Living on the edge
The first of this year’s Nelson Arts Festival readers’ and writers’ sessions – now under the new name Page & Blackmore Pukapuka Talks – will see two debut authors, Miriam Lancewood and Chessie Henry, discuss what led them to write intimate memoirs that explore powerful themes of love, courage, family and survival.
The session will take place at 11am on Friday, October 25 – the first of four days of literary events at the Granary Festival Cafe.
Christchurch-based Henry, 27, won the E H McCormick Prize for General Non-Fiction at this year’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards with her debut memoir We Can Make A Life.
To write the book, Henry set up a funding project on Boosted. We Can Make A Life lovingly captures her family on the page, and explores the impact the two biggest South Island earthquakes in recent history had on them.
Henry’s father Chris, a rural GP based in Kaikoura, was honoured with a New Zealand Bravery Medal for his rescue efforts in the CTV Building following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. She relays her father’s story, his struggle through mental illness, and the impact of his career on their closelyknitted family. Then the Kaikoura earthquake hit and displaced the Henrys from their family home.
Joining Henry on stage to explore the meaning of ‘‘home’’ will be Lancewood, who became an international media sensation following the release of her 2017 memoir Woman in the Wilderness: A Story of Love, Survival and Self-Discovery in New Zealand.
Hailing from the Netherlands, Lancewood, 36, tells of living a nomadic life in the Southern Alps for six years with Kiwi husband Peter. During this period, they also walked the length of New Zealand on the Te Araroa Trail.
Their modern-day story of living in the wilderness, hunting and gathering for food, and having no possessions bar the absolute essentials to survive, has captured an enormous amount of interest in an increasingly consumer-driven society.
Tickets for the On the Edge event (earlybird $12, full $16) are available online at nelsonartsfestival.nz and ticketdirect.co.nz, or in person at the Theatre Royal, Nelson Centre for Musical Arts, Nelson i-Site, and Richmond Mall information desk.