Creating a demonic hand puppet is one of the more unusual commissions for Auckland puppeteer Jon Coddington. It's taken a few goes to perfect Tyrone for the premiere of a play called Hand to God about a possessed hand puppet and the impact it has on the Christian ministry at a Texan church. Jon talk to Lynn Freeman about training the cast in the art of puppeteering which is not for the feint hearted. Hand To God will be on at Circa Theatre from 22 April - 20 May.

We're back at Nga Toanga Sound and Vision with the second part on our feature about bringing old commercials back into the limelight. On its new Sellebration online webpage, there are around 300 New Zealand commercials, good, bad and unbearable to be found. This week Lynn Freeman meets some of the team involved in collecting and restoring the ads.

Multi-instrumentalist and studio producer Age Pryor is a natural born collaborator...he's toured the country numerous times performing with groups including The Woolshed Sessions and Fly My Pretties. Age is also a founding member of The Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra. For the last few years this once prolific songwriter hasn't been writing lyrics, concentrating instead on performing. But he's back to writing and his hometown of Wellington is about to hear some of his new tracks at a suburban hall as part of the Old Hall Gigs project appearing with several long time collaborators in A Band With No Name. Lynn Freeman asks Age what he's writing about these days.

Each autumn, around 200 people with a creative itch gather at the Wanaka autumn art school. This is the school's 28th year teaching everything from oil painting and creative writing, to photography and fly fishing. Lynn Freeman travels to Wanaka to find out how it's managed to last so long.

Nicola Gardini, Professof of Italian and Comparative Literature at the University of Oxford was in Wellington this week to attend the Wai Te Ata press launch of the Italian translation of Best New Zealand Poems 2015. Himself a distinguished writer of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his recent novel Lost Worlds was awarded the prestigious Italian literary prize the Viareggio Prize. He's in the studio to share with us his passion for translation.

Imagine waking up in hospital to find that the last ten years of your life have been erased from your memory. People around you have mysteriously aged - and you see that you have too, once you get to a mirror. That's the scenario facing Rebecca in Karen McMillan's latest novel, Brushstrokes of Memory. And if that's not enough, Rebecca discovers she's a cancer survivor.....as is her creator who talks to Lynn Freeman.

Trans Tasman writer Tracy Farr's last novel in 2013 was about the Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt...an imagined early female exponent of the theremin. She talks to Lynn Freeman about her second novel, The Hope Fault, in which she goes in an entirely different direction bringing an extended family together in a house that's up for sale.

LA artist Petra Cortright isn't crazy about two of the labels she's been given....a pioneer of both post-internet art and of the selfie. She prefers - digital painter. Petra finds and manipulates images from the net to create multi layered pictures and videos on her computer. Wellington City Gallery is hosting the first exhibition of her work in New Zealand. Lynn Freeman asks Petra Cortright when she started thinking about a computer as a canvas.

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Since the November earthquake, most of the news about Wellington buildings has been about damaged ones coming down. But developer and engineer Maurice Clark is determined to save the capital's historic buildings. Maurice lovingly restored the quake-damaged deco-style Old Public Trust Building - though at a cost of 10-million dollars. At the moment he's behind a massive renovation of the old Dominion Post buildings on Boulcott Street. Lynn Freeman talks to Maurice White what significant values heritage buildings offer to the city.

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This month marks 56 years since the first television commercial was screened in New Zealand. To celebrate that event - if "celebrate" is the right word! - Nga Taonga Sound & Vision has selected, restored and posted more than 300 ads - TV, film and radio - in an online exhibition called Sellabration. Sarah Johnston, Client Service Co-ordinator for Nga Taonga Sound & Vision talks to Lynn Freeman about the exhibition, and take us back to the 1930s when Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage had to persuade the public that ads on radio should be allowed.