Grumbling bellies, gurgling pipes and THAT word

Pea soup weather in Wellington has fouled up the first big session of the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival. The panel of "three of New Zealand's most original young writers" is reduced to two - Laurence Fearnley and Kella Ana Morey - with Jo Randerson stranded in the capital.

Fearnley and Morey, chaired by Catherine Chidgey, forge on in the cavernous Exhibition Room at the Hilton, the room about 25 per cent full, with awkwardly placed pillars impeding views of the podium.

There's a live video link to various screens round the room, but the cameraman needs calls from the audience to stop looping the sponsor logos and get the writers on instead.

Morey reads an extract from her third (unpublished) novel, about an elderly man and woman living in a flat in London, but her mike levels are erratic and she takes a while to settle into a clear delivery.

Fearnley reads more steadily from her novel Butler's Ringlet, but then the "panel discussion" starts, and one writer actually declares she's quite happy to admit she enjoys ripping off other writers' characters. It's time to zoom upstairs to the Aquamarine Room, where the confident tones of chair Maggie Barry have the more intimate venue full of ladies-who-do-morning-tea in stitches.

One thing to note about the festival site. At the Hilton, the views are lovely, the enterprising coffee vendors are doing a roaring trade in the foyers - but there is not a skerrick of food in sight. Maggie's ladies - there to hear Lynda Hallinan, Sue Linn and Harvey McQueen discuss garden trends - had the added bonus (for which they'd paid $25 a head) of tables laden with scones and jam, tea and coffee, cakes and savouries.

The gurgling stomach of one sorry books editor, who had forgotten to breakfast, threatened to compete with Maggie's pitch so best to leave, just in time to see British writers Alan Hollinghurst and Caryl Philips scuttling along the back corridors, looking like two naughty schoolboys.

Back to the Exhibition Room, where I notice that as well as rumbling stomachs, there's a distracting, frequent gurgle flushing through the exposed overhead pipes. Must be the public loos upstairs.

Randerson has finally arrived, the panel is winding down and there's a gallop towards the "signings".The book retail stands seem to be doing brisk business.

The heavyweights hit the stage for a fuller Exhibition Room session, In Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eyes, with Dame Anne Salmond, Annamarie Jagose and Philip Temple.

These writers are eloquent as they read from their works on real-life historical figures undone by scandal and miscalculation, namely Captain James Cook, missionary William Yate and Edward Gibbon Wakefield.

These are the anti-heroes of their fascinating, terrifying landmark books Trial of the Cannibal Dog, Slow Water and A Sort of Conscience: the Wakefields.

It's gripping stuff, chaired by Peter Wells, who notes that the chapter Jagose chooses to read - same-sex debauchery on the high seas during Yate's 1836 sail to New Zealand (he never made it), was a brave choice. It was. Is it a festival first to use the "c" word?

Festival highlights this weekend

TODAY

Open Mike: BYO Genius: Eight poets and a mike open to the floor. Float Bar, 10am-2pm.
Scalded Alive: Alice Sebold, Douglas Wright, Augusten Burroughs read from their memoirs. Aquamarine Room, Hilton, 10.30-11.30am.
Big Bang Hour: Popular science writer Simon Singh on nuclear physics, the creation of the universe and things in between. Exhibition Room, Hilton, 10.30-11.30am.
Sing Song: Poets Anne Kennedy, Diane Brown, Michele Leggott, Bill Direen. Maritime Museum, 12-1pm.
Book Launch: Elizabeth Knox's new novel, Dreamhunter. Float Bar, 3.15pm
Run For Your Life: Garth Gilmour discusses his biography of Arthur Lydiard, and sports writers Spiro Zavos and Joseph Romanos join the game. Maritime Museum, 4.30-5.30pm.
Co-offenders: A Gang of Three: Entertaining crime, with Chad Taylor, Mark Billingham, Zirk van den Berg. Exhibition Room, 8-9pm.

TOMORROW

An Hour With David Suzuki: Canadian conservation warrior Suzuki makes a case for the environment. Aquamarine Room, 9-10am.
Are You Old Enough?: Writing for young adults, with Elizabeth Knox, William Taylor, Graeme Lay, Tessa Duder. Maritime Museum, 9-10am.
The Other Side of Silence: An Hour with Margaret Mahy: Her biographer, Tessa Duder, hosts. Aquamarine Room, 10.30-11.30am.
The Line of Beauty: An Hour with Alan Hollinghurst: Booker Prize-winner discusses his work. Aquamarine Room, 12-1pm.
Short Story: Dead or Alive?: Very much alive, according to Owen Marshall, Shonagh Koea, Stephanie Johnson. Exhibition Room, 12-1pm.
An Hour with Patricia Grace: Aquamarine Room, 1.30-2.30pm.
Book Launch: Tessa Duder's biography of Margaret Mahy. Float Bar, 2.30pm.
Mandarin Summer at the Violet Cafe: An Hour with Fiona Kidman: Aquamarine Room, 3-4pm.