Last week’s Auckland Writers Festival sold a record number of tickets and books. It was the biggest in the festival’s 27-year history, with ticket sales up 15% on 2025. And let's not forget, the week before Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival broke attendance records too. Historically, there’s been an overwhelming ratio of grey hair in the Aotea Centre during the days of the festival, but this year saw a more balanced array of strands. The two spinoff mini-festivals focused on younger audiences, Street Side and Plot Twist, were humming. Dav Pilkey’s sold-out event on Sunday morning saw about 2,000 children, many dressed as Dog Man, descend on Aotea Square and by all reports the schools programme during the week was a blast.
Perhaps the biggest insight, gathered from the festival’s success, is that books are vessels for so much more. The ideas they introduce people to, the windows they open to other lives and worlds, the communities of readers and writers, and a desire to be with, and think, with others. But I have a few other practical insights, aimed at the artists and writers among us, that I gleaned from The Big Idea’s three-part mini series at the Kōrero Corner and other sessions I managed to get to.
The slush pile is not a promising route to getting published
In our Industry Insights: Publishers Edition, Grace Thomas, currently at Penguin Random House NZ, said that in her 12-year career she has only published two books from the “slush pile” – that being widespread slang for unsolicited manuscripts that are sent in to publishing houses. A few weeks ago Penguin Random House NZ opened the doors to submissions for one week and had over 800 manuscripts come in. You do the math.
Thomas said that there’s plenty of great manuscripts in the slush pile, but that they simply might not fit into the market, or sell as many copies as a commercial publisher would need to make a business case. She said she wished people understood the work of a publisher is more active than simply gatekeeping what comes in – there’s a lot of commissioning and shaping.
Understand your audience and where to find them
When Kaarina Parker wrote Fulvia, historical fiction about the life of a remarkable woman in the dying days of the Roman republic, she didn’t expect a whole lot of New Zealanders to suddenly become fanatics of ancient Rome, or historical fiction for that matter. “Fair enough,” she said wryly in our author edition of Industry Insights. She knew that her audience was overseas, and so she sought out an agent (which took a year), who was able to secure her a publishing contract with Bonnier Echo in the UK.
Even greats like Claire Mabey experience a lack of confidence
In the same session, Claire Mabey, author of award-winning The Raven’s Eye Runaways and its sequel The Raven’s Eye Rebellion, said, “I have always wanted to be a writer and always been a book person… I’m a good reader, so I’d look at these amazing works and think, ‘I don't know how to do that.’ I just didn't have the confidence.” Two things led her to take her writing seriously. Having a child made her realise “time goes extremely fast” and then a world-building writing workshop with Elizabeth Knox, “my hero,” gave her the “pure encouragement" that led her to commit to write, and finish, her first book.
Consider contractually protecting your work from AI
In a panel titled Authors and AI: A Moment of Reckoning? author Catherine Chidgey, whose work was illegally scraped by Anthropic to train Claude and is part of a lawsuit in the US, said that in the final proofing stages of her forthcoming book, a note was added to the colophon (the page at the start of a book with copyright and other information). The last-minute note states that the book is not to be used for training AI. The chair of the panel, Claire Mabey, said she had a similar protection written into her latest contract. It must be noted that both authors had to request these – at the moment it seems these protections are not standard throughout the industry.
There’s another way you may want to protect your work too. Some publishers are starting to label books as “human made” with little stickers, like award badges on wine bottles. If you’ve read Karen Hao’s book Empire of AI, you’ll know just how important it is that we celebrate and support those staying away from AI tools (with exceptions for niche, ethically made ones). And had you been there, you’d know the importance of making it known. In a little “game” Chidgey read out two passages. One was written by her, from The Book of Guilt, and the other by an AI, following a detailed prompt around what happened in the particular scene. The audience was asked to raise their hand depending on which they thought was written by Chidgey. More than half raised their hand at the passage written by AI. It was discussed after that while AI may be able to ‘pass’ in a short passage given a long and detailed prompt, much of the creativity had already been imputed via the prompt, and once AIs try to construct narratives or characters it all falls apart. Still. “It makes me anxious,” said Chidgey, who has seen it creep into the writing workshop she teaches.
The selling of books happens at a personal level
In the third and final Industry Insights panel, What’s next?, I asked legendary bookseller Carole Beu, owner of The Women's Bookshop for 37 years and counting, what makes people buy a book. She said it always has been, and continues to be, word of mouth. At her bookshop on Ponsonby Road, staff also pick out their favourites and hand-write a review to clip on the cover. Often, they’ve read advance copies, and if they like them will recommend those books to browsers. Social media has an impact too, with some customers coming in to find a book they’ve seen recommended online. All in all, it seems people buy books because someone they trust has told them they will enjoy it.
The final bosses are ego, taste, and money
Tony Tulathimutte, author of Private Citizens and Rejection, said in a session that for writers, the “final bosses,” aka the ultimate adversaries at the end of a video game, are ego, taste, and money. He experienced 19 rejections when trying to publish his first book, so one can imagine any ego was shattered. Tulathimutte noted that even very successful works of literary fiction likely won’t earn their authors a living – they simply don’t sell at the scale needed, and one must factor in all the things that eat into the book’s cost before it filters to the writer. As well as his writing, described by some as perverted, Tulathimutte is known for running a writing workshop from his Brooklyn apartment that has kept him afloat.
There’s a bad first book you have to get out of the way
During her Debut of the Day session, Laura Vincent said that before the Ockham finalist Hoods Landing she had written another novel, and that it was terrible. She said that every writer has a bad first book they need to “get out of the way” before writing a good one. Kaarina Parker went through a similar process to get to Fulvia. She spent about 8 years working on a book, couldn’t get it published, and realised it needed to be a completely different form. She “basically scrapped everything” and then spent a year writing Fulvia.
Have the purpose of your book in mind to keep you on track
In the final session of the festival, Jacinda Ardern shared some of the struggles behind writing her award-winning memoir, A Different Kind of Power. One was a disconnect between feeling pressure to explain some of the decisions she made while in office, and the book she wanted to write. She had an imagined audience in her head that wanted to see proof points of her policies, the machinations behind the scenes, deep political conversations and analysis – people she still felt she had to prove herself to. She worried, “if I didn't write that, then they were going to really have a go”. And yet it kept getting in the way of the book – she wrote 40,000 words on the Covid response, but they weren’t the right ones. So she called a friend who told her to “burn” that other book in her head. Then an editor gave her good advice about those 40,000 words. They told her to write as if it had happened a decade ago, to consider what would still be important then. “And so I mentally in my mind burned the book for the political columnists, and wrote the other one,” she said.
💥News on the wire
Ministry for Culture and Heritage on the chopping block
Along with three ministries already facing the axe and 25 other core public service departments, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, which employs 125 people, has been put on notice to cut costs in Nicola Willis’ pre-budget speech on Tuesday. The 25 departments will need to cut costs by 2% at this year’s Budget, and then 5% next year and the year after, according to Willis’ plan. I understand these cuts factor into the 8700 public sector jobs that are to go by mid-2029 and the projected $2.4 billion of savings in the government’s books over the next three years.
New gallery repurposes vacant space in Auckland CBD
Those familiar to the city will also be familiar with a plethora of for lease signs and empty facades. A new gallery, Poached, has come about through the short-term donation of a space behind Victoria Park Market, and aims to turn the emptiness into opportunities. The ex-office building is being put to use for exhibitions, events, and community building by a group of recent graduates and students – and as pointed out to me via email, photos don’t do the space justice, and it is not a dungeon! Poached is currently open to proposals, especially from contemporary artists operating in conventional and unconventional mediums and modalities and who might not otherwise have the access to express themselves within the highly commercialised art market. “We are open to just about anything you might think of,” the group says. This includes full exhibitions or smaller bodies of work to be curated into a wider thematic project. Email them at poachpoached@gmail.com
Laura Vincent’s Hoods Landing to be published in the UK and US
“I fell headfirst for Laura’s novel and greatly admire the originality, warmth and humour of her storytelling,” says Editor Juliet Garcia at London-based publisher Pushkin Press. “It made me weep and laugh in equal measure, and is exactly the kind of life-affirming literary fiction that I know will resonate with readers internationally.” Āporo Press announced the sale of rights (excluding Aotearoa New Zealand rights) of Laura Vincent's debut novel to Garcia in a deal brokered by Damien Levi this week. Hoods Landing has been a critical and commercial success here in Aotearoa, notably shortlisted for the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction. Pushkin Press plans to publish the book in the UK this November and the USA in 2027, and pursue translation opportunities. “I hope the Spice Girls and Nigella Lawson read it,” says Vincent.
Che fu to be inducted to New Zealand Music Hall of Fame
Pioneer of conscious hip hop in Aotearoa Che Fu will be formally inducted into Te Whare Taonga Puoro o Aotearoa | the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame at the 2026 Aotearoa Music Awards on 28 May at The Civic in Tāmaki Makaurau, thanks to Recorded Music NZ. Che Fu is one of the most significant local artists of his generation, having come up through Tāmaki’s 90s High Street scene, where he received a foundational education about DJ culture and hip hop via the likes of eclectic tastemaker Manuel Bundy. He found success fronting 2014 Hall of Fame inductee Supergroove as a teen before launching his own solo career. He remains embedded in the nation’s musical consciousness with chart-topping hits like Chains, Misty Frequencies and Fade Away.
Play It Strange junior songwriting competition winners announced
After receiving 176 original song entries from Year 9-11 students across Aotearoa, Play It Strange has announced the winners and finalists of the 2026 Junior Songwriting Competition. Luke Van Wyk, a Year 11 student from Rolleston College in Canterbury, has won first place for his song PAY LATER. Second place was awarded to Sienna Fitzgerald, a Year 11 student from Northcote College in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, for her song Clarity. Dornia Silupe-Ulumanithe, artist name Dornia, a Year 11 student from Onehunga High School, won third place for her song Home of the gone.
In addition, 48 finalist songs have been selected to be professionally recorded in studios across Aotearoa. Each songwriter will have the opportunity to spend an entire day in a professional recording studio of their choice, bringing their original song to life in an industry-standard environment.
NZSA Ngā Kaituhi Māori Mentorship recipients announced
Four emerging writers have been selected for the Mentorship Programme, with a six-month opportunity to work closely with an acclaimed Māori writer as their mentor to hone their tuhituhi ability and, in the process, evolve and refine a work toward a publishable manuscript, thanks to Ngā Kaituhi Māori and The NZ Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa. The recipients are Marni Adlam (Muriwhenua/Ngāpuhi/Te Whakatōhea) who will be mentored by Steph Makutu, Renee Karena (Ngāpuhi, Hauraki, Ngāti Maniapoto) who will be mentored by Atakohu Middleton, Kitty Moran (Waikato-Tainui) who will be mentored by Shelley Burne-Field, and Rosemary Putaranui (Waikato, Kahungunu and Nga Puhi) who will be mentored by Emma Hislop.
First Indian Film Festival of New Zealand announced for October
The festival aims to celebrate Indian cinema while strengthening creative and economic ties between India and New Zealand. Founded and directed by Petrina D’Rozario, TIFFNZ will be held across multiple cities, to celebrate the richness and diversity of Indian cinema, amplify South Asian and diasporic voices in Aotearoa, and foster social cohesion through a programme of 30 films. TIFFNZ will also host industry workshops, masterclasses, networking events, and curated cultural programmes designed to encourage collaboration between the Indian and New Zealand screen sectors. The festival will officially launch on 2 June, hopefully with some film announcements!
👀 Further reading
Our arts development and funding agency is undertaking one of the most fundamental shifts New Zealand has ever had in how we fund art and artists. Mark Amery talks to CNZ CEO Gretchen La Roche to find out more.
Liv Parker wishes she had “more artsy, intelligent, poetic answers” in her Shameless Plug, but it’s charming nonetheless.
I went along to the NZ Music Month Summit and report back what I learned about how to be a rockstar.
