Writers and Readers Festivals Podcast Options

11:10 AM.Writer Tim Winton has been named an Australian national treasure. His book 1994 The Riders was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, as was his 2002 book Dirt Music.  Read more Audio

10:10 AM.Professional falconer whose work in raptor research and conservation projects informed the writing of her book, H is for Hawk. She will visit New Zealand in May to speak at the 2015 Auckland Writers… Read more Audio

11:08 AM.Novelist and poet Ben Okri had his first novel, Flowers and Shadows, published when he was 21, and has devoted much of his work to describing the social and political chaos in Nigeria, where he was… Read more Audio

10:40 AM.Xinran on her latest book 'Buy Me The Sky', about the impact of China's one-child policy on those born after 1970. She is coming to New Zealand for next month's Auckland Writers Festival. Read more Audio

10:35 AM.Journalist with The Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald, TV commentator, former radio presenter and national representative rugby union player whose new book is Gallipoli (Random House). He will be… Read more Audio

10:13 AM.Bill Hayton is a long-time journalist/foreign correspondent with the BBC, and a large portion of his career has been reporting on events in South East Asia, the dissension and the toxic manoeuverings… Read more Audio

10:12 AM.Stephanie Johnson is an award-winning novelist, poet, playwright and co-founder of the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival. She's published eight novels, and is a past winner of the Montana Book… Read more Audio

10:06 AM.Kim Thúy is a Canadian writer whose family fled Saigon as boat people during the Vietnam War. Her autobiographical novel Ru was an award winning bestseller - drawing on her refugee past. Her latest… Read more Audio

11:07 AM.Health science writer Dr Atul Gawande is coming to New Zealand for two events in the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival. He talks to Wallace about health care, how elderly people are treated, and where… Read more Audio

11:30 AM.Stephanie Alexander is regarded as one of Australia's great food authors and educators. She has set up several restaurants and is the author of the several cook books, including the best-selling The… Read more Audio

4:00 PM.Rebecca Macfie, Lloyd Jones and Gaylene Preston discuss dealing creatively with tough stuff through non-fiction, family memoir, and television drama at the 2014 Christchurch Word Writers and Readers… Read more Audio

8:15 AM.American journalist who has contributed to The New Yorker since 1977, and is the author of eleven books. He will visit New Zealand for the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival in May. Read more Audio

10:13 AM.Amy Bloom is an American writer and psychotherapist, she is coming to Auckland Writers Festival next month. She is the author of three novels and three collections of short stories. Her latest novel… Read more Audio

2:47 PM.In May, the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival will host some of the finest poets, authors and journalists from New Zealand and abroad. Chairperson Alexandra Bligh tells Eva what's on offer. Read more Audio

4:00 PM.Meg Wolitzer, a leading USA novelist, talks about her extensive career with Kate De Goldi, focusing on a recent highly-awarded novel The Interestings. Read more Audio

8:35 AM.The symbol 'X' can mean many things - X marks the spot where the treasure is hidden, it's a kiss at the end of a text, a place to put your signature, a mathematical symbol. Vona Groarke is a major… Read more Audio

11:00 AM.Journalists Luke Harding, Nicky Hager and Richard King discuss freedom of speech in an era of big data, mass surveillance and the unauthorised release of information on a scale never before seen. The… Read more Audio

4:00 PM.The UK journalist discusses the extraordinary story of Edward Snowden, and considers the action of spy agencies and their mass surveillance of populations the world over. Harding's interaction with… Read more Audio

10:06 AM.Actor for stage and screen, broadcaster, director, designer, producer and musician, who will be speaking about family memoir, Not My Father's Son, at the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival. Read more Audio

10:11 AM.Damian Barr's first book Get it Together: A Guide to Surviving your Quarterlife Crisis. He interviewed 200 people in their twenties, showing that for most, their attitudes to work were their main… Read more Audio

4:00 PM.An intensely personal memoir by one of the country's leading writers of fantasy, exploring the roots of her interest in alternative reality, and intertwining her own story, and that of her family into… Read more Audio

11:06 AM.Writer and illustrator Dav Pilkey has scored a huge worldwide hit with the childrens series Captain Underpants - ratcheting up sales of more than 70 million. Dav Pilkey is coming to NZ as part of the… Read more Audio

9:06 AM.Daniel Mendelsohn is an American memoirist, essayist, critic, columnist, and translator who is presently a Contributing Editor at Travel + Leisure. He is the author of the international 2006… Read more Audio

10:08 AM.Zia Haider Rahman is a Bangladeshi-born novelist whose circuitous route to writing his first book included stints as a Wall Street banker and an international human rights lawyer. His book In the… Read more Audio

9:05 AM.English literature and music graduate whose debut novel, The Chimes, is set in a future Britain where people's memories are controlled by music. Read more Audio