Between the Lines 2022 - Local Showcase

Please join us for this fun free event at the Central Hawkes Bay Museum - a celebration to close the third Between the Lines Festival.

This year’s festival finale features talks and readings from local authors Shelley Burn Field, Andrew Cameron, Arron Topp and Greer Tennant. Local musicians The Paruphonics will add a bit of musical flair to the finale.

Shelley Burne-Field (Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Rārua, Samoa, Pākehā) was the only New Zealander to be shortlisted for the prestigious Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2022, awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from the Commonwealth. Shelley’s story Speaking in Tongues is described as being about “loss of language, about community, and about being seen and heard”. Shelley is a fiction and non-fiction writer and graduate of both Te Papa Tupu (Māori Literature Trust) and the Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Auckland. Shelley writes for E-Tangata, and her short fiction has appeared on RNZ and in Newsroom and various anthologies. Shelley’s story ‘Pinching out dahlias’ was the most read short story ever published on Steve Braunias’ curated Reading Room, part of the Newsroom online magazine.

Aaron Topp’s first book, Single Fin (Random House, 2006), is a coming of age tale about a boy obsessed with surfing, based on a true story. The work won the Young Adult Fiction Honour Award at the 2007 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, and was also listed as a 2007 Storylines Notable Young Adult Fiction Book. Since then Aaron has written Creating Waves: How Surfing Inspires our most Creative New Zealanders and Hucking Cody: A Tale of Betrayal, Jealousy, Brotherly Love and Freeriding and the recently released Nor’east Swell.

Author of the book A Nurse on the Edge of the Desert, Andrew Cameron joined the NZ Red Cross in his 40s as an experienced nurse and midwife. Over a 15-year period was deployed on assignments to many countries, especially those devastated by conflict. For six to eighteen months in each location, he worked in Kenya, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan (four tours), Yemen, South Sudan (twice), Djibouti, Iraq and Georgia. While receiving Massey Universities’ Distinguished Alumni Medal in 2015, it was a chance meeting that spurred Andrew to write his story, which then became the book.

Tickets are strictly limited for this free event so be quick!

With thanks to the Central Hawke's Bay Museum for hosting the Festival Finale.