A royal flush of crime writers at NZIAF

Yesterday, the programme for the upcoming 2012 New Zealand International Arts Festival's Writers and Readers Week was officially launched, and it contains a royal flush of crime writers - five world-class crime writers from here and abroad are on the programme. As already discussed here on Crime Watch, Norwegian crime king Jo Nesbo and acclaimed Scottish crime writer Denise Mina will be visiting for the Festival. Now it has also been officially announced that there will be a New Zealand crime fiction event featuring Paul Cleave, Vanda Symon and Paul Thomas, and also that Denise Mina will be appearing twice - once in a solo event, and once with American author Ron Rash, talking about how "place plays a vital and affecting role in their writing".

Click here to see the full line-up of events.

There are some terrific non-crime writing events too, but for all you crime-loving readers out there, here are the crime fiction related events at the Writers and Readers Week:

• Saturday 10 March 2012 - 2pm - Denise Mina: Tartan Noir, Scottish crime
• Saturday 10 March 2012 - 5pm - Jo Nesbo: Norwegian crime (note: there will also be a screening of the HEADHUNTERS film that evening, see my post from yesterday)
• Sunday 11 March 2012 - 9.30am - Denise Mina and Ron Rash: Examining Place
• Sunday 11 March 2012 - 11am - Paul Cleave, Vanda Symon, Paul Thomas: New Zealand crime

It's great to see the New Zealand International Arts Festival (along with a few other local arts and books festivals) embracing the crime fiction part of the books world in such a way. Hopefully the events get some great audiences, as I'm sure the sessions will be quite intriguing (Disclosure of interest - I'm involved with a couple of them as chair).