Wellington is playing host to one of the city's most important arts events this year - the contemporary indigenous arts festival Kia Mau. It's grown from its enthusiastic but smaller-scale beginnings eight years ago to an extraordinary collection of indigenous talent from all round the Pacific Rim. Aotearoa New Zealand, of course, but also Samoa, Tonga, Malaysia, Cambodia, Canada - even Africa. Simon Morris is joined by the founders of the Kia Mau Festival - two of this country's most...

Simon Morris talks to Martyn Roberts from Afterburner about the upcoming interactive theatre production Dark Radio for NZ Fringe Festival 2023

Even a three-volume autobiography doesn't come close to telling the full story of poet Lauris Edmond OBE. So her daughter and literary executor, Frances Edmond, is filling in the gaps in a biography called Always Going Home. This includes assessing in depth the death of another of Lauris's daughters, Rachel, left emotionally damaged by a childhood assault, and its impact on the whanau. Lauris didn't publish her first poetry collection until she was 51. Ten more followed, plus the...

In the final episode of Standing Room Only, host Lynn Freeman chats to Catriona MacLeod about her five decades at RNZ.

Visual effects art director, Dylan Coburn has drawn storyboards for some of the biggest recent New Zealand projects - Rings of Power, Cowboy Bebop - even Dame Valerie Adams More Than Gold... It's an important job - not just artistically, but also budget-wise. A good storyboard can save literally millions of dollars on a shoot. But Dylan's latest project uses his drawing skills for something entirely different - to help young readers to learn how to count. Boingo and the Golden Balloon sees a...

The often heartbreaking story of the extended family of three Jewish Second World War refugees who found a new home in Aotearoa is told in a new poetry collection, We came from Hamburg. Retired judge Vivienne Ullrich became fascinated by her husband's family tree, which suddenly expanded when they received an email from relatives living in America. There was the ongoing mystery of Erna who abandoned her three daughters and disappeared in 1920. Meanwhile Wally, her son Eric and eventually her...

Writer Susy Pointon is determined to capture the many stories of Northland's rugged and mysterious Hokianga, her adopted home. Since moving there 18 years ago, she's talked to locals to record their memories on tape and in writing. The first two books in her Hokianga series were fictionalised short stories based on actual people and events. Number three however, Ferry Stories of the Hokianga: Nga korero o Hokianga mai I te waka, is more of a hybrid, with locals contributing their own stories...

This year marked a first at Cannes - both the winning films came from the same country, South Korea, Decision to leave and Broker. But South Korea has been making its presence felt across the board recently - the Oscar winning Parasite, TV sensations like Snowpiercer and The Squid Game, hugely popular romcoms and action flicks on Netflix, not to mention the K Pop phenomenon. Right now the biggest bands in the world are Korean boy bands like BTS and girl groups like Blackpink. The first time...

The fashion industry is notoriously wasteful - for instance, cheap clothing that lasts months rather than years before ending up in landfills. But an expat now based in the US is leading by example, buying up unwanted garments made from quality fabrics and materials. She then unpicks and reworks them into high fashion clothes for the catwalk. Esther Lofely and her husband Robert Catalusci work together on her label, ELC. For well over a decade she worked for the Royal New Zealand Ballet...

Since Standing Room Only started some of the biggest changes we've seen in attitudes towards art and artists has happened in Otautahi Christchurch. How much artists contributed to the city's emotional recovery from the earthquakes through projects like Gap Filler, but also how many individual people created and shared their work. Before the quakes, Neil Dawson's monumental sculpture The Challice in the Square was initially criticised, but within days of its unveiling it became an impromptu...

Seven years after escaping a family tragedy in her home town, Jac Morgan reluctantly returns to search for her missing sister, Charlie. But twenty years earlier, another teenage girl went missing in Everly. Paige Gilmore disappeared during the town's annual Gilmore Hotel Open Day, and the anniversary is not far away. As Jac looks for clues to lead her to Charlie, the two cases start to blur. This is the premise for In Her Blood, the latest crime novel by Ngaio Marsh Award shortlisted author,...

At 11 she released an album, at 18 she set up a charitable foundation, and now at 21 Tayla Alexander is a lyric soprano. Before that, she's about to perform in a short comique opera in Brisbane. It's part of the Lisa Gasteen National Opera Programme for emerging professional singers from New Zealand and Australia. On top of all that, this year she's been studying for an honours degree at the University of Auckland before going overseas for her Masters in music. She was also a semi-finalist in...

An embalmer goes rogue in horrific ways in the first crime novel written by K. M. Tarrant - someone who is very much at home in a mortuary. She's a qualified embalmer, she's fascinated by human psychology and reading crime fiction is her thing. Now based in Auckland's North Shore, the Temuka-born writer says she hopes her book Life and Death in Birkenhead will not only entertain people, but demystify the world of embalming. In it, Gerald the sociopathic embalmer is on a collision course with...

Very much against the odds, Rosaline Frank was able to forge a career as Nelson's first woman professional photographer, starting at the end of the 19th century. A local photographer Rosalina McCarthy became so captivated with her near namesake's work and achievements that she's written her story in a book called Belated Accolades. It's actually a joint biography, also telling the story of William Tyree for whom Rosaline Frank worked before effectively taking over his studio. And as well as...

This year on Standing Room Only we've run interviews with all kinds of repairers. Our last is with a colleague of ours, John Roberts - better known around here as JR - who mends old broken radios that still have plenty of life in them. One of his specialties is repairing the plastic Bell radios that were in so many Kiwi homes from the 1950s to the early 1980s. Lynn Freeman asks JR if he grew up with a radio in the family home. John Roberts is a member of the New Zealand Vintage Radio Society

A pilot scheme helped Canterbury secondary school art students build their confidence by getting their work into a gallery - and sold. Now it's being rolled out to the next generation of Te Whanganui-A-Tara Wellington and Tamaki Makaurau Auckland artists. Charlotte Sherratt and Sophie Paterson set up Artstart - formerly known as The Creators' Room - in 2017. Now students are invited to send in their work, and a panel of judges chooses a hundred to be framed and exhibited. Money from any sales...

Dr H. B. Turbott was The Radio Doctor for more than 40 years - pre and post the Second World War - dispensing advice on a range of health and social issues until his retirement in 1984. His broadcasts spanned child rearing, vaccination and communicable diseases, through to healthy ageing and nutrition. Dr Turbott's often very enlightened opinions for the time fascinated Dr Claire Macindoe, an Otepoti/Dunedin-based researcher and historian. She based her PhD thesis on him - The Radio Doctor -...

James Cameron is about to launch one of the Greatest Shows on Earth - Avatar The Way of Water has just had its first sneak previews in the Northern Hemisphere. We have a vested interest in New Zealand of course - much of the film was shot and produced here. When director James Cameron and producer Jon Landau brought the sequel to Avatar here in 2018, they decided to train and mentor a group of would-be film-makers across all aspects of production. Over 36 interns and apprentices were selected...

Right now the country's public libraries want to have an even bigger role in their communities - in particular, actively helping schools to support the education of our tamariki. LIANZA - the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa - is planning a submission to the Future of Local Government Review. Librarians see this as the best chance they have to ring in some much-needed changes. Lynn Freeman spoke to retired librarian, Allison Dobbie who's leading LIANZA's submission,...

In the 47 years since Elizabeth Smither published her first poetry collection, Here Come the Clouds, she's won numerous awards and was our Poet Laureate in the early 2000s. Her latest collection My American Chair invites us to roam the world with her, through a series of memorable moments and encounters. But, as she tells Lynn Freeman, there are also many poems about home, aging, mortality, friendship and family. Auckland University Press has published Elizabeth Smither's new poetry...

Simon Devitt describes the houses he likes to photograph as "self-assured, poetic and sustainable". And he's brought together 30 of his favourites in a book called Cape to Bluff. Some are intriguing because of the building technique, or the tricky terrain. Others picked themselves because of how they're future-proofed against sea level rise, or were inspired by an old goldminer's hut. The photographs are accompanied by interviews with the homes' architects, talking about the initial plans,...

For most people walking Te Araroa - the 3000-kilometre trail from Cape Reinga in the North to Bluff in the South - just putting one foot in front of the other is enough to think about. But Sarah Adam set herself the extra challenge of doing a small oil painting 'en plein air' every day of the trek. All up, she made 140 paintings and they've just gone on show in an exhibition she calls Late to the Hut. Sarah tells Lynn Freeman she's currently working for the Department of Conservation on the...

Launching one book is a big occasion, but much-loved author Joy Cowley is about to unleash two - Greedy Cat's Christmas, and an adult novella called Blind Date. She's launching them both in Featherston in the Wairarapa, where she now lives. The large ginger feline Joy's been writing stories about for some 40 years meets his match in his latest outing: "The plates were full. Oh, how delicious! "A Christmas feast on fancy dishes! "But Aunty said, "He's just a cat. "He'll eat cat biscuits and...

When Hannah Marshall was picked for the role of Head of Scripted Development at South Pacific Pictures, the only surprise, frankly, was that it took them so long to give her the job. Her track record in drama - sorry, "Scripted TV Shows" - is phenomenal, on both side of the Tasman. You've seen her in everything from Raised by Refugees - for which she was also the Story Producer - to Packed to the Rafters, for which she was nominated for a Logie. As well as an actor, she's an award-winning...