Literary Events To Reinvigorate The 'Quake-ravaged Christchurch Audience

Following the cancellation of two proposed festivals, The Press Christchurch Writers’ Festival is determined that local audiences won’t miss out on hearing the words of some of our best writers - just because the earthquakes ravaged the city.

In July, August and September the festival is bringing some entertaining, challenging and thrilling literary events to Christchurch.

Read Aloud: Tuesday 26 July. As part of Kidsfest the festival presents Margaret Mahy, Ben Brown, Helen Taylor and James Norcliffe telling their tales from their own stories in the Events Dome in Hagley Park.

The Silence Beyond: Wednesday 27 July. Rachael King and Lloyd Jones in conversation about The Silence Beyond: Selected Writings of Michael King. In this new book, Rachael has assembled a collection of her father’s wide-ranging, often personal and some previously unpublished essays, talks and eulogies highlighting the full scope of talents of one of New Zealand’s greatest modern thinkers.

The Larnachs. Sunday 7 August. Owen Marshall talks to broadcaster Ruth Todd, about his subtle and compelling new novel, The Larnachs, which draws on the family history of James Ludie Lanarch - the politician and self-made man who built the famous 'castle' on the Otago peninsula. A memorable piece of fiction, from one of our most talented authors, it tells a tale of intrigue, morality, judgement and scandal.

Setting the Stage for Murder: Sunday 21 August. Two award-winning American crime writers, Tess Gerritsen and John Hart discuss their latest novels in a riveting session. This will be followed by the presentation of the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel by a New Zealand writer in 2010, with the finalists all reading excerpts from their thrilling tales.

Presented as part of Christchurch Arts Festival

Putting Words to the Feelings: Sunday 18 September. Five writers with strong Canterbury links – Fiona Farrell, Joanna Preston, Tusiata Avia, Carl Nixon and Charlotte Randall – reflect on their experiences of the Christchurch earthquake and how the reimagined landscape of the city and its surroundings will emerge within their writing.

Presented as part of Christchurch Arts Festival

What’s For Pudding? Wednesday 31 August. Alexa Johnston talks to Kate Fraser, food editor of The Press, about her new collection of old tried and true recipes, the best selection of sweet treats that have graced New Zealand tables for generations. Following on from the success of Alexa Johnston’s best-selling “Ladies a Plate”, the choice of hot and cold puddings reflect the changing social habits in a century of cooking in New Zealand.

Read Aloud – Tuesday 26 July, 930am and 11.00am Child $5, Family $10 – door sales only

The Silence Beyond – Wednesday 27 July, 6.30pm -Cashmere Club - $15 http://www.dashtickets.co.nz/

The Larnachs – Sunday 7 August, 1.00pm - Cashmere Club - $15 http://www.dashtickets.co.nz/

Setting the Stage for Murder – Sunday 21 August, 11.00am - TelstraClear Club, Hagley Park $20 – http://www.artsfestival.co.nz/

Putting Words to the Feelings – Sunday 18 September, 1.00pm - TelstraClear Club, Hagley Park - $5 – http://www.artsfestival.co.nz/

What’s for Pudding? – Wednesday 31 August, 2.30pm The George Hotel - $25 http://www.dashtickets.co.nz/

Hope to see some of Crime Watch's New Zealand-based readers at the Setting the Stage for Murder event!

NZ Book Month vouchers extended for Christchurch readers

In the week before the devastating Christchurch earthquake in February, I shared the news about the $20 million worth of book vouchers that were being given away as part of New Zealand Book Month celebrations (4 million $5 vouchers, basically one for every person in the country). It is a fantastic initiative, and I have personally used a voucher to buy one of the few recent Kiwi crime/thriller novels I didn't already own (or hadn't read): THE CRIME OF HUEY DUNSTAN by James McNeish. Unfortunately for the bookloving people of Christchurch, along with everything else they've had to deal with, many of their NZ Book Month related events have also been cancelled or badly affected.

However, New Zealand Book Month is now pleased to advise that the delivery of the $5 book voucher put on hold to Christchurch is now underway. And in response to requests from Christchurch families, teachers, librarians and booksellers, residents will be able to take advantage of the voucher for an extended period of time.

Every child in school received a voucher via their principal on Monday 14 March. Two further vouchers will be delivered to 105,000 homes this weekend – Saturday 26 & Sunday 27 March. In addition vouchers will be available at Caltex and BNZ stores.

Eighteen out of the 28 local booksellers that had confirmed their support of the $5 book voucher are now open, with the remaining 10 closed until further notice. The eighteen open stores where Christchurch residents can redeem their vouchers are:

• Paper Plus: Barrington, Bush Inn, Ferrymead, Hornby, Merivale, New Brighton, Northlands, and South City;
• Take Note: Kaiapoi
• Picadilly Bookshop in Avonhead Mall
• The Reading Bug at 140 Colombo Street, Beckenham
• UBS Canterbury at the University of Canterbury in Ilam
• Whitcoulls: Bishopdale, Christchurch Airport, Clearance, Hornby, Northlands, Riccarton

In addition, thanks to the generosity and support of Booksellers NZ and over 130 participating publishers, the above 18 stores will now be able to redeem vouchers up to and including 31 May 2011, regardless of the date on the voucher, giving Canterbury readers much longer to take advantage of this great offer, and grab themselve a great Kiwi book to read to their kids, or otherwise take their mind off things for a while.

National Co-ordinator Beth Davies, herself a Christchurch resident, says "We are overwhelmed by the ongoing support to forge ahead with New Zealand Book Month, and by the events that are still taking place around the city. We've had fifteen events confirmed to go ahead over the next two weeks. Despite so many obstacles, the team at Christchurch City Libraries are still hosting eleven of those."

For full details of confirmed Christchurch events, please visit www.nzbookmonth.co.nz.

Bouquets all 'round, I say. Crime Watch heartily endorses the efforts of all the Christchurch booklovers, under very trying circumstances. In fact, I think we should all go out and celebrate NZ Book Month by buying a book from a Christchurch author - whether it's a classic Margaret Mahy tale to read to the kids, or a Paul Cleave, Andrew Grant or Steve Malley thriller for ourselves. Kia Kaha Christchurch.

Thoughts, hearts, and prayers...

I haven't really been sure what to say, or how to address, what has been happening in Japan the past few days. We are of course still recovering from our own devastating earthquake here at the bottom of the world, and now our friends in Japan have also suffered a terrible, terrible tragedy.

Although New Zealand and Japan fought on opposing sides in World War Two, and have different perspectives on things like whaling and nuclear power, as a country and people we have a good, friendly relationship. Both my hometown of Richmond, and nearby Nelson, each have great 'sister city' relationships with cities in Japan. We have a Japanese Gardens in Nelson created to celebrate the relationship. I studied Japanese for three years at High School. Several Japanese exchange students came to Nelson each year. Some people I know have studied, worked, or taught English in Japan (I was considering the latter myself a few years ago). Many New Zealanders travel to or work there (including several of our rugby players). One of our greatest All Blacks, John Kirwan, is the coach of the Japanese national rugby team.

New Zealand and Japan are also both island nations, of similar geographic size, sitting on 'the Pacific Ring of Fire', so we're both all too familiar with earthquakes and their effects. But that doesn't make the sudden devastation that we've both recently suffered any easier to bear.

To see such a lively country, packed with tradition, modernity, and natural beauty, suffering, hurts my heart. The Christchurch situation was and continues to be very tough to bear, and now the numbers in Japan are just staggering (we may be the same size geographically, but Japan of course is far, far, far more densely populated than New Zealand), thanks to an earthquake followed by a tsunami and now the risk of nuclear disaster.

More than 500,000 people have been evacuated from tsunami-ravaged areas of Japan as authorities try to avert meltdowns at three nuclear reactors. Officials now believe at least 10,000 people were killed in one area, Miyagi, alone following Friday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake and 10-metre high tsunami.

Even though we are still in the recovery phase here in New Zealand ourselves, we've sent specialist Urban Search and Rescue teams to Japan to help out. It's just so sad that we are now reciprocating Japan's own generosity towards us in our hour of need, so very soon.

You can stay up to date with the Japanese situation here.

Crime Fiction in the news and on the 'Net: Weekly Round-up

There's been some more great crime fiction stories on the Web this past week - from newspapers, magazines, and fellow bloggers. Hopefully you will all like finding an interesting article or two linked here, that you enjoy reading.

Before we dive into it however, I thought I'd just quickly mention a couple of things. As many of you will be aware, down here in New Zealand our second largest city, Christchurch, suffered a huge earthquake last Saturday, causing billions of dollars worth of property and infrastructure damage. Historic buildings and homes have been lost, the University and schools closed (some temporarily, some perhaps permanently), people have been staying in shelters or with friends or neighbours, and plenty of businesses have been shut for days, at a time they were already walking an economic tight-rope thanks to the after-effects of the global financial crisis. By some absolute miracle, no one was killed - meaning that despite all the damage that will take weeks and months to repair (and some things will never be the same), long after the front-page headlines and nightly news soundbites and lead stories have ebbed, generally there is quite the feeling of 'we got lucky'.

There will be plenty of tough times ahead for the city where I went to University however, so if you would like to help, then I'd ask that you consider donating to an appeal that has been established by APN News & Media, who own several newspapers in New Zealand, including the Weekend Herald, who I have written several crime fiction related articles for.

You can go here to read more about this appeal - APN has kickstarted things with a $100,000 donation, and all funds raised will be donated to the Christchurch Mayoral Earthquake Appeal and be administered by the Red Cross, so you can be assured this is all legitimate. Please take a look and consider helping. I will put the link at the top of the sidebar for the next few weeks as well, as a reminder. Please consider helping out - long after the media stops covering the story in such depth and detail, the locals will still be feeling the effects and trying to rebuild the city and 'get back to normal'.

As many of you will know, the Canterbury earthquake also led to the cancellation earlier this week of the 2010 The Press Christchurch Writers Festival, and the postponement of the inaugural Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel, which was due to be presented at a marquee event last night. I will keep you informed of what happens moving forward with the Award, as and when decisions are made. Thank you for all the messages of support, I appreciate them - but I would note that I was only a small cog in the larger Festival wheel, and that it's those based in Christchurch who put their heart and soul into Festival planning and preparation for months on end that I really feel for, especially given the tough weeks ahead for their community. Hopefully we will be able to do something with the eventual Award announcement to support the Christchurch community, when the time is right.

Onto the round-up.

Crime Watch Weekly Round-Up: In the News and on the 'Net

• Shane Gilchrist of the Otago Daily Times talks to award-winning British crime writer RJ Ellory, who has been visiting New Zealand this past week, about his long road to publication, setting his tales States-side, and the importance of character in crime writing.
• Blanche Clark of Australia's Herald-Sun interviews Val McDermid about her latest novel, TRICK OF THE DARK, and the ongoing evolution and supreme popularity of crime fiction.
• Jemima Laing of the BBC shares the recipe (and story behind) the 'Delicious Death' chocolate cake that will be part of the Agatha Christie 120th birthday celebrations.
• Linda Fort looks at the terrific line-up for the upcoming Reading Festival of Crime Writing, which kicks off today in the UK (most of the events are later this week and next weekend).
• Pablo Toledo of the Buenos Aires Herald has an interesting interview with Irish crime writer John Connolly.
• STV.tv interviews Scottish osteopath turned crime writer Caro Ramsay about "killing for a living" and her third and latest thriller DARK WATER (video interview and print article).
• Mark Smith of the Moonee Valley Leader talks to Australian crime writer PD Martin, who will be appearing at this month’s north-west Melbourne Business and Professional Women’s Club breakfast in Essendon on 24 September.
• Terence Brown of the Irish Times reviews OUR KIND OF TRAITOR by John le Carré, while also making some interesting observations about the growing 'weight' and respectability of crime and mystery writing.
• Betsy Price of The News Journal in Delaware looks at the part marketing, festivals, author tours etc play in the success of authors, using the experiences of mother and son crime writing team 'Charles Todd' as an example.

What do you think of the round-up? Which articles do you find interesting? How important is character in crime writing? Why do you think crime fiction is the biggest (best?) genre of all? Do you like the sound (or the taste) of the 'Delicious Death' celebratory chocolate cake? How important are author tours and events to building readership? Please share your thoughts. I'd love to read what you think.