The third panel discussion for secondary students is part of a series of 10 New Zealand Book Council WordSpace Digital Conversations, and involves two New Zealand fiction writers.

Fiction Fiesta

DATE: Tuesday 21 June
TIME: 1.30pm – 2.30pm

Each author will open up a conversation and talk to a specific focus. Please make sure students are familiar with at least one of their works and have burning questions to ask.

Barbara Else

Focus: The difference between "showing" and "telling" – reshaping elements from real life in fiction.

Else will read from The Case of the Missing Kitchen (pp 21/22, 29/30), a family satire about three sisters and the tangled love life of the youngest, who is a misfit. Else is currently drafting a film script based on her novel The Warrior Queen and writing a new novel.

"Else is known as a funny novelist," writes the New Zealand Herald. "Her humour is quieter, deeper, found in her dark, sardonic point of skew, in her quirky, wry vignettes that are a fond satire of modern middle class life and those who live it..."

Titles include: The Warrior Queen (1995), Gingerbread Husbands (1997), Eating Peacocks (1998), Three Pretty Widows (2001), The Case of the Missing Kitchen (2003); books for children, Skitterfoot Leaper (1997), Tricky Situations (1999).

Elizabeth Knox

Focus: Fantasy and non-realism

Knox will read from her forthcoming book, Dreamhunter.

The Washington Post writes: "In Daylight, Elizabeth Knox has written a Northanger Abbey for the new century, an entertaining fiction that offers a potent summation and critique of a weary genre. Her style is meticulous and dreamlike, moving with a languor worthy of its nightwalkers... not just another vampire novel."

Titles include: After Z-Hour (1987), Treasure (1992), Glamour and the Sea (1996), The Vintner's Luck (1998), autobiographical writing, The High Jump: a New Zealand Childhood (2000), Black Oxen (2001), Billie's Kiss (2002), Daylight (2003).

TO REGISTER FOR THIS VIDEO-CONFERENCE, CONTACT digitalconversations@cwa.co.nz BY FRIDAY 17 JUNE 2005.
Telephone: (04) 382 6506.