Finding Our Voice – A festival of island-inspired story telling

Friday Festival Stand-up Storytelling & Louis Sammons at The Currach Irish Pub

• 6pm:  Dinner special served 
• 7 – 8 pm: Stand Up: Seven storytellers take to the stage to share a seven-minute island-inspired story
• 8pm – Special Guest Performance by Spoken Word Artist and Musical Guest Louis Sammons
  • Tickets for Louis are $10 at the door if you don’t have a Weekend Festival Pass 

Saturday 7 October at the Claris Conference Centre

Food & Drink: Brilliant local baker Sarah Giblin will be onsite from 11:30 to 3:00 offering fresh baked goods for sale. Aotea Roast coffee available to fuel the weekend too. Please pack your keep cup and some cash so you can enjoy these and buy any of the books you may desire, direct from our speakers. 

• 10.30 – 11.30 am: Wild Heart – Swim and After Dark author Annette Lees in conversation with Good Heavens guide Deb Kilgallon.
• 12 – 1pm: Islands in Mind – Best-selling, Island-based women’s fiction writer Jenni Ogden in conversation with Trees That Count advisor Tanya Hart.
• 1.30 – 2.30 pm: Seas and Islands – New Zealand Geographic founder Kennedy Warne and author of the just published Soundings: Diving for Stories in the Beckoning Sea in conversation with geographer Robin Kearns, head of Auckland University’s School of Environment
• 3 – 4 pm: Historical fiction – Island-based Don E McGregor on the writing of Invasion New Zealand 1942, A Wistful Legacy, Aisling’s Cloud and a new Roman-era novel, introduced by Di Simpson.

• 10.00 – 11.00 am: Taking the Past with Us – Celebrated novelist and creative writing teacher Paula Morris (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Manuhiri) talks about Aotea-born kaumatua Paratini Te Manu, the last resident of Hauturu, from her award-winning novel Rangatira, and other inspired characters
• 11.30 – 12.30 pm: Calling Canada – Writers from Galiano Island in British Columbia, Canada on island inspiration with Aotea writers, via video link.
• 1.00 – 2.00pm: Thin Disguises. Polaroid Nights author Lizzie Harwood, Bait author Mike Scott and A Pattern of Shades author Wendy Dodds on the pleasures and perils of island-inspired characters.
• 2.30 – 3.30 pm: Beyond Words – Island Notes author Tim Higham and Aotea Great Barrier Island Land and People book creator, photographer and publisher Chris Morton in conversation with NZ Geographic founder Kennedy Warne.