Listener feedback for Saturday 24 August 2019.

Poet and writer Kate Camp is in to talk about Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, the 1977 novel by the renowned American author who died earlier this month. The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was cited when Morrison won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.

Penguin expert Pablo Garcia Borboroglu is the founder and President of the Global Penguin Society, a science-based conservation coalition which has helped protect 32 million acres of habitat and taken over 6,000 children to visit penguin colonies. He is in New Zealand as part of the 10th International Penguin Conference, at the University of Otago, where around 80% of the world's penguin researchers are converging.

Celebrated New Zealand writer Janet Frame's work has never been adapted for the stage. That's about to change with a play based on her iconic novel Owls Do Cry set to premiere in her childhood hometown of Oamaru in October, followed by performances in Auckland. Kim will speak with director Julie Nolan from Red Leap Theatre.

Kevin Briggs is a former highway patrol officer whose intervention has prevented hundreds of people from taking their lives by jumping from San Francisco's most famous bridge. Kim asked the self-styled 'Guardian of The Golden Gate Bridge' what his experiences have taught him about suicide, and empathy, and about the controversial construction of giant stainless steel net to catch people falling from the bridge.

The Dunedin-based poet, writer and critic David Eggleton has just been appointed as New Zealand's next poet laureate, a position he will hold until 2021. Coming to prominence as a performance poet and street performer after dropping out of high school, he's published 8 volumes of poetry, a book of short stories and other non-fiction works. He also edited the arts and literary journal Landfall for 8 years until 2017.

Science alone can't save the planet, according to Oxford ethnobiologist and ordained Anglican minister Andy Gosler. Conservation requires more connection and understanding between people of different beliefs and cultures, he says.

Journalist Sheila Coronel has been investigating thousands of extra-judicial killings in the Phillipines conducted under the guise of president Rodrigo Duterte's 'war on drugs'. Other countries are looking towards The Philippines as a model in their own fight against drug abuse despite the deaths being under investigation by the United Nations. Sheila Coronel is the Director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

This week Corrections announced a new tikanga based strategy with the aim of reducing the Maori prison population from 52% to 16%. Criminal lawyer and youth justice advocate Kingi Snelgar thinks that tikanga and prison are "chalk and cheese" and a much wider reform of the entire justice system will be required to lower the number of Maori in jail. Kim will ask him about his vision for a decolonised justice system and his experiences working as both a Crown prosecutor and defence lawyer within a system he experiences as racist and broken.

Kim Hill reads listener feedback for 17 August 2019.