Verb Readers & Writers Festival is due to take place between 3 – 7 November 2021. The events below are special, early release events that will happen throughout October in the lead up to the festival week. These events celebrate, in various ways, our theme of ‘coven’, which to them is about coming together to share stories, knowledge and enjoy each other’s good company in the name of books, writing and reading.

Verb Readers & Writers Festival: The Travelling Covens

In which they travel to your house with a fantastic writer, food & gifts to hold an event with you and your own coven.

Theyhave four, one-time only events that can travel to your house. Each event has two possible date options in the month of October so you can choose one of those dates to suit you best. The style of event is an intimate exploration  of creative writing, crafting and reading made for the cosy surrounds of domesticity. And how it works is that one person book the event and shares the cost with their friends (between 5 – 18 people) who all come to the host’s home for the event. They bring everything you need apart from the comfort of your house! These events are their way of honouring domestic writing, and also the fact that home is where so much art is dreamed up and made.

Their four Travelling Coven events are with writers who have particularly special interests: Johanna Knox is a writer and forager; Ingrid Horrocks is an essayist and nature writer who draws on memories of travel (sold out); Stacey Teague is a poet and embroiderer; and Jess Richards is an artist and novelist. Each of these incredible women have crafted a bespoke experience to bring to your home, just for Verb.

Verb Readers & Writers Festival: Early Events

These events take place throughout October in the lead up to the full Verb Readers & Writers Festival across 3 – 7 November (full programme launches on 23 September or earlier if you are a member of our Verb Community).

Bird Collector: Alison Glenny with Pip Adam
6 October, 6pm – 7.30pm
Katherine Mansfield House & Garden
Tickets: $27  | Info & Book

An intimate evening of conversation and readings from Bird Collector, a startling new collection of poetry by Alison Glenny with illustrations by Carrie Tiffany. Hosted by writer and podcast host Pip Adam. Entry includes an after hours look at the Still Life | Wild Places exhibition inspired by the life and writings of Katherine Mansfield, with installations by contemporary female artists, including taxidermists, jewellers and painters. Limited Capacity. Snacks and wine included in your ticket.

Literary Witches
15 October, 12noon
City Gallery Wellington
Free event | More info

Of Literary Witches: A Celebration of Magical Women Writers, written by Taisia Kitaiskaia and illustrated by Katy Horan, author Jia Tolentino writes: “Literary Witches is itself an act of witchcraft, a spellbook to wake the living and the dead … Transformative, revivifying, gorgeous, unsettling, and intensely moving, this book is a volume of poetry, miniature encyclopedia, and twenty-first-century illuminated manuscript all at once.”

Thanks to the magic of the internet they bring the Literary Witches creators to Verb Readers & Writers Festival to talk with Wellington-based artist Catherine Bagnall and writer Jane Sayle (On We Go) about collaboration, inspiration and the generative possibilities of imagination, women and nature. Hosted by Megan Whelan.

Nature Cure: Johanna Knox & Arihia Latham
22 October, 6pm
Innermost Gardens, 31 Lawson Place, Mt Victoria
Tickets: $25 | Info & book
Johanna Knox (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga, Tangata Tiriti) is author of The Forager’s Treasury now in its second, beautiful edition. Join Johanna, with writer and rongoā specialist Arihia Latham (Kāi Tahu), for a conversation about the joy of plants, the challenge and magic of creative writing, and what the nature cure means in this age of a pandemic. Ticket includes tea and cake.

Spooky Bitches of Wellington Walking Tour
31 October, 2pm and 5pm
Tickets: $35 | Info & Book
Join Jessie Bray Sharpin for a tour of Wellington’s ghostly, feminist past. You’ll travel on foot as a contemporary coven learning about the women who came before us and made their own mark on our city streets in this special Halloween edition of Jessie’s Bad Bitches of Wellington walking tours. You’ll receive information on where to meet after you purchase your ticket. Limited Capacity.

Familiars: An Expedition
31 October, 11am – 1pm
Meet at George Denton Park
Tickets: $15–$49 | Info & Book 

Join artist Catherine Bagnall and writer Jane Sayle on an art-nature exploration through Polhill (Waimapihi) Reserve. We gather as a group then transform ourselves by putting on costume pieces (‘familiars’): ears, tails and other furry additions crafted by Catherine. Together they will proceed through Waimapihi in an adventure of nature and the imagination: what aspects of our non-human selves might reveal themselves? We finish with a vegan picnic in the park.Suitable and fun for ages 3 and up. Limited Capacity. Ticket includes picnic.

Surrealist Sisters: Writers Respond
31 October, 2pm
Te Papa – Te Marae, Level 4
Free event | More info
Verb guest curator, poet Rebecca Hawkes, has taken a gathering of writers to experience Te Papa’s latest international exhibition, Surrealist Art: Masterpieces from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Each writer has crafted a written response to the exhibition: what played on their minds? What images and ideas latched on? Find out in this free event in which they’ll hear responses to the stars of surrealism shared for the first time. Featuring: Khadro Mohamed, Rebecca Hawkes, Sarah Scott,  and Jo Randerson, with more to be announced. Presented in partnership with Te Papa.

Book Coven Book Club: with The Pantograph Punch

This year’s Verb Readers & Writers Festival (3 – 7 November 2021) has the theme of ‘coven’. The word is evocative of so much, not in the least ideas of community, magic, creation and circles of knowledge. To celebrate some of the brilliant writers who will feature in the Festival, they have teamed up with The Pantograph Punch to create a book club so we can read books in advance and talk about them together before hearing the authors themselves in the Festival in November.

How it works in a nutshell: Purchase the month/s you’d like. Books arrive to your door (with a stunning book mark designed by Sara Moana who created the image above). Then you get an invitation to an online book club to chat with fellow readers.  Read more about how it works here.

Here is the full list of books we’ll be diving into each month:
Month One (August): Rangikura by Tayi Tibble; and Bird Collector by Alison Glenny
Month Two (September) Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly
Month Three (October) Butcherbird by Cassie Hart
Month Four (November) Isobar Precinct by Angelique Kasmara
Month Five (December) Against the Grain by Melanie Harding-Shaw.

For any Book Coven Book Club questions just ask them by emailing them here. They look forward to reading these amazing books with you!