Until recently, it seemed the Verb literary festival was destined to go the same way as so many live events this Covid-cursed year. Now the festival is all go – and its director can finally breathe out, she tells Michelle Langstone. Claire Mabey did a tarot reading every day during New Zealand’s first Covid-19 lockdown. … Read more
Spinoff Review of Books literary editor Steve Braunias does his best to remember a drunken weekend in Wellington at 2018 LitCrawl. Crazy to feel the need to rush to a literary event – there’s always plenty of room, it doesn’t matter if you’re a tad late – so I leisurely ironed my shirt in my … Read more
The star of Wellington’s awesome LitCrawl event this weekend is poet Kaveh Akbar, who has a great haircut. Iranian-American poet Kaveh Akbar will perform at Wellington’s annual LitCrawl event this weekend, and so will his haircut. Many say he has the best haircut in world literature. The evidence certainly strongly supports these claims. He is … Read more
Steve Braunias reports from the 2017 LitCrawl in Wellington – and wonders whether it could be duplicated in Auckland. Ashleigh Young (genius) couldn’t get in. Fergus Barrowman (publisher) couldn’t get in. Leah McFall, the Sunday columnist with a dedicated following – she couldn’t get in, either. And then word spread about someone else who was … Read more