Source: Radio New Zealand
Some of literature’s biggest names – from Aotearoa and around the world – will hit the stage for this year’s Auckland Writers’ Festival in mid-May.
The festival’s 2026 programme features more than 220 artists participating in more than 170 ticketed and free events. Audiences will be among the first in New Zealand to hear former prime minister Jacinda Ardern she talks about her Ockham Awards nominated memoir, A Different Kind of Power.
Other notable names include Mick Herron of ‘Slow Horses’ fame, acclaimed Australian writer Helen Garner and Irish author Roddy Doyle, as well as English novelist Ian McEwen and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.
Local authors on the slate include 2026 Honoured Writer Bill Manhire, Witi Ihimaera, Catherine Chidgey, Tusiata Avia, Charlotte Grimshaw, and Elizabeth Knox.
Younger audiences are being offered ‘Pukapuka Adventures’ – a free programme of family activities – and ‘Plot Twist’, a new branch of the festival aimed at rangitahi that includes zine making, DJs and BookTok meetups. Dav Pilkey, creator of the best-selling Dog Man and Captain Underpants series, will also be attending.
The Auckland Writers’ Festival is one of the largest of its kind in the southern hemisphere, with 85,000 attendees in 2025 and 2024. Artistic director Lyndsey Fineran says she hopes the festival will entertain, enlighten and inform every type of reader.
“Nothing has thrilled me more than seeing attendances soar over the last two years and watching a broader range of readers (and the reading-curious…) fill our theatres.”
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
