If you had been in Venice just over a year ago and gone to see the elegant Bridge of Sighs, you would have had an unpleasant surprise.

Things get a little rough in the conclusion of Graeme Lay's story of the first surfers on one Kiwi beach.

With the Fox With Fantastic Mr Fox, Wes Anderson has tackled a painstaking stop-motion adaptation of a childhood favourite.

Author Anthony Bozza tells Scott Kara why the classic Australian rockers deserve more credit for their sound.

I cannot fathom why short stories are not as widely read as they once were when the best of the contemporary work is so entertaining.

Rachael King clearly didn't exhaust her fascination for the queer Victorian penchant for "collecting" with her award-winning and much-admired debut novel, The Sound of Butterflies.

Katharine McMahon's haphazard approach to writing has structured her successful career.

She's funny, she's had a boob job and she's just written a book that could see her thrown out of her church.

Film-maker Roger Donaldson has compiled a photographic scrapbook of Kiwi codger Burt Munro - and has his eyes on a biopic of Ed Hillary.

It has been a horrid year on the economic front but the arts have thrived.