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 9 features:

SELINA TUSITALA MARSH (Aotearoa New Zealand) Former Poet Laureate, performer and teacher Selina Tusitala Marsh has published three collections of poetry, including the 2010 Best First Book Award winner Fast Talking PI, and the 2018 Ockham NZ Book Awards longlisted Tightrope. Her latest book is the inspirational graphic memoir Mophead which she also illustrated. It tells the true story of a New Zealand woman realising how her difference can make a difference.

CASS SUNSTEIN (United States) Cass Sunstein is a Harvard Law School professor and served in the Obama administration. His latest book How Change Happens, looks at how, when and why, social movements such as #metoo and nationalism suddenly take off. He co-wrote the influential Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, a revelatory examination of how people make decisions and how governments might persuade their citizens to act in socially beneficial ways while curbing government over-reaching, and the very timely Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide.

SAMANTHA POWER (Ireland / United States) Pulitzer Prize-winning author, diplomat and war correspondent Samantha Power served in the Obama administration and as US ambassador to the UN. Twice named as one of Time’s ‘100 Most Influential People’, her best-selling memoir The Education of an Idealist, is a unique blend of expert storytelling and shrewd political insight, tracing her distinctly American journey from immigrant to war correspondent to presidential cabinet official. At a time of upheaval and division, Power’s memoir – named one of the best books of 2019 by The New York Times and The Economist – offers an urgent response to the question “What can one person do?”

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