Amy Bloom is an American writer and psychotherapist, she is coming to Auckland Writers Festival next month. She is the author of three novels and three collections of short stories. Her latest novel is Lucky Us was named by the Washington Post as one of the top 50 fiction books of last year. The story is about two half sisters who meet for the first time in adolescence and follows their travels across America in the 1940s, as they seek for fame and fortune. Her two previous novels are Love Invents Us and Away. She is the University Writer in Residence at Wesleyan University and she was previously a creative writing lecturer at Yale University.

In May, the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival will host some of the finest poets, authors and journalists from New Zealand and abroad. Chairperson Alexandra Bligh tells Eva what's on offer.

Meg Wolitzer, a leading USA novelist, talks about her extensive career with Kate De Goldi, focusing on a recent highly-awarded novel The Interestings.

The symbol 'X' can mean many things - X marks the spot where the treasure is hidden, it's a kiss at the end of a text, a place to put your signature, a mathematical symbol. Vona Groarke is a major voice in Irish poetry and her most recent collection is called X. She joins Wallace to talk about the great legacy of Irish poets.

Journalists Luke Harding, Nicky Hager and Richard King discuss freedom of speech in an era of big data, mass surveillance and the unauthorised release of information on a scale never before seen. The Press Editor Joanna Norris is in the chair.

The UK journalist discusses the extraordinary story of Edward Snowden, and considers the action of spy agencies and their mass surveillance of populations the world over. Harding's interaction with the spies was sometimes sobering, sometimes absurd.

Actor for stage and screen, broadcaster, director, designer, producer and musician, who will be speaking about family memoir, Not My Father's Son, at the 2015 Auckland Writers Festival.

Damian Barr's first book Get it Together: A Guide to Surviving your Quarterlife Crisis. He interviewed 200 people in their twenties, showing that for most, their attitudes to work were their main source of anxiety. He followed that up with his memoir, Maggie and Me about growing up gay in Thatcher's Britain. Damian Barr is coming to New Zealand for the Dunedin Writers Festival and the Auckland Writers Festival.

An intensely personal memoir by one of the country's leading writers of fantasy, exploring the roots of her interest in alternative reality, and intertwining her own story, and that of her family into a remarkable account of a writer and her times.

Writer and illustrator Dav Pilkey has scored a huge worldwide hit with the childrens series Captain Underpants - ratcheting up sales of more than 70 million. Dav Pilkey is coming to NZ as part of the Auckland Writers Festival.