The Festival now has a full complement of staff preparing for the great windfall of authors and books that are this year’s Auckland Writers Festival. This year’s Festival publicist, Penny Hartill, brings a wealth of experience in PR and book publicity, more recently as Hartill PR director and formerly as head of marketing and publicity at Penguin Group (NZ). Festival intern, Boston University student Emily Knecht is a welcome addition to the team assisting with marketing and social media.