Smart Talk

Ever wondered why the heart is associated with love, how it beats relentlessly without thought of mind, or why your physical fitness changes your resting heart rate? Understanding how the body works is "physiology" and Julian Paton is a passionate physiologist who insists "Fizziology is phun".

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Is there life out there beyond Earth? And why does it matter? Join former NASA researcher and University of Auckland astrobiologist Professor Kathleen Campbell.

Is there life out there beyond Earth? And why does it matter?

Join former NASA researcher and University of Auckland astrobiologist Professor Kathleen Campbell as she explores the quest for extraterrestrial life in our Solar System, past and present.

She will share the remarkable discoveries that are raising the odds of finding life.

It's a highlight of 2023's Raising the Bar series.

About the speaker

Professor Kathleen Campbell is a geologist and astrobiologist investigating extreme environments as analogues for early life on Earth and possible life on Mars. Originally from the United States, she completed post-doctoral research at the NASA Ames Research Center in California, is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi and is founding director of Te Ao Mārama - Centre for Fundamental Inquiry, a transdisciplinary research centre at the University of Auckland exploring the origin and evolution of the Universe and its life. She teaches paleoecology and astrobiology alongside her research.

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A hundred years after Katherine Mansfield died at the age of 34, six writers and performers share their personal connections to the New Zealand writer's life and legacy.

A hundred years after Katherine Mansfield died at the age of 34, six writers and performers share their personal connections to the New Zealand writer's life and legacy.

Listen to Miranda Harcourt, Stephanie Johnson, Karl Stead, Charlotte Yates. Paula Morris and Redmer Yska speaking at a 2023 Auckland Writers Festival event

2023 marks the centenary year of Katherine Mansfield's too-soon demise from pulmonary tuberculosis.

In New Zealand and across the world, Mansfield is still cherished for her role in shaping modernism and her experimental, genre-defying body of work.

Some literary critics have called her the best short-story stylist of all time.

Stephanie Johnson says:

"Somehow it was planted in my head, as well as the heads of many of my generation, that Katherine Mansfield was an icon up there with Edmund Hillary and Kiri Te Kanawa. A hairstyle later popularised by Mary Quant had already been rocked by KM. The punk desire to die at 30 had already been achieved by KM who almost managed it at 35. The ubiquitous idea that in order to achieve anything you had to leave dull, restrictive New Zealand and never come back was pioneered by KM in 1908. "

Phrases entered our lexicon by osmosis: 'I seen the little lamp!' from The Doll's House being the most well-known, closely followed by 'Risk, risk anything. Care no more for the opinions of others for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth!'

"In the 1980s, like many others, I was further drawn towards Katherine Mansfield the woman, through Cathy Downes's brilliant play The Case of Katherine Mansfield which she performed over a thousand times in six different countries. I suspect others, much later in 2011, were drawn to her by Fiona Samuel's timeless and evocative film Bliss."

"By the time I started to write seriously (and miraculously to be performed or published), I still felt no real connection with Katherine Mansfield. She had left. I had stayed. She had a father who funded her departure and life thereafter. I had a father who loved me, but didn't love the things that I did, and expected me to make my own way in the world."

"It was in Menton  that I read, cover to cover, her collected stories. It wasn't until then that I felt closer to her, less envious of her opportunities, and more admiring of her writing."

About the speakers

Miranda Harcourt…

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To engage young people accustomed to visual storytelling, historian Monty Soutar wrote Kāwai: For Such a Time as This as if it were a movie.

To engage young people accustomed to visual storytelling, historian Monty Soutar wrote Kāwai: For Such a Time as This as if it were a movie.

In this 2023 Auckland Writers Festival event, he discusses the book with Stacey Morrison (Te Arawa, Ngāi Tahu).

Listen to the conversation

A historian with deep knowledge of Māori history (and an ONZM for services to Māori and historical research), Dr Monty Soutar had puzzled over how to communicate his knowledge of subjects like the Māori Battalion and the New Zealand Pioneer Battalion to today's non-book-reading digital generation.

"I thought, well, they watch these screens all the time. Perhaps moving pictures are where I've got to get to if I'm really going to educate them about our past.

"When you read this book, Kāwai, truly it's like watching a movie. So I wrote it with that in mind. Somebody told me, if you can see each scene like you would in a theatre, then you're probably getting there."

"So that was my intention - to write it for young people, to write it like you'd be watching a movie. I didn't realise that by doing that I'd capture everybody."

During his conversation with Stacey Morrison at the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Soutar reveals the inspiration that Alex Haley's 1976 novel Roots provided and how he sold the family home to support himself while writing Kāwai.

Kāwai - the first volume in a planned trilogy - draws on Soutar's lifetime of research into the whakapapa and oral traditions of his own ancestors, beginning with the birth of Kai-tanga near Ruatoria.

He talks with Stacey Morrison (Te Arawa, Ngāi Tahu) in this highlight recorded in May of the 2023 Auckland Writers Festival.

About the speaker

Monty Soutar

Dr. Monty Soutar (Ngati Porou, Ngati Awa, Ngai Tai ki Tamaki, Ngati Kahungunu) is a member of the Waitangi Tribunal. He has worked as a teacher, soldier, university lecturer, museum director and Senior Historian for the Ministry of Culture and Heritage. His best-selling novel Kāwai: For Such a Time as This is the first in a trilogy and was shortlisted for the 2023 Ockham NZ Book Awards.

This session is broadcast thanks to the generous help of the Auckland Writers Festival held in May 2023

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Dr Qu Mai Nguy n Phan's latest novel Dust Child sets out to subvert Hollywood movie stereotypes of Vietnamese women being subservient and passive. She talks to Paula Morris in this highlight of the 2023 Auckland Writers Festival.

Dr Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai's latest novel Dust Child sets out to subvert Hollywood movie stereotypes of Vietnamese women being subservient and passive.

She talks to Paula Morris in this highlight of the 2023 Auckland Writers Festival.

Listen to the conversation

Presenting an alternative to the American gaze, Dust Child highlights the struggles of Amerasians - children born from relationships between American soldiers and Vietnamese women who suffered discrimination and other ill-treatment.

Is it odd for a Vietnamese woman to write in the character of a young Amerasian man? No more than it has been for white American authors to create the recognisable trope of a Vietnamese bar girl, Dr Quế Mai says.

Dr Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is the author of 12 books of poetry, short fiction and non-fiction in Vietnamese and English.

In this discussion with Paula Morris, she speaks about writing in two languages, the importance of decolonising literature in English about her homeland and the need to acknowledge untold stories and silenced trauma.

During the course of a lively session in the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre at Auckland's Aotea Centre, Dr Quế Mai sings a number of songs, including one created especially for the audience in front of her.

About the speaker

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

Dr Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is an award-winning author of eleven books of poetry, short fiction and non-fiction. Her best-selling debut novel The Mountains Sing won the 2021 International Book Award, the 2021 Pen Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award, the 2020 Lannan Literary Award Fellowship for Fiction, and was runner-up for the 2021 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Dr Quế Mai is an advocate for the rights of disadvantaged groups in Việt Nam and was named by Forbes Vietnam as one of 20 inspiring women of 2021. Her latest novel is Dust Child.

www.nguyenphanquemai.com

This session is broadcast thanks to the generous help of the Auckland Writers Festival held in May 2023

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Gaylene's Take is the autobiography of an influential director who created a style of cinema unlike that of male directors of her generation. Dame Gaylene Preston talks about her career at the 2023 Auckland Writers Festival.

Gaylene's Take is the autobiographical memoir of an influential director who created a style of cinema unlike that of male directors of her generation.

Dame Gaylene Preston talks about her career at the 2023 Auckland Writers Festival.

  Listen to the talk

'A beatnik, introverted, smoking, drinking student culture was well established out at Ilam by the time I arrived. The artist took a back seat in society, and so did we.'

Gaylene's Take is not only a story about the difficulties of filmmaking in Aotearoa/New Zealand, but about the making of an influential artist who was determined to create films fulfilling her unique vision of what cinema could be about.

The writer-director of enduring classics such as Mr Wrong, Ruby & Rata, War Stories Our Mothers Never Told Us and My Year With Helen talks about going where others feared to tread with Michelle Langstone.

As a child, Gaylene Preston would sit drawing on the floor under the table round which her mother and female visitors gathered. In this unobserved spot, she would overhear conversations and secrets not meant for her, and she attributes her love of storytelling to this formative time of her life.

Gaylene's Take reflects on the attraction of voices.

In about 1977, I sat in a small house of this old man in his eighties, who was living in what had been his family home. The ghost of his wife was ever-present as he sat on the grey rug thrown over his ancient couch and told me his experiences of the battle of the Somme. I sat there in the little house in with the occasional train woefully passing, listening to his tales of the horror. The blood mixed with mud, and the boys he left behind, as though it had happened only yesterday.

I was stunned.

He assumed I knew much more about the whole sorry tale than I did, as he described terrible things. Hearing the stories of death and destruction, I found some of what he told me surprising. Mysterious. Like the fact that no matter how bad it gets, in the icy rain and rancid mud, the bully beef is always hot.

This is when I fell in love with oral histories. When the teller hits the present tense, you can tell that they're right there. Pure memory. I'm transfixed, barely daring to move, checking that the little cassette tape is recording.

About the speaker

Dame Gaylene Preston

"I believe that the basic responsibility of New Zealand filmmakers is to make films principally for the New Zealand audience. If we don't, no-one else will."…

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Richard Fidler speaks with Jack Tame about The Book of Roads and Kingdoms, bringing to life the dazzling cosmopolitan culture of Baghdad during Islam's Golden Age. A highlight of the 2023 Auckland Writers Festival.

Hear Richard Fidler talk to Jack Tame in this highlight of the 2023 Auckland Writers Festival

The Book of Roads and Kingdoms brings to life a dazzling culture of science, literature, philosophy and adventure arising out of the flourishing metropolis of Baghdad during Islam's Golden Age. Australian writer/broadcaster Richard Fidler recounts how medieval Persian and Arab wanderers ventured by camel, horse and boat into the unknown, bringing back tales of wonder, horror and delight.

Ever curious, Fidler's previous bestsellers have also delved entertainingly into the history of worldly places - The Golden Maze (Prague), Ghost Empire (Constantinople) and Saga Land (Iceland). The host of ABC's Conversations - Australia's most downloaded podcast - speaks with broadcaster Jack Tame about what he describes as a 'crazy quilt atlas of a lost world'.

About the speaker

Richard Fidler

Richard Fidler is the popular presenter of Conversations with Richard Fidler on ABC Radio. He is the author of four acclaimed books blending travel and history: Ghost Empire (Constantinople), Saga Land (Iceland), The Golden Maze (Prague) and latest The Book of Roads & Kingdoms (imperial Baghdad).

This session is broadcast thanks to the generous help of the Auckland Writers Festival held in May 2023

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The world of AI has leapt into focus recently, fuelled by interest in ChatGPT. Prof. Toby Walsh talks to Toby Manhire about its future, in a highlight from the 2023 Auckland Writers Festival.

  Hear Toby Walsh in this highlight of the 2023 Auckland Writers Festival

There are approximately three million robots working in factories around the world, and another 30 million in people's homes. Soon robots will outnumber humans. But what happens if an autonomous AI harms or kills a person, deliberately or accidentally? It will happen. In fact, it already has.

In Machines Behaving Badly, Professor Toby Walsh - Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at UNSW Sydney, and a leading advisor to the UN on lethal autonomous weapons (aka killer robots) discusses a future where machines start to shape society in ways we are not aware of.

Described as a 'rock star of Australia's digital revolution' he explores  whether robots can have rights and the issue of agency with Toby Manhire.

The session begins with an absorbing demonstration of the benefits and pitfalls of using ChatGPT to create original content.

About the speaker

Toby Walsh

Toby Walsh is a Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and author of three books on AI including most recent Machines Behaving Badly: The Morality of AI exploring the ethical challenges of AI such as autonomous weapons.

This session is broadcast thanks to the generous help of the Auckland Writers Festival held in May 2023

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Three Booker Prize winners, Eleanor Catton, Bernardine Evaristo and Shehan Karunatilaka share their experience of being awarded the world's most esteemed literary prize with Karyn Hay at the 2023 Auckland Writers Festival.

  Hear Eleanor Catton, Bernardine Evaristo, Shehan Karunatilaka and Karyn Hay  in this highlight of the 2023 Auckland Writers Festival

It's the Oscars of the writing world - winning the Booker Prize supercharges a writer's career, immediately lifts sales, multiplies overseas deals and opens up opportunities all around the world. But what does this kind of superstardom feel like for the writer on the inside? Three Booker Prize winners, Eleanor Catton, Bernardine Evaristo and Shehan Karunatilaka share their experience of being awarded the world's most esteemed literary prize with broadcaster and author Karyn Hay.

Shehan Karunatilaka:

All awards - Oscars, Grammies, Baftas, Emmies - are all bullshit, until you win one. Then, maybe the Booker is as well, but this year the judges got it right. Up until October I worked in advertising, and if my next book flops I'll be back working in advertising, and I think there's no industry more obsessed with awards. You do your normal day-to-day work for these brands, but then you do these scammy little awards. This happened a lot in the '90s. You had these scam things  winning at Cannes, and all of that.

And you had all these old-school creative directors saying "That's all nonsense. Advertising is about the real work." Until they win an award. When they win the award, it's in the newspapers, and they put Cannes-winning agency presents and all of that.

The thing is, these  are flawed. There's plenty of examples of that. Hitchcock never won for best director. The Beatles won one Grammy, but Post Malone has fifteen. There are many  examples.

But the Booker does have meaning. Even being on a long list, a short list, and obviously - winning. 

About the speakers

Eleanor Catton

Eleanor Catton's latest novel Birnam Wood, follows her Booker Prize-winning epic The Luminaries, and her award-winning debut, The Rehearsal. As a screenwriter she adapted The Luminaries for television, and Jane Austen's Emma for feature film. Born in Canada, she grew up in Aotearoa New Zealand and now lives in the UK.

Bernardine Evaristo…

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Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Colson Whitehead has written The Underground Railroad, The Nickel Boys, and Harlem Shuffle. He talks to Kim Hill at the 2023 Auckland Writers Festival.

Hear Colson Whitehead in this highlight of the 2023 Auckland Writers Festival

In his novel John Henry Days, the author Colson Whitehead includes moments of humour which appeal to Kim Hill. She says, "this is a joke I like: Tiny says, 'you know, I don't mean to be un-PC, but I like Little Black Sambo. My mother used to read me Little Black Sambo when she tucked me into bed at night. It's a cute story underneath.' And Jay Sutter says, 'You were undisturbed by the eyeholes cut into the pillow you lay your little head on?'"

To laughter from the audience, she adds, "It's good! They are funny.  The Underground Railroad is not funny. There are no jokes in The Underground Railroad."

Colson Whitehead explains that once he was committed to writing the novel (which posits a world in which there is a real underground railroad transporting slaves fleeing the American South to freedom), he was chose not to avoid that kind of ironic, sardonic, tone.

"I was not going to write a kind of slave story like Gone with the Wind," he says. "I was going to be accurate, and undertaking the research, and coming to the material in my 'forties, rather than being a kid watching Roots, I realised that my props, my jokiness would not fit. And also that it had to be really brutal just to be realistic. And I wanted it to be realistic because my ancestors had somehow survived that."

"Terribly brutal," Kim Hill agrees, and reads from the text:

On the third day, just after lunch, the hands were recalled from the fields, the washerwomen, the cooks and the stablehands interrupted from their tasks, the house staff diverted from its maintenance. They gathered on the front lawn. Randall's visitors sipped spiced rum, as Big Anthony was doused with oil and roasted. The witnesses were spared his screams as his manhood had been cut off on the first day, stuffed in his mouth, and sewn in.

"Did that happen?" she asks…

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