Verb Festival 2023
Verb Festival 2023
Based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Verb Festival is a big, beautiful party that celebrates books, reading, ideas, information and conversation.
The 2023 Festival — representing its 10-year anniversary — was programmed by Rangimarie Sophie Jolley (Waikato-Tainui) and Trinity Thompson-Browne (Ngāti Kahungunu, Muaūpoko) - ngā kaitiaki o te mauri o Te Hā o Ngā Pou Kaituhi Māori; Damien Levi (Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi); Rosabel Tan; and Chris Tse.
How do writers find themselves shapeshifting as they move across different mediums? Three multi-tentacled artists — Freya Silas Finch, Samuel Te Kani and Ana Scotney — speak with Brita McVeigh about how their voice, their process and their storytelling morph across film, theatre, music and prose — and what Jane Campion’s A Wave in the Ocean filmmaking school has taught them about themselves.
Bad Advice for Good Characters
Got a problem? These characters do. Novelists Pip Adam, Tīhema Baker and Emily Perkins join artist Jo Randerson to figure out as a group what their ‘friend’ should do about ‘a very real issue’ they need advice on — though whether they end up taking that advice is another question altogether.
The Official* Bananagrams World** Cup 2023
Granmas, gamers, anagrammers! Start limbering up your word engines!
Taking place for the first time in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, you are invited to compete for the highly-coveted title of Top Banana 2023. Sign-ups will be first-in, first-served and each championship round will be hosted and refereed by top New Zealand Scrabble player and poet, Nick Ascroft.
*Please note: this is not an official Bananagrams event
**Wellington
Choose from a selection of high-rotation poems to perform to a rapt audience of friends and strangers. Hit Me Baby One More Rhyme is a sparkling love letter to two of our favourite art forms. Presented by Satellites with poetry curated by Chris Tse, this experience features chart-toppers like Mohamed Hassan, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Tayi Tibble and William Shakespeare. Hosted by Brannavan Gnanalingam, Jerome Chandrahasen, and Rose Lu.
In their new memoir, One of Them, Shaneel Lal details their childhood in Fiji where they were brutally punished simply for being themselves. “I was abused by the very people who were meant to protect me,” writes the activist, model and 2023 Young New Zealander of the Year. These experiences fuelled their fight against conversion therapy in Aotearoa, leading to it being banned in 2022. In conversation with Emily Writes, they’ll speak about their life, their work, and their hopes for the future.
“One of Them is a fierce account of defiance and will be cherished among all those whose lives they’ve fought to protect” — Kete Books
Photos by Rebecca McMillan.
