The 2020 Winter Series Streams live and free-to-view on the Festival’s YouTube and Facebook channels, 9am every Sunday morning 3 May - 26 July. It is then available as a video or podcast via our soundcloud, iTunes or our website.

Episode Five features:

RICHARD FORD (United States) Leading American novelist and short story writer Richard Ford is the author of seven novels and several short story collections, among them The Sportswriter, Let Me Be Frank With You and Independence Day, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN Faulkner Award. In 2019 he was awarded the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction – a lifetime achievement award. The Library described him as a “luminous storyteller – one of the most eloquent writers of his generation”. He is currently a professor in the Humanities at Columbia University and his latest collection is Sorry for your Trouble.

AMY McDAID (Aotearoa New Zealand) The winner of the James Wallace Prize for the first draft of her debut novel Fake Baby, Amy McDaid has a master’s of creative writing from The University of Auckland and has had work published in The Spinoff and Three Lamps Journal. She works as a neonatal intensive care nurse.

YASMIN KHAN (England) Food writer and broadcaster Yasmin Khan is the author of The Saffron Tales and Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen and counts Yotam Ottolenghi and Nigella Lawson as fans. Yasmin is passionate about sharing people's stories through food. Prior to her food career, she was a human rights campaigner for NGOs.

HOST: PAULA MORRIS (Aotearoa New Zealand) Paula Morris (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Whātua) is an award-winning fiction writer and essayist. The 2019 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellow, she teaches creative writing at The University of Auckland, sits on the Māori Literature Trust and is the founder of the Academy of NZ Literature.

This series provides an opportunity to champion New Zealand and international books that were to feature at our cancelled May Festival, we encourage you to support writers and NZ publishers and booksellers by purchasing featured books. Order via our Festival bookseller.

The Festival thanks its presentation partner Auckland Live, as well as Copyright Licensing New Zealand and all our generous sponsors, funders, patrons and friends whose support has enabled us to continue our work during these extraordinary times.

Watch each new episode live at 9:00AM every Sunday, 3 May - 26 July.

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