Kiwi authors made for great Yarns

SUCCESS: David Hedley rates this year's Yarns in Barns event as a real winner.

Yarns in Barns drew people from all over the country in a festival that took storytelling to a new level - and there is still one session to go.

Committeeman David Hedley said the event had been a great success.

"There was something for everyone."

He said a major accomplishment was attracting people from outside Wairarapa.

"There were different people almost always at each one, clearly people from outside the region that I have never seen before."

The Yarns in Barns debate, this year on a language topic, had been a big success with numbers up 25 per cent on two years ago according to Mr Hedley. He put that down to people's natural interest in language and said input from two university professors and several writers had led to some intriguing debating.

A few other highlights, amongst the many for Mr Hedley, was the business talk given by Sam Hazledine, the Gutter Black talk and a cooking demo done by 2013 Masterchef winner Aaron Brunet.

Mr Hazledine hosted a business breakfast for his book Unfair Fight. He was a former extreme skier but had to re-evaluate his life after a major [unrelated] accident which put him into a coma. He used his drive for life after the accident to start Medi-recruit - a business which aims to keep graduate doctors in New Zealand.

The Gutter Black presentation, hosted by broadcaster Finlay Macdonald and former Hello Sailor band member Graham Brazier, was an emotional night - remembering Hello Sailor frontman Dave McArtney who died soon after finishing the autobiography.

Mr Brunet teamed up with Martinborough chef Jo Crabb for a cooking demo while promoting his new cookbook Cook With Me, which attracted a big crowd.

The last session will be a talk given by the author of Till the Cows Come Home, Clive Lind, who will tell of the battles to build Fonterra, the world's largest dairy exporter.

There were 33 authors involved in Yarns in Barns and Mr Hedley is looking forward to doing it again in two years.