Auckland Writers Festival

Interview: Andy Griffiths, celebrity author

Andy Griffiths might be the best kind of celebrity author—he’s famous because his books are so popular with children. Annelies Judson caught up with him to talk about his books and the serious craft of being funny. Earlier this year,…

Scene report: The 2025 Auckland Writers Festival

Crissi Blair shares her highlights from the school days and kids’ events at AWF. The Auckland Writers Festival is a blast. Adult readers look forward to it and attend in their thousands (85,000+ this year), but the kids also have…

Monsters and Chaos Walking – thirty minutes with Patrick Ness

Patrick Ness, the revered author of the Chaos Walking trilogy, visited New Zealand last week for events at Verb Wellington and Auckland Writers Festival. Sarah Forster watched his Wellington events and spent thirty minutes having him sign her sizable collection…

Festival Review: Pukapuka Adventures at AWF

Earlier this month the Auckland Writers Festival saw record-breaking attendance levels. Pukapuka Adventures—the children’s hub of the event—took over Level 5 of the Aotea centre and was brimming with activity. Attendee Annelies Judson describes her experience on the Saturday with…

Q&A: Pukapuka Adventures at Auckland Writers Festival

The 2024 Auckland Writers Festival is coming up in a week with events taking place from 14 – 19 May. We asked the children’s events programmer Gabrielle Vincent about what’s going on for kids at the festival, and especially about…

Tara Black and Chris Riddell: A Drawing Date

Illustrator and live-drawer Tara Black had a Skype date with Chris Riddell in advance of his appearance in New Zealand for the Auckland Writers’ Festival. They discussed his time as the British children’s laureate, his political cartooning, his inspiration for…

Across the ditch: an interview with Sally Rippin

Sally Rippin is one of the Big Names in Australian children’s books. Christchurch librarian Zac McCallum interviewed her to celebrate the launch of her newest junior fiction series, Polly and Buster. It’s about a secret friendship in a world where…

In conversation with Lauren Child, extraordinaire

Lily Max author Jane Bloomfield caught up with UK author/illustrator Lauren Child during the recent Auckland Writers Festival. We captured some of their fascinating whirlwind conversation here, learning about inspiration, thrillers, sunglasses and Seventies childhoods. I expected to feel incredibly…

Terrors of a kind: an interview with Frances Hardinge

British writer Frances Hardinge is living proof that books for kids can be as good as books for adults: her last YA novel, The Lie Tree, won the Costa Book of the Year in 2015, beating out serious science biographies,…