Dunedin. In the words of one of our previous city slogans, it really is ''all right here''.
Our rich heritage - natural, architectural, cultural and sporting - has given us strong foundations, and it is pleasing to see those continuing to be built on today.
The latest contribution to the cultural calendar is the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival, which started on Tuesday, and has its official launch today.
It has clear nods to our distinguished past, but is primarily a celebration of the huge number of writers - across a variety of disciplines - living and working in the city and province today.
A bonus for audiences is the rarer opportunity to see and hear from national and international writers, too.
There are poets, novelists, editors, satirists, critics, commentators and journalists, writing in a mix of genres from crime and romance to literary fiction and poetry; from memoirs and cookbooks to art and tramping books; from investigative articles and other non-fiction writing to young adult and children's picture books.
The festival of words is extended to music and performance too, with the centennial celebration of formative New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn, a lecture and recital to mark the 150th anniversary centenary of W.B.Yeats, and a stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf's classic novel Mrs Dalloway.
Slam poetry, children's story-time trains, young adult author speed dating and writing workshops are also in the mix.
Next month,
the Dunedin Fringe Arts Trust is holding the first New Zealand Young Writers Festival, focusing on the younger generation and emerging writers, as well as newer forms of writing.
It is not hard to see why Dunedin deserved to become a Unesco City of Literature. But in the light of the new status, the pressure will be on the festivals and other literary events to live up to the hype. Of course, festival trust members cannot do it alone.
Success is contingent on everyone from publishers and retailers to, most importantly, Dunedin readers.
It is to be hoped Dunedinites will book in to as many sessions as possible, for at a fundamental level writing and reading deserve to celebrated and encouraged. Writers are entertainers, thinkers, chroniclers.
Reading offers the opportunity to be entertained, stimulated, provoked and informed.
Reading opens minds to possibilities, encourages questioning, stimulates debate and provokes thought.
nd importantly, knowledge gained through reading helps us be less judgemental, more understanding, more accepting, more likely to appreciate diversity and complexity, more likely to have a deeper understanding of humanity, and of ourselves.
Texas shootings
A Texas police officer was put in an impossible position when two gunmen opened fire at an exhibition near Dallas of caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad organised by anti-Islamic group the American Freedom Defence Initiative.
The two men were shot dead by the officer. The group Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Full details are yet to be revealed, but on what information is available few could argue that at the very least substantial force was necessary in this instance.
The event itself was billed as promoting freedom of expression with substantial monetary prizes for the ''best'' cartoon or artwork.
The incident came in the wake of the killings at French the notoriously irreverent satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which had printed controversial pictures of the prophet.
Depicting the prophet is deemed offensive in Islam.
This newspaper will always defend the importance of freedom of speech and press freedom.
But we also iterate that with such freedom comes responsibility.
Provoking debate and challenging misconceptions are one thing in context, wholesale targeting of another's values is another.
The AFDI does have the right in a democracy to stage such an event as that it organised.
But respect for diversity and tolerance of others' beliefs and values is vital, and it should be acknowledged extreme behaviour often only encourages extreme reaction.
The alleged action taken by the two dead gunmen is indefensible. Resorting to gunplay over cartoons is beyond ludicrous.
And the IS group does appear beyond rational behaviour. But how people in democratic nations choose to use their freedom is as important as having such freedoms.
Exercising judgement, fairness, respect and responsibility does not curtail those democratic freedoms. Rather, it offers more liberty to more people.
