Author Interview
Bringing Pacific values into New Zealand classrooms
What are Pacific values and how can they be incorporated into the classroom to help Pacific students thrive? iIn this Voices episide, Kadambari Raghukumar talks to the co-authors of a book that… Audio
Bringing Pacific values into New Zealand classrooms
What are Pacific values and how can they be incorporated into the classroom to help Pacific students thrive? iIn this Voices episide, Kadambari Raghukumar talks to the co-authors of a book that…
AudioGrace Tame: Australian of the Year
Grace Tame was named Australian of the Year in 2021 for her advocacy work for survivors of sexual assault. And she's now told her story -- in her own words -- in a memoir called The Ninth Life of a… Audio
Short Story winners revealed
Our Short Story competition judges, writers Harry Ricketts and Rebecca Reilly, announced the five winners of the 2022 Nine to Noon Short Story competition. Audio
The story of Aotearoa through 100 objects
Historian Dr Jock Phillips' latest work tells the story of New Zealand using 100 objects. Objects such as the sewing kete of an unknown 18th-century Maori woman; cannons from the Endeavour; the… Audio
Stephen Johnson's Peace Stick
Peace Stick is a novel that started with a chat to a former East German schoolgirl about life behind the Iron Curtain during the Cuban Missile Crisis 60 years ago Author Stephen Johnson shares how he… Audio
Megan Dunn: what’s art got to do with mermaids?
Our regular art correspondent Megan Dunn has an exhibition of her own just opened at Wellington's Adam Art Gallery, revealing another long standing obsession: mermaids. Audio, Gallery
Ned Fletcher: are the English and Maori texts so different?
Flowing from his interest in the Colonial Office of the 1830s and how English law was brought to New Zealand, historian and lawyer Ned Fletcher argues in The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi… Audio
Shehan Karunatilaka: 'Forgetting things hasn’t seemed to work for us'
The dead do tell tales: sometimes they are the only ones who can speak to the living about the costs of civil war, terror and corruption. Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka won the Man Booker Prize… Audio
Annie Proulx : How swamps can protect us and the planet
Pulitzer Prize winning American author Annie Proulx talks to Kathryn about her latest book, Fen, Bog and Swamp. The 87 year old writes about the history of wetland destruction and the role it plays in… Audio
John Evan Harris and The Physician's gun
It reads like a western and it's based on the Maungatapu Murders of 1866, when the notorious Burgess Gang killed five men in a crime that shocked the young colony. In his novel The Physician's Gun… Audio, Gallery
Ruth Bayley's Barefoot inspired by wartime correspondence
Ruth Bayley is a history graduate who's woven what she's read in second world war soldiers' diaries and telegrams into her first novel, Barefoot. It's set between Wellington and the battlefields of… Audio
Nick Ascroft: a nearly award-winning word finder
Poet Nick Ascroft considers one of his claims to fame to be "nearly winning the Kathleen Grattan Prize four times, the most anyone has nearly won it". Which might partly explain why his fifth… Audio
Francoise Malby-Anthon on love and elephants
Francoise Malby-Anthony has spent the last 35 years in South Africa - 25 of them running an elephant reserve called Thula Thula. Francoise's first book was called An Elephant in My Kitchen -- that… Audio, Gallery
What happened at Apple after Steve Jobs' death
Since the death of Apple's controversial co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011, the tech company's massive success has been due to internal collaboration as much as innovation, says New York Times tech… Audio
The World in 2050: How to Think About the Future
What will the world look like in 2050? What will be our biggest challenges and the major issues shaping our world? And what countries will have the biggest economies? Hamish McRae is one of Europe's… Audio
Anne Fletcher: the women Antarctica left behind
Captain Robert Scott's last diary entry, as he lay freezing and starving to death on an ill-fated South Pole journey, concludes: "for God's sake look after our people". Uppermost were the three women… Audio
One Hundred Havens: A history of the Marlborough Sounds
Author Helen Beaglehole first visited the Marlborough Sounds in a small yacht after a very stormy Cook Strait crossing. She returned numerous times over the next 40 years, exploring and sailing the… Audio
Scriptwriter turned best-selling thriller writer
Kathryn speaks with screen writer and director Michael Bennett. He was the 2020 recipient of the Te Aupounamu Maori Screen Excellence Award, given in recognition of significant contributions to the… Audio
Amber Petty on why happy endings aren't her thing!
Australian media personality Amber Petty is not a fan of fairytales, even though she's seen one close up. Her best friend Mary married Prince Frederik of Denmark and she was a bridesmaid at the royal… Audio