“An outspoken architectural critic with first-hand experience of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans hopes Christchurch will avoid the “rear-view mirror” effect as it gets back on its feet. Reed Kroloff, the former editor-in-chief of Architecture magazine in the United States, joins a lineup of international writers in this year’s WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival.” Read More
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‘Kristin Hersh has no memory of writing her songs,’ The Press, 15 July 2014
“In the early 1980s – dark times for quality rock – Kristin Hersh was a central figure in the direction the genre would take. She was a key link between 1970s idols such as Patti Smith and Debbie Harry and the indie rock chicks to emerge in the late 1980s – Kim Deal, Kim Gordon and P. J. Harvey. Without Hersh and her contemporaries, we might not have Cat Power, Shirley Manson, St Vincent or even Grimes.”
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Music is the WORD – rock musician Kristin Hersh headlines Christchurch’s literary festival, WORD Press Release, 15 July 2014
Seminal indie-rock musician Kristin Hersh is coming to New Zealand to share her music and prose at the WORD Christchurch Writers & Readers Festival, presented in association with The Press. Hersh will join literary heavyweights such as Eleanor Catton, Ruth Reichl and Meg Wolitzer at the multi-day festival, which runs from 27—31 August. She will perform her solo show WORDS + MUSIC on 30 August at the magnificent Transitional Cathedral and will make several other appearances throughout the festival.
Read the full press release here.
‘Catton early draw card for Writers’ Festival’, The Press, 22 May 2014
Kiwi novelist Eleanor Catton will speak in Christchurch as part of the city’s biennial writers’ festival. The Man Booker prize-winning writer will talk to local audiences as part of the five-day WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival in August.
Catton earned global acclaim for her book The Luminaries, an 832-page novel set in Hokitika’s 1860s gold rush heyday. Her appearance at the Christchurch festival follows a 2100-seat sell-out session at the Auckland Writers Festival this month.
Literary director Rachael King said she was really excited to have Catton join the Christchurch festival.
Damon Young’s ‘How to Think About Exercise’, Reviewed by The Age
“The idea that exercise is ‘mindless’ derives from the mind-body dualism bequeathed to us by Descartes, and by Christianity’s distaste for the flesh. In the spirit of the School of Life’s practical approach to philosophy, Damon Young advocates a return to the holistic approach of the ancient Greeks, who believed exercise could be virtuous and character-building, as well as pleasureable. There’s the satisfaction that comes from pushing ourselves to our limits, humility as we face up to these limits, a new understanding of pain and the ‘agreeable horror’ of the sublime that teaches us to ‘savour the precariousness of life.’ Through the rituals and rules of competitive sports we learn the meaning of sacrifice without real loss. In pithy, accessible prose, Young offers up a new mantra for intelligent exercise – not ‘just do it’ but ‘just become it’.”
Anis Mojgani’s ‘Songs From Under the River’, Reviewed by Stanton Hancock, Pank Magazine
“Songs From Under The River contains so many wonderfully woven strands of wordplay that it is impossible to do it justice in as few words as these. Mojgani has the rare gift of being able to create inspiring works that spring to life on the page with the same passion and fervor as when he takes them to the stage.”
Ruth Reichl’s ‘Delicious!’, Reviewed by Kate Christensen, NY Times
“Now, once again employing her ability to convey the comforts of food in prose both specific and enchanting, Reichl has written a novel, Delicious! Its title strikes me as perfectly apt, coming as it does from the woman who wrote: ‘Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious!'”
Eleanor Catton’s ‘The Luminaries’, Reviewed by Lucy Daniel, The Guardian
“‘How opaque, the minds of absent men and women! And how elusive, motivation!” So exclaims the narrator of Eleanor Catton’s irresistible second novel. Four years ago her debut, The Rehearsal, about a sex scandal at a New Zealand high school, won her a cache of nominations and prizes, but hardly foretold the startling gear shift that has given us this historical suspense novel, which won her this year’s Booker prize, aged just 28.”