One of the great pleasures of the Auckland Writers’ Festival is walking out of an inspiring session with a writer and being able to immediately lay your hands on a copy of their latest book. During Streetside Britomart, happening from 6pm-8pm on Friday 9 May, you’ll be able to do that at the two pop-up stalls being run by our very literate friends Melanie O’Loughlin and Courtney Smith from Lamplight Books. We talked to Melanie about what she’s keen to see and hear at the upcoming Streetside event and wider festival.
MELINDA WILLIAMS Melanie, this is the second year Lamplight Books has had a pop-up store during Streetside Britomart. Why do you like being involved with the event?
MELANIE O’LOUGHLIN Streetside is largely for poets and debut authors. The looser nature of the programme always adds up to more of wild creativity than up at the big festival.
MELINDA WILLIAMS It's definitely a lot of fun. So, during this year’s event you have a one-day-only, all-day pop-up shop at Allbirds & Friends and an evening book stall at Daily Bread as well. Is that right?
MELANIE O’LOUGHLIN The stall at Daily Bread is for the performance poetry events. We'll have all the poets’ books on sale there and if you love hearing them, you can buy their books and get them signed. We're also going to be spending the day down at Britomart with the lovely people at Allbirds & Friends, with some of our larger art, design and gift books on display there.
MELINDA WILLIAMS Can you tell us a little bit about some of the writers who are going to be at Streetside and a little bit about what you enjoy about their work?
MELANIE O’LOUGHLIN One of the events that we love is New Poets on the Block, hosted by Anne Kennedy, an extraordinary talent. To see how her brain works and how she puts words together is exciting in itself. This year, she's going to be in conversation with some new poets -- Xiaole Zhan, Margo Montes de Oca and J.A. Vili. I've heard Anne do this kind of thing before, and it's always unique.
Last year’s Rocketman was an incredible range of people who stood up and read out their work. They were so brave and so impressive. It was very diverse. You felt privileged to hear people perform with such generosity. Their words spread out around the room and by the end it was like everyone had their arms around each other.
MELINDA WILLIAMS Could you suggest a starting point for those who might not know where to go?
Khadro Mohamed won the Ockham Poetry Prize, 2023 and Sloane Hong has a sly and thrilling take on the world, with her comics and short stories. Matariki Bennett is a founding member of the bilingual poetry slam collective and has a poetry collection due out any minute. Whatever Nathan Joe is up to, seek him out, playwright, scholar and all-round fun person.
MELINDA WILLIAMS The event at Allbirds & Friends showcases more established artists – what are you looking forward to hearing there?
MELANIE O’LOUGHLIN Yes, at The Stories Start Here we’ll be hearing from writers like Dominic Hoey… he is always entertaining with poems that tell a story so local, you can see the hoodies and caps. Rachel Paris has come out with a best-selling debut novel that is about to be optioned. She switched from a career in law and if you fancy you’ve got a book to write, you would do well to come and listen to her talk about her publishing journey. Antonia Murphy also got a TV series from her memoir, Madam, about forming an ethical escort agency. She will have some interesting tales to tell about her journey.
MELINDA WILLIAMS What are you looking forward to up at the main festival?
MELANIE O’LOUGHLIN Colm Tóibín. He's been writing for years. I mean, he's just done everything. I really enjoyed the book he wrote during the Troubles called Bad Blood. He was a young journalist and wrote about his experience walking the Irish Border during a ceasefire. So thoughtful.
MELINDA WILLIAMS Finally, where do we find Lamplight Books’ main store?
MELANIE O’LOUGHLIN We're over in the beautiful Geyser Building, 100 Parnell Road. The store is beautifully designed, filled with shelves of design, art, architecture book, plus great fiction. We love being here. But we also love dipping our toe down into Streetside Britomart because it reminds us what being in the world of books is all about… it’s people and ideas coming together.
