With a line-up of more than 100 presenters and 50 events, Featherston, New Zealand’s only Booktown, is getting ready to welcome over 7,000 visitors to the Wairarapa for another outstanding literary weekend over 8-12 June.
The seventh Featherston Booktown Karukatea 2022 Festival kicks off on Friday 10 June with the now famous Fish’n’Chip supper – with guest speaker the acclaimed writer, Witi Ihimaera. The rest of the weekend will be filled with stellar writers and literary entertainment, starting with Late Nite Lit’s singing sensation Moana Leota and her band putting poetry to music. Brains will buzz all weekend with talks by literary heavyweights, including Dame Fiona Kidman, Patricia Grace, Owen Marshall, Victor Rodger, Roger Hall, Joy Cowley and Selina Tusitala Marsh. There will be red-hot poetry readings, a celebration of Asian-Kiwi writers, political autobiographies, horror stories in a historic hotel, award-winning children’s book illustrators, and discussions on honest and bold memoirs like Megan Dunn’s What I Learned At Art School, and Noelle McCarthy’s Grand.
A highlight will be a tribute to the legendary writers – Witi Ihimaera, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Owen Marshall, Joy Cowley, Renée and Ben Brown – who have delivered the Read NZ Te Pou Muramura (formerly the New Zealand Book Council) Lecture/Pānui on Saturday evening 11 June.
There will also be a strong focus on the Lord of the Rings trilogy twenty years on from the first New Zealand screenings of the Peter Jackson directed films, including a Lord of the Rings quiz.
The Festival programme was launched on Tuesday 26 April at 7:30 PM at the Property Brokers Featherston Sports Hub. Tickets are available at eventfinda.co.nz and the programme is at booktown.org.nz.
“Featherston Booktown is Aotearoa New Zealand’s most intense and welcoming celebration of the artefact of the book – writing them, designing them, publishing them, illustrating them, printing them, and selling them. Booklovers come from all over the country to experience the wonder and expanding power of books and writers. The whole town of Featherston becomes the venue for the Festival and the entire community welcomes our presenters and writers and makes them feel at home,” says Peter Biggs, the Featherston Booktown Trust Chair.
“It’s no easy feat to put on a popular literary festival every year – but Featherston Booktown and its army of generous local volunteers pulls it off with genuine style and warm hospitality.
“This year, we are delighted to innovate and expand our Festival offering with the Festival of Young Readers throughout the Wairarapa region. Our young people are the readers, writers and book shapers of tomorrow and we are excited about the range of experiences on offer through the schools leading up to the Featherston Booktown Festival and during the Festival weekend,” Peter Biggs said.
A Booktown is a small rural town or village where second-hand and antiquarian bookshops are concentrated. Featherston Booktown has welcomed visitors to festivals since 2015 and has been a member of the International Organisation of Booktown since 2018.
All children’s events during the Festival are free, thanks to generous funding from the South Wairarapa District Council, and REAP Wairarapa. This year, kids can be inspired by stories about huge log trucks and riding busses (plus the chance to go for a ride), take part in story-writing workshops with Alan Dingley or Melinda Szymanik, or join author Sonya Wilson on an environmental adventure through her fantasy tale, Spark Hunter. Moira Wairama and Tony Hopkins will also perform Māori, African and Cherokee legends from their travelling show Stories from Here and There.
“One of Featherston Booktown’s goals is to promote literacy and encourage imaginations,” says Peter Biggs. “This year, we will be giving a record-breaking 2,500 book vouchers to local South Wairarapa primary school-aged children. The voucher project has been in place since 2015 and encourages children’s literacy, the exquisite independence of buying their own book, and supports our local booksellers.”
“The Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival continues to go from strength to strength, illustrated by the continued support of our funders and supporters such as Creative NZ, The Lion Foundation, Trust House Foundation, the South Wairarapa District Council, the Macarthy Trust and Eastern and Central Community Trust. We’re all so looking forward to staging live events,” says Mr Biggs.
