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 8 features:

PHILIPPA SWAN Philippa Swan’s time-travelling novel The Night of All Souls blends a contemporary tale with the secrets of the 1921 Pulitzer-prizewinner Edith Wharton.So Swan trained as a landscape architect and wrote the critically acclaimed non-fiction book, Life (and Death) In A Small City Garden. She is a freelance writer for NZ Gardener and Cuisine, and has won awards for her short-stories.

FREYA DALY SADGROVE Writer, performer and theatre maker Freya Daly Sadgrove recently published her first poetry collection, Head Girl. Her work is described as profoundly funny, surprising and moving, and ruthless in its interrogation of human behaviour. She has a Master's in Poetry from Victoria University of Wellington, and her work has appeared in various publications in Aotearoa, Australia and the US.

HELON HABILA Nigerian US-based journalist, poet, and author Helon Habila is considered one of Africa’s finest literary voices. He writes about identity, exile and the many kinds of travellers now crisscrossing Africa and Europe. Habila’s fourth, novel Travellers has it all, reviews The Guardian, “intelligence, tragedy, poetry, love, intimacy, compassion, and a serious, soulful, arms-wide engagement with one of the most acute concerns of our age – the refugee crisis”. Habila has won numerous awards including the Caine Prize, Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and Windham-Campbell Literature Prize.

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.

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/akwrfest
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/AKwritersFESTIVAL