Two of Aotearoa’s most celebrated writers, both masters of the short story form, reflect on stories that probe our national psyche and our essential aloneness. Owen Marshall applies a subversive eye in recent collections 'The Author’s Cut' and 'Return to Harikoa Bay' – with stories populated by people struggling to know themselves and their place, set in landscapes that are at once raw and familiar. In Elizabeth Smither’s 'The Piano Girls', women wrestle gently with family disappointments and the degradations of ageing. Both writers of distinction, the two discuss character and form and the lessons, literary and otherwise, drawn from a lifetime of examination, in conversation with Paula Morris.

AUCKLAND WRITERS FESTIVAL, WAITUHI O TĀMAKI SATURDAY 27 AUGUST 2022 – 5.00-6.00PM, HEARTLAND BANK ROOM, AOTEA CENTRE