Further to my post a couple of weeks back letting you all know about "Setting the Stage for Murder", the great Friday night event at the upcoming The Press Christchurch Writers' Festival where the inaugural Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel will be announced, I thought I would share with you some of the other crime and thriller highlights from the programme.THURSDAY 9 SEPTEMBER:
International Night - 7:30pm
Join five outstanding international writers and get a taste of what lies ahead in this festival of ideas, wit, insight, entertainment and stimulation. Renowned broadcaster Kim Hill will host online columnist and class politics commentator Joe Bageant, exciting British thriller writer Simon Kernick, Commonwealth Writers' Prize shortlistee Kirsten Reed, 'mistress of sparkling dark comedy' Barbara Trapido, and poet and NZ Post Book Award fiction finalist Alison Wong, who "represent the wide range of genres, styles and preoccupations that the festival offers to all readers and writers who want to ‘get between the covers’." $20/$18
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FRIDAY 10 SEPTEMBER:
Tokyo Vice - 11:00am
At the age of 19, Jake Adelstein went to Japan in search of peace and tranquillity.What he got was a life of crime … crime reporting, that is, at the prestigious Yomiuri Shimbun. For 12 years of 80-hour work weeks, he covered the seedy side of Japan, where extortion, murder, human trafficking and corruption are as familiar as ramen noodles and sake. Jake talks about these experiences, which are documented in his book, Tokyo Vice: a Western reporter on the police beat in Japan with Andrew Holden, editor of The Press. $16/$14
A Tale of Two Cities: Belfast and Glasgow - 3:30pmAyrshire-born author Liam McIlvanney talks about his debut novel, All the Colours of the Town, with Belfast-schooled poet Iggy McGovern. This post-Troubles yarn ‘offers the reader not only all the pleasures of a page-turner with compelling crime elements, but also a brilliant study in the harsh, pawky affinity between those two majestic cities, Glasgow and Belfast’. The discussion will look at a shared history of religious bigotry, political violence and alcohol abuse. $16/$14
Setting the Stage for Murder (marquee event) - 7:00pm
See Crime Watch discussion about this event here.
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SATURDAY 11 SEPTEMBER:
Pressed Into Service - 12:30pmJournalists often get a bad press – W.B. Yeats called them the shallowest people on the ridge of the earth – but theirs is a sometimes unenviable job, bedevilled by deadlines and by the need to sum up situations, often at speed, and write about them informatively and approachably. American columnist Joe Bageant, Japan crime specialist Jake Adelstein and local writer and blogger David Haywood talk about the various ways in which this impossible task can be achieved. $16/$14Coffee and Crime - 2pm (FREE EVENT)Grab a cup of coffee and join two of today’s most compelling crime writers, Michael Robotham and Paul Thomas, as they read from their latest works. FREE
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SUNDAY 12 SEPTEMBERCaptured: An Hour with Neil Cross - 12:30pm
Neil Cross is the author of several psychological thrillers, including Always the Sun and Burial as well as the best-selling memoir Heartland. One of the most sought after TV writers around, he has been the lead script writer for the award-winning BBC spy drama series, Spooks, and is the creator and writer of the new psychological crime drama Luther, which was released in the UK in May this year. Neil talks about his career, and his latest book Captured, with Christchurch crime writer Paul Cleave. $16/$14
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So, seems like a pretty cool line-up. There are plenty of great non-crime offerings at The Press Christchurch Writers' Festival this year too - you can check out all the writers and events here.
Are you heading along? What events have caught your attention? Thoughts and comments welcome.
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