From writing for children to historical stories

The audiences at yesterday's daytime sessions took ongoing renovations in the Civic carpark in their stride.

A good number attended Telling Tales, with William Taylor, one of our leading writers for children and young adults - and a former Mayor of Ohakune.

His books have tackled tough issues: child abuse, same-sex attraction, and teen boys experimenting with alcohol and cigarettes.

Thomas Keneally and Anne Salmond were well paired in a lively hour on writing about historical figures and events, chaired by Kim Hill. The difference between the Australian and New Zealand contexts could not have been more marked, with Keneally coming from a country whose colonists arrived in a "purpose-built penal system" and set about obliterating the dispossessed.

Salmond, on the other hand, grew up in the Gisborne region where she forged close relationships with Maori and learned the stories of the ancestors as if they "were just next door".

While Keneally says there is an emergence of interest in Australian history among Australians, Salmond - in response to Hill's query about whether we are becoming more enlightened - observed that she had gone through a period of listening to talkback radio, and deduced that sometimes it was like going back to 1810 in terms of racism.

Later in the afternoon, British novelist Jill Dawson and New Plymouth poet-novelist Elizabeth Smither spoke at a sparsely attended session which became more interesting as the two women started to relax.