Writers offer different take on pub crawl
Ever cried over a fictional character? Or wondered how drag queens fit into a literary festival?
It’s time to take a look at a different side of literary festivals as LitCrawl hits the capital’s streets this weekend.
Guest curator Chris Tse, a writer and poet, is overseeing six of the more than 40 events at this year’s LitCrawl
– a four-day literary festival with the main event taking place over one night.
Instead of your standard pub crawl, punters make their way between different literary events.
But this isn’t your standard festival.
‘‘I think people expect events to be three or four people on stage talking but the best events are where writers have been asked to write something especially for the event,’’ Tse said.
In Memoriam, an event curated by Tse, five writers and comedians will look at the fictional characters that readers have lost over the years. Each panellist will write a eulogy for a character from a book, play or movie.
‘‘I think that’s the power of books and plays and movies – even in a short amount of time we do develop these connections to the characters,’’ Tse said.
The sombre atmosphere would probably
be set with funeral tunes, although Tse said the use of memorial candles had been ruled out, as In Memoriam would be held in the Arty Bees Bookshop.
But there’ll be a dramatic tone change when Tse switches to another one of his events: Lit-Sync For Your Life.
Three writers have poems ready to go and three drag performers are ready to lipsync along to them.
For Tse, guest curating certain events at the festival was a way to bring in fresh voices and voices that people wouldn’t normally hear from.
‘‘The way I approached it was I want to curate events I would want to see and would want to be in myself.
‘‘I wanted to bring in people you don’t necessarily see at literary festivals.’’
Other LitCrawl events include reading sessions, live poetry, music and much more.
The literary festival is celebrating its fifth year and was a ‘‘great way to showcase Wellington’’, as people moved through the streets from venue to venue.
While the main focus will be on a crawl itself, taking place on Saturday night, the festival hosts an extended LitCrawl, with events happening from Thursday.