At the 1997 Going West Festival, author Keri Hulme made a rare public appearance to discuss and read two excerpts from her unpublished novel BAIT, a story of “death and fishing”.

Having New Zealand’s first and notoriously media shy Booker Prize winner at New Zealand’s first literary festival was something our founder Murray Gray had been doggedly pursuing for a number of years.

Hulme eventually acquiesced, appearing on the festival stage for a reading from what was to be her second novel, BAIT. In two engaging excerpts, she carries the audience away to a remote part of the country that’s home to a shifting lagoon, larger than life characters, mystery and whitebait. 

BAIT was never published, but her reading is a tantalising taste of what might have been.

Thanks to Bowmore Islay Malt, who sponsored the original session back in 1997; to the executors of Hulme’s estate, who gave their generous permission for us to share this recording; and to Huia Press, Hulme’s  publisher, for their support in bringing her words to a new audience.

Beloved west Auckland poet Serie Barford was nominated in the NZ Book Awards for Sleeping With Stones, traversing oceans of feeling, expressing the tragic loss of her lover. 

Michael Steven’s third poetry collection in five years, Night School, won the Kathleen Grattan award. His live delivery of his work embodies judge’s David Eggleton’s comment: “lucid precision”.

On the night, as we recorded these readings live at Going West’s Shifted Ground event in April 2022, Michael and Serie held the audience enthralled with every line. We know they’ll do the same for you.

Lucy Mackintosh, Richard Shaw and Pita Turei discuss stories of Taranaki and Tāmaki Makaurau, both ancient and personal, with journalist Tania Page. 

Lucy’s Shifting Grounds: Deep Histories of Tāmaki Makaurau and Richard’s The Forgotten Coast both discuss – from their Pākeha perspectives – the deeply contested narratives of Aotearoa, and how histories become rewritten over time.

In this engaging, illuminating and at times challenging conversation, they unpack the past with manu kōrero Pita Turei — who brings perspectives grounded in the stories of mana whenua — and Tania Page in the interviewer’s chair.