought-provoking events attract big audiences from all over the Wairarapa every year. Featherston Booktown is a chance to hear about writers and stories you may not have come across before. Here are a few intriguing sessions:

  In A Clear Dawn (Saturday 11 June, 11:00 AM), emerging writers Angelique Kasmara, Melanie Kwang, Bernadette How and Saraid de Silva talk about their writings that appear in A Clear Dawn, the landmark anthology of Asian New Zealand poetry, fiction and essays. At Chic City Crime (Sunday 12 June, 11:00 AM) two women on a mission vie with tattoo artists, rough sleepers and dodgy taxi drivers on the streets of Auckland and Wellington to get to the truth of the terrible crimes they witness. Angelique Kasmara (Isobar Precinct) and Anne Harré (The Leaning Man) talk with Paula Morris about their stylish and provocative crime novels that show our cities in a way we’ve never seen them before.

Walking Towards Writing presenters Nic Low, Tim Higham and Catharina van Bohemen chat with Mary McCallum about how experiencing mentally and physically challenging journeys in nature profoundly affected their writing, their world views, and their relationships. 

Encouraging Lifelong readers

“One of Featherston Booktown’s goals is to promote literacy and encourage imaginations,” says Peter Biggs. “This year, we will be giving book vouchers to every local South Wairarapa primary school-aged child.” Children can spend their vouchers between 8-15 June at any of Featherston’s bookshops, the Martinborough Bookshop, Mrs Blackwell’s Village Bookshop in Greytown, and also at the ANZAC Hall Booksellers stalls during the Festival.

All children’s events during the Festival are free (you’ll still need to register for a ticket), thanks to generous funding from the South Wairarapa District Council. And thanks to Tranzit Coachlines Wairarapa, the generous sponsors of this event, a coach will pick up our Featherston Booktown book-voucher-wielding young readers and their caregivers from Martinborough, Pirinoa, and Kahutara Schools, and bring them to Featherston Booktown on Saturday 11 June for the Comet the Red Bus event (organised through the schools).