Steph Walker
“Last year, stuck in Auckland, I tuned into the WORD Christchurch festival sessions I’d booked via livestream…
It was before I joined the WORD team and, watching as an audience member, I was struck, listening to the Ngāi Tahu sessions in particular, by how much I craved this deeply local knowledge, and by the warmth of the exchanges happening on stage.
The beauty and power of WORD is the exploration of ideas and issues. The festival starts (and continues) conversations. It encourages discussion beyond the, sometimes polarised, interactions in online spaces. We excel in the grey areas. And, of course, the festival also encourages literacy, and critical thinking.
New books as they come out are a vital source of inspiration for our programme. We see patterns in thinking and hot topics which we talk to our writers about and consider for our line-up. Wealth, gentrification, memoir writing … all these have been covered recently by some amazing Aotearoa New Zealand writers.
This year’s programme also incorporates ideas and people too good to say full goodbyes to in the wake of cancellations, due to you-know-what, last year. Our opening event, Te Piki O Tāwhaki, a work sited in and inspired by Tūranga, our wonderful Central City Library here in Ōtautahi is one of these. If I were a Story and You were a Song, the creative pairing of English writer David Mitchell, and New Zealand musician Hollie Fullbrook, AKA Tiny Ruins, is another.
We also want to ensure we celebrate local writers, while still finding clever ways to bring international outlooks in to our community, so in this year’s programme, we’ve continued The Faraway Near series. It’s kind of like an intimate dinner party with your favourite writer at the head of the table, it just so happens that they’re beaming in from their own home, wherever in the world that might be.
On a personal note, my current bedtime reading is Annette Lees’ After Dark: Walking into the Nights of Aotearoaand I can’t wait to hear more, both at the night walk she’s leading, and in her conversation with Ekant Veer. I’m also so keen on the pairing of poet and playwright Dominic Hoey and economics commentator Max Rashbrooke on wealth disparity.
A festival is nothing without artists. WORD would be impossible without local authors and booksellers too – it’s an ecosystem. The flipside is that the festival is a gateway for new audiences for books and a source of income for authors and booksellers. Attending a session can encourage a reader to find more from an author, to seek out comparable books, and to keep the conversation going at the local bookstore.
It's also a real source of inspiration. We typically sell out many of our workshops and masterclasses (and oh my gosh there is a great line up this year) which shows the hunger people have to create stories and work of their own. Writers are readers too and writing is such a solitary task … so how great is it to be able to come together and feel the energy and buzz of a room filled with creative people? To meet people who make you feel things when you read their words; and to fill your cup with inspiration? That goes for authors, booksellers and readers alike, I reckon.”
Steph Walker is Executive Director, WORD Christchurch