Saturday Morning Podcast Options

8:10 AM.Like other residents of Paris, journalist and science writer Laura Spinney is holed up in her home in the French capital: she's only able to venture out if she can produce an official certificate… Read more Audio

11:40 AM.Poet and writer Kate Camp returns for the latest instalment of Kate's Klassics. This week she reviews Maya Angelou's autographical work from 1969, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, a celebration of the… Read more Video, Audio

11:05 AM.The threat of Covid-19 invites us to think as communities rather than as individuals, says Irish poet and conflict mediator Pádraig Ó Tuama. Read more Audio

10:05 AM.Hilary Mantel has won two Man-Booker awards and is tipped for a third with the release of The Mirror & The Light, the final book in her "Wolf Hall" trilogy which follows the final chapters of Thomas… Read more Audio

9:40 AM.Professor Rewi Newnham (Ngapuhi) from Victoria University of Wellington studies ancient pollen for what it can tell us about our changing vegetation, and our changing climate. His early experiences… Read more Audio

9:05 AM.Dr Maysoon Salama is the manager of the An-Nur Early Childhood Centre in Wigram. Her husband was badly injured, and her son Atta Elayyan killed, in the attack on Christchurch's Al Noor Mosque on 15th… Read more Audio

8:40 AM.How will the ongoing global upheaval over the novel coronavirus outbreak shape our future lives? Bryan Walsh is TIME's former international editor and now the Future Correspondent for Axios, covering… Read more Audio

8:10 AM.Dr Chris Smith, consultant virologist at Cambridge University and one of BBC Radio 5 Live's Naked Scientists, is back, with the latest info on COVID-19, and practical advice to help us manage the… Read more Audio

11:35 AM.Actor, playwright and painter Carl Bland wrote and co-directed Mr Red Light, a comic story about a bank robbery that goes wrong (so badly wrong in fact that the would-be robber ends up taking hostages… Read more Audio

11:15 AM.Rajorshi (Raj) Chakraborti is an Indian-born novelist, essayist and short story writer. He has also lived and studied in Canada, England and Scotland, and now lives with his family in Wellington. Read more Audio

10:35 AM.Taking the conventional wedding rom com and giving it a First Nations twist, Australia's ILBIJERRI Theatre Company and New Zealand's Te Rehia Theatre Company bring cultures together in Black Ties. Read more Audio

10:05 AM.Irish director and choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan (aka Micháel MacAodhagáin-O'Dobhailen) was last seen at the festival in 2018 with a production of Swan Lake. He returns with the Teac Da sa… Read more Video, Audio

9:35 AM.Oscar-winning songwriter, and one half of world-conquering comedy folk duo Flight of the Conchords, Bret McKenzie is also one of this year's Festival of The Arts' curators. He's assembled an eclectic… Read more Audio

9:05 AM.American artist and musician Laurie Anderson is one of the curators of this year's NZ Festival of the Arts. Anderson tells Kim Hill she feels unchanged by the decades that've passed since she… Read more Video, Audio

8:45 AM.Serhii Plokhy is a professor of history at Harvard University. His 2018 book Chernobyl: History of A Tragedy tells the story of the nuclear accident that occurred on Saturday 26 April 1986, at the No… Read more Audio

8:10 AM.Damian Barr is an award-winning Scottish writer whose 2013 coming of age memoir Maggie & Me (about growing up gay in Thatcher-era Scotland), was The Sunday Times' Memoir of the Year. Read more Audio

11:43 AM.Peter Sellars is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays. Sellars is professor at UCLA, where he teaches Art as Social… Read more Audio

11:08 AM.Mother, wife and community volunteer Husna Ahmed was of the 51 people killed in the Christchurch terror attacks in March 2019. Her husband Farid, 44, has written a book about his wife's bravery and… Read more Video, Audio

10:48 AM.Singer and songwriter Ria Hall (Ngai Te Rangi, Ngati Ranginui and Ngati Pukenga) has just released a new album Manawa Wera, inspired by classic 1970s reggae & soul and addressing the current social… Read more Video, Audio

10:07 AM.So far novel coronavirus has infected more than 80,000 people and caused over 2,800 deaths. Dr Chris Smith, consultant virologist at Cambridge University and one of BBC Radio 5 Live's Naked… Read more Audio

9:49 AM.Tesla coils are known for producing impressive arcs of electrical lightening, but thanks to Kiwi software engineer Josh Bailey they can also make music.  Read more Video, Audio

9:07 AM.Irish author Anne Enright won the Booker Prize in 2007 for her novel The Gathering. She returns with her seventh novel, Actress, which explores a daughter's complex relationship with her famous… Read more Audio

8:30 AM.Science writer David Quammen is the author of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic. We'll ask him what we know about the animal origin of COVID-19 and what his experience studying… Read more Audio