My kids accuse me of overusing the word “exceptional.”
I’ve tried the thesaurus but somehow “singular” and “unique” don’t quite capture my weekend at the Auckland Writers Festival | Waituhi o Tāmaki – my yearly urban retreat.
Sixteen talks (admittedly, a few too many) over three days delivered just what I was looking for: learning, perspective, hope, inspiration and a longer to-be-read pile…
A few of my favourite moments:
✨ New-to-me author Anna Funder describing the power of writing: “words, when they go inside a reader, make magic.” Now keen to read her book Wifedom.
👩🔬 Lessons in Chemistry author Bonnie Garmus – engaging, witty, and bold. She wrote Chapter 1 of her hugely successful book on the afternoon of a really, really bad day at work. Hope that’s not you this week… if it is, get writing!
⚓ With great willpower applied, I bought only one book – Wavewalker by Suzanne Heywood. It’s her own unbelievable story of sailing with her family for 10 years when she was a kid… she wanted to jump ship after the first three years…
🐐 My festival highlight was Trent Dalton. If you haven’t read one of his books, please do. I’ve only just read Lola In The Mirror in preparation for his event (my favourite book of 2024 so far). His works of fiction are based on his lived experience. His great advice to anyone in a bad patch: “This moment won’t be your destruction, it’ll be your creation.”
🙏 Lastly, a start of the week gem for you from the marriage broker in Abraham Verghese’s novel The Covenant of Water: “Most impediments are minor impediments and minor impediments are not impediments.”
Were you there? What was your highlight?
Loved sharing the event with Alison, Pippa, Kate and Angela
It was truly exceptional. Good night 😴