Writers and Readers Festivals Podcast Options

6:00 PM."Two World Wars and one World Cup," chant English football supporters at their German counterparts. On the pitch and elsewhere, the repercussions of World War II continue. In this programme three… Read more Audio

6:00 PM.What is the difference between a story and a scientific explanation? How do the two fit together, and how can we use both in our attempt to make sense of the world? These are the big questions… Read more Audio

8:25 AM.Australian novelist, short story writer, screenwriter and journalist, talking about her first novel for 15 years. Read more Audio

8:30 AM.British novelist David Mitchell has been described as Britain's reigning master of postmodern fiction. Read more Audio

4:00 PM."Haven't they got anything better to do?" is the ironic subtitle of this encounter between a group of very different travel writers. Travel stories from the USA are recounted by Jo and Gareth Morgan… Read more Audio

4:00 PM.A panel discussion tracing the extraordinary growth in popularity of locally-produced non-fiction. Two publishers (Peter Dowling from Reed, and Mary Varnham from Awa Press) and an expert in creative… Read more Audio

4:00 PM.Linda Tyler chairs a wide-ranging session in which Hamish Keith, NewZealand's most senior writer on art, Justin Paton, one of the most lucid of our younger generation of critics and curators, and… Read more Audio

4:00 PM.The international publishing scene depends on translation, as it opens books to new markets and audiences. Three writers who have an intimate knowledge of translation consider the complexities and… Read more Audio

1:00 PM.Nightmare childhoods and damaged lives are laid bare in the very different work of Lionel Shriver, author of the award-winning 'We Need to Talk About Kevin'; and Paul Broks, whose study of… Read more Audio

4:00 PM.Chaired by Festival co-director Peter Wells, this lively session includes extensive reading by three very different authors whose autobiographical work provides different perspectives on growing up… Read more Audio

1:00 PM.The final programme in the coverage of the Press Christchurch Writers' Festival session brings together four writers who have taken very different approaches towards representing the Second World War… Read more Audio

1:00 PM.Chaired by Kate de Goldi, this session brings together the celebrated New Zealand writer Margaret Mahy and Australian writer Marcus Zusak, discussing a wide range of issues about writing for older… Read more Audio

1:00 PM.This session brings together the New Zealand writers Rachael King, and Philip Temple, and British writer Emma Darwin to talk about why we can't get enough of historical fiction. Barbara Larson from… Read more Audio

1:00 PM.Chair Owen Marshall brings together a group of writers to discuss how they make their living from writing long-form fiction. The panellists discussing the business of writing novels are Emily Perkins… Read more Audio

1:00 PM.If writing fiction is the art of the possible, then writing non-fiction can be seen as the seen as the art of the probable There seems to be an almost insatiable demand for our non-fiction to be… Read more Audio