It was the seventh iteration of the festival, initially the brainchild of a group of resort book-lovers which debuted in 2019.
It has continued to go from strength to strength.
This year more than 30 events, workshops and sessions were included on the four-day programme.
Ms Surrey said the most popular, aside from Friday night’s gala opening, was yesterday afternoon’s session with University of Otago vice-chancellor and former deputy prime minister Grant Robertson discussing his book Anything Could Happen with former Stuff journalist and Queenstown Writers Festival trustee Debbie Jamieson.
Other household names included in the festival were broadcaster Mike McRoberts, discussing his book Speaking My Language, Brodie Kane (Life at a Million Miles) and Steve Braunias (Polkinghorn) and Delirious author Damien Wilkins, who won New Zealand’s top literary prize for 2025, the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction.
Queenstown resident Kim Rangiaonui Logan launched his book A Journey Between Two Worlds on Saturday, while there was also a children’s illustration workshop, a singer-songwriter evening, and a live-action storytelling session, in which Sonya Wilson threw ideas to the audience and used their prompts to propel the story forward, while cartoonist Toby Morris live-sketched illustrations to match.
Ms Surrey said while all of the festivals to date had been hugely enjoyable, the 2025 edition was the most well-attended so far, with ticket-holders travelling from across Southland and Otago, and from Auckland, Waikato, Taranaki and Wellington for the weekend.
Attendees had snapped up hundreds of books along the way, proceeds from which went back into the festival’s coffers.
"It’s just so overwhelming to see so many people enjoying the festival and being enriched by the speakers and their stories.
"I do think Queenstown is increasingly becoming known for its range of arts and cultural activities — and Te Atamira [the host venue] is a wonderful space that the writers and audiences are just loving."
Also running throughout the festival was a 48-hour writing competition, which finished at 5pm yesterday, requiring participants to write 800 words or less based on one of three prompts provided by judge Owen Marshall — the winner, expected to be announced in about a month, would receive $500 and have their piece published in 1964: mountain culture/Aotearoa journal.
Ms Surrey said another 150 entries were received in the tamariki and rangatahi short story competition — the tamariki category (years 1-8) was won by Isabel Crawford (year 7), of Dunedin’s Tahuna Normal Intermediate for Flipped and the rangatahi category (years 9-13) was won by Wakatipu High School’s Amelia Rix (year 12) for Koi.
