The Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival returns next month for three days of talks, masterclasses and readings celebrating the power of story and the spoken word.
Festival co-director Kitty Brown said this year’s theme is ahi kā, keeping the home fires burning.
The first festival event will be a gathering at Ōtākou Marae where writers will share stories while participants enjoy supper around the fire.
"There is nothing more core to human experience than keeping warm and looking after your home and thinking about how you tend a fire."
This will be an opportunity to "start the fire" of imagination that will be celebrated during the festival.
One festival highlight will be Kaituna Kids, a day of creativity at Te Whata o Kaituna, the new South Dunedin Community Library due to open on September 27.
"The timing [is] just great because the library will open soon and then we get to be maybe one of the first events that happens at the library."
The day will include readings with Wellington children’s authors Sacha Cotter and Josh Morgan, recording studio sessions and a makerspace with performer Rainbow Rosalind’s Facepainting Fairies.
A session called Ash and Ice will feature two local authors on how natural forces can become metaphors for transformation.
"So thinking about our theme, ahi kā, and how that relates at its very most bedrock sense to the elements."
Ash by Louise Wallace is centred on a volcanic eruption and At The Grand Glacier Hotel by Laurence Fearnley is set on the West Coast near a glacier.
"Both of these authors are pulling from a kind of place of elemental setting."
From the cold of a glacier to breathing in volcanic ash, the authors "really puts the reader in the place," she said.
• The Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival runs from Friday, October 17 to Sunday, October 19.
The festival programme was released yesterday and will be available at libraries, cafes and other public spaces.
Bookings are now open at dunedinwritersfestival.co.nz
