Auckland Writers Festival: Brits Walliams and Mitchell charm crowd

David Walliams, and David Mitchell. Photos / Supplied

In front of an enthusiastic audience at the Auckland Writers Festival on Saturday morning, comedian and bestselling children's author David Walliams recounted how the inspiration for one of his villains came from his experience judging Britain's Got Talent. One day, a Talent hopeful came in sporting long black hair, dark glasses and false teeth, and he wheezed: "I'm going to eat live cockroaches!"

Says Walliams: "Simon Cowell doesn't like people much but he does like animals, so he got buzzed off."

But Walliams was fascinated, and thought "if he eats cockroaches, what else would he do? He might turn rats into burgers."

And thus the idea for Ratburger was born.

Next in ASB Theatre was novelist David Mitchell. Charmingly polite and quietly funny, he recounted how reading Ursula Le Guin books as a nine-year-old made him decide that he too would like to write. Thirty seven years later, he was delighted when Le Guin herself reviewed his latest book The Bone Clocks for The Guardian - but he's too nervous to read the review.

When asked about what inspires him, he said his problem was not knowing what to leave out. "Everything is the tip of an iceberg, you've just got to open it." Then, catching himself: "You can't open an iceberg! Metaphor collapse!"

At the Auckland Writers Festival, suspense novelist and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz was introduced as "a master of life and death" and the fast talker joked that he left the Midsomer Murders writing team after the first seven episodes because there seemed to be no characters left to kill off.

The author of "adult books for kids" such as the Alex Ryder spy adventure series credits JK Rowling for transforming children's literature from the "Cinderella" of the publishing world to its queen.

He emphasised that the Ryder series, which places its 14-year-old hero in a "hostile world", was a direct response to the build-up to the Iraq war, which showed the UK secret service to be untrustworthy: "It was obvious they were lying to us."

Horowitz also spoke about writing new James Bond and Sherlock Holmes novels, saying that such continuation stories are "cynical exercises" on the part of money-hopeful publishers, but that following another writer's style is an irresistible challenge. He described Fleming's style as evoking "weltschmerz" or world-weariness, and described Fleming's Bond as "not a very nice man". Homophobic, xenophobic and sexist, Fleming's Bond needed a 21st century makeover.

Horowitz' advice to young writers included "do something illegal, don't get caught".

In spite of - or perhaps because of - a lack of dissenting voices on the "Designing Auckland" panel, passion ran so high among attendees that they interrupted panellists with shouted questions. Audience members at the over-subscribed free event wondered about housing affordability and who would pay to decrease Auckland's auto-dependence so it is no longer an "energy hungry beast". Although it wasn't stated so baldly, the underlying answer to both questions was higher housing density.

Photographer and TransportBlog.co.nz contributor Patrick Reynolds was the most charismatic panelist, arguing that dense cities are actually the answer rather than the cause of issues such as pollution: "New Zealand was founded on an Arcadian ideal but the problem with Arcadia is that there are no humans in it ... We need to accept urbanity - this city has the potential to be the best urban place on the planet."

The panel identified Auckland's biggest issues as the geographical divide between rich and poor, and the lack of public transport. The second issue exacerbates the first, as good public transport would allow more equitable access to work and educational opportunities.

Not a moment too soon, panel chair and architectural commentator Tommy Honey added housing to the list. He had a message for intensification nimbies: if Auckland absorbs its growth by "growing its arms longer" via greenfield sites on its outskirts, that means new infrastructure, higher costs and higher rate increases. "I'm over people generalising and saying how we want to live, that we [all] want to live with a backyard," he said.

At least one happy renter in the audience, with no desire to mortgage her life, agreed with him wholeheartedly.

In another free event, Atholl Anderson and Aroha Harris talked about why their illustrated history Tangata Whenua, written with the late Judith Binney, could be considered a science book (it won the 2015 Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book prize on Friday).

Seven years in the making, the overview book covers an impressive and unprecedented 5,000 years, presenting information uncovered by genetics, linguistics, environmental sciences, climate change science, archaeology, anthropology and sociology. Knowledge is changing so fast in many of the disciplines that some chapter drafts were made obsolete and needed to be reworked before publication. The book also discusses Maori art, literature and sport (the authors argued about how much rugby to put in the book).

At the same time, Satirists At Large session chair Stephen Stratford was telling Steve Braunias and David Slack: "There's one question I know everybody here wants me to ask: you can dish it, but can you take it?"

Braunias' answer: a flat "no". A couple of months back, a Mark Lundy defence lawyer sent him a satirical "Diary of Steve Braunias". Braunias was mortified and thought he was being attacked. Turns out it was all done in good humour.

On the other hand, Slack has a regular radio slot with Rodney Hide, and therefore is used to being the resident leftie punching bag for half an hour every week.

And what do their own victims think? Braunias, deadpan: "I don't care." Slack, who writes a spoof obituary column for Metro, read out an almost illiterate complaint about how "disguising" his writing was, from a family member of one of his subjects.

"I won't tell you who it was," said Slack.

"But I will," said the wicked Braunias, revealing the complainant was the sister of none other than Judith Collins.