Taking the Christchurch blueprint as a starting point, this panel will look at ways in which we imagine cities, either in fiction, in history, or in contemporary life; whether as utopias or dystopias, cities imagined or reimagined.

Fiona Farrell’s new non-fiction book Villa at the Edge of Empire addresses fundamental questions proposed by any map: Where am I? How did we get here? Where do we go now? Anna Smaill’s The Chimes is set in the musical dystopia of an alternative London; Hamish Clayton’s The Pale North features a post-quake reimagined Wellington, and Hugh Nicholson is principal adviser urban design at the Christchurch City Council. Chaired by Lara Strongman.

Fiona Farrell lives and works at Otanerito on Banks Peninsula. She has published poetry, short fiction, non-fiction, plays and prize-winning novels. She has appeared at festivals in Vancouver, Edinburgh and  throughout New Zealand.  Awards include the New Zealand Book Award, the Menton Fellowship, the Burns Fellowship and the 2007 Prime Minister’s Award for Fiction. In 2012 she received the ONZM for services to literature. Her most recent book, The Villa at the Edge of the Empire, is the first of a two-part work about the building of a city, viewed through the twinned lenses of non-fiction (Vol. 1) and fiction (Vol 2, due 2016).

Anna Smaill was born in Auckland in 1979. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from the IIML, and a PhD in contemporary American poetry from University College London. She is the author of a book of poetry, The Violinist in Spring, and her poems have been published in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. She has lived and worked in both Tokyo and London, and now lives in Wellington, with her husband, novelist Carl Shuker, and their daughter. The Chimes, her first novel, was published in 2015 to great international acclaim.

Hamish Clayton was born in Hawke’s Bay in 1977 and educated at Victoria University of Wellington. His first novel, Wulf, won the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction at the 2012 New Zealand Post Book Awards. In the same year, he was a Writer in Residence at the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt, and in 2013 he held the Buddle Findlay Frank Sargeson Fellowship in Auckland. He lives in Wellington. The Pale North is being published in July 2015.

Hugh Nicholson is the principal urban designer at the Christchurch City Council.  After the devastating earthquakes in 2010-11 he was the urban designer responsible for developing Share an Idea and the draft Central Christchurch recovery plan.  He has been extensively involved in the rebuild of Christchurch and in particular with transitional projects aimed at kick starting recovery.  Hugh trained as a landscape architect and worked as a botanical illustrator before becoming an urban designer.  Designing cities which are great places for people has inspired his work.

Lara Strongman is senior curator at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu. She is an award-winning writer and editor, and reviews TV for Radio New Zealand. Her essay on the Christchurch earthquakes appeared in AUP’s book of recent non-fiction, Tell You What. She is currently working on the reopening programme of Christchurch Art Gallery, closed since the 2011 earthquakes.

Imaginary Cities illustration by Carla Sy.

Listen to Fiona Farrell taking to Kathryn Ryan on National Radio here

Listen to Hamish Clayton talking to Kim Hill about his new novel here