Tips for a Better World

March delights at the Salon

Did you know the New Zealand Society of Authors holds a SALON once a month to which all are warmly welcomed?

March and April Salons feature two of Dunedin's most well-known and talented writers, Neville Peat and Phillip Temple, along with two of this city's emerging writers, Rachel Ovens and Mira Harrison-Woolrych.

Neville Peat has written extensively about New Zealand 's natural environment, and was made a member of the New Zealand order of merit for services to conservation in the 2018 New Year Honours. On 11 March he joins us to talk about his new book The Invading Sea in which he investigates the hazard of a warming sea and the risky posed to many low-lying communities, of particular interest to many in Dunedin.

Joining Neville is Rachel Ovens, author of The Tale Of Mrs Possum: A Reflection On New Zealand Society, an eclectic accumulation of facts, stories, diagrams and personal narrative. With over 30 years experience of working in the New Zealand health industry Rachel writes with passion about our medical system, tackles topics as diverse as ethics and religious values to the prostitution reform act and the history of deforestation.


On 8 April Philip Temple will read from Life as a Novel: A Biography of Maurice Shadbolt, Volume Two, 1974 onwards. Volume One covered how Shadbolt made his mark as a fiction writer, his role in political protests of the time, anti-Vietnam War, French nuclear testing. and Shadbolt's close friendships with James K. Baxter and leading painters such as Colin McCahon, a fascinating tale about a man who became New Zealand's most well known and controversial author.

Reading on the same night is Mira Harrison-Woolrych, whose first book, a collection of short stories, was launched in December 2018 by Steele Roberts. Eight women share their experiences of life in a public hospital in New Zealand; fictional tales of doctors, nurses, cooks and cleaners, working at the heart of clinical medicine, keeping a struggling institution operating, while navigating the highs and lows of their own supposedly ordinary lives. The linked narratives each unveiling the ever-present, ever-changing balance between professional and private worlds.
To listen to these authors come along to Salon, on the second Monday of each month, at the Atheneaum Library - tucked away between The Craic and Thistle - in the Octagon. 

Readings start at 7pm.

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