This session from the Going West Festival in 2018 explores creative non-fiction. Award winning novelist, essayist, academic, teacher of creative writing and the founder of the Academy of New Zealand Literature Paula Morris leads a lively discussion on writing true stories, and the demands and possibilities of the essay form and creative non-fiction at a time of upheaval and transformation in the media and publishing landscape. 

She describes her fellow panelists as “all distinguished, all opinionated and all very good non-fiction writers”.  Joining her on stage are journalist, writer and editor Simon Wilson, Susanna Andrew of Unity Books, who is an accomplished editor and reviewer, and economics essayist Shamubeel Eaqub, to discuss non-fiction writing and reading in Aotearoa.

Paula Morris Award winning novelist, short story writer, essayist, teacher and academic

In 2018 she published an essay and short story collection called False River.

Simon Wilson Editor of The Journal of Urgent Writing. Award winning journalist, former editor at Metro, former Auckland editor at The Spinoff, Senior Writer at the New Zealand Herald.

Susanna Andrew Co-editor with Jolisa Gracewood of Tell You What: Best New Zealand nonfiction. Reader, reviewer, editor (bookseller at Unity Books). Instigator of ‘True Stories Told Live’ events at the NZ Book Council, convenor of judges for the non-fiction prize for the NZ Book Awards

Shamubeel Eaqub Economist, author and columnist, economics essayist. Writer of three Bridget Williams Books Text series titles: Generation Rent, Economic Futures, Growing Apart: Regional Prosperity in New Zealand, and with AUP co-wrote with Ralph Lattimore, The New Zealand Economy: An Introduction