Weird As: Pip Adam's Science Fiction

In Pip Adam’s newest novel, a spaceship is hurtling towards the event horizon. Squashed immobile into its rooms are three giants: Alba, Stanley and Drew. If they talk, the spaceship keeps moving; if they are silent, they resume growing. Audition is part science fiction, and part social realism. It has been described as “weird as fuck”, mind-melting, thrilling, and a total masterpiece. Audition was shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Pip explores the wondrous and disquieting themes of this challenging book with Rachael King.

Pip Adam is a writer, novelist and creative writing teacher. She has published five novels and won several awards including the Acorn Foundation Prize for Fiction for I'm Working on a Building (2013), the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction for the short story collection Everything We Hoped For (2010) and New Zealand’s top literary award, the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize for 2018, with The New Animals. Pip says she writes to try and understand things that confuse her. She is currently based in Christchurch, where she holds the University of Canterbury Ursula Bethell Residency in Creative Writing.

Rachael King is a well-known New Zealand writer, reviewer, former literary festival director and ex-bass player. She is the author of Red Rocks, a novel for children which won the Esther Glen Medal in 2013 and is currently in development for television. She has written two adult novels, which have been published in nine different languages. Rachael was the programme director of the WORD Christchurch Festival for eight years. She received a special award from the New Zealand Society of Authors for her role in securing the freedom of exiled Kurdish writer Behrouz Boochani and in 2023 was named Best Reviewer at the Voyager New Zealand Media Awards.