Ears Wide Open

Anna talks to Rachel about Greece, love at first sight and the uselessness of poets, as well as writing fiction and the wonders and oddities of translation.

Hayden Glass, co-proprietor of The Open Book talks to Anna about poetry and strategy, poetry and music and breastfeeding while posting.

Anna and David talk about poetry business models, the great unravelling, the role of the fool, love, regret and chickens.

A gala reading at the shop, featuring Alex Taylor, Makyla Curtis, Megan France, Kim Tairi, Cybonn Ang, Craig Foltz, Rachel O’Connor, Gina Cole, Tom Romeo, Sophie van Waardenberg, Paula Morris, Lisa Samuels and Josie Shapiro.

Anna and Ian talk about big ideas, boyhood in East Bengal, being a twin and the joy of form.

Anna and Bill talk about writing, sanity, love and music, with extra lip-smacking.Bill Direen is performing with an eight-piece improvisation orchestra in Dunedin and Oamaru this coming Armistice Weekend. He will sing songs in English, many of them translated from the languages of our allies or enemies in the First World War. The songs will alternate with ensemble improvisations on war, peace, political violence and political progress. The evening begins with a song cycle co-written by Bill (Direen) and NZ poet Alan Brunton based on the life of Michael Joseph Savage. Those dates are: two nights in The New Athenaeum Theatre, the Octagon, Dunedin, Friday November 9th and Saturday November 10th at 8:30pm, and one show on Armistice Day itself, Sunday November 11th, at 4pm in the Grainstore, Harbour Street, Oamaru.https://www.facebook.com/events/2179503808985793/https://www.facebook.com/events/919754151544297/

Anna and Sophie Van Waardenberg read and talk about the poems that were finalists in the Geometry | Open Book National Poetry Competition. Pyjamas, punching and Casablanca also feature. Ears Wide Open will have a another release this Thursday 2 November and we will then resume our two-weekly on a Thursday schedule.

Anna and Paula talk about Laura Ingalls Wilder, dying parents and weaving.

Anna and Paula discuss fiction and non-fiction, the bright-line test and what one starts with when one sits down to write (part 1 of 2)

Anna and Piet trees, policy and mysticism and a wee bit of poetry as well.

Anna and Bryan talk about mindfulness, old times, Palmerston North and even a little bit of corporate strategy.

Anna and Gina talk about constraint, giving up law to pursue writing and what it's like to be edited.

Ya-Wen and Anna talk about language and translation, poetry and art and how to speak responsibly in the languages of colonisation.

More letterpress, and some haiku. Anna and Jo talk about ink kissing paper and the secret society of the letterpressers.

So much to learn about letterpress printing! Anna and Makyla talk poetry, maps, printing, poetry and history.

Graeme and Anna chat about Captain Cook, historical fiction and Graeme's personal version of "the New Zealand canon".

EWO is on a mini-break, back next week with episode 16!

Megan Blakie works for the Book Discussion Scheme - dedicated to helping people read and connect nationwide for over 40 years.

Anna and Ted talk about kids and stories and books and sex.

Anna talks to Kim, the AUT Librarian, about librarians and big data, the secret languages of librarians and how the modern library can include wifi and a drill press.

Anna talks to legal scholar Melanie about the legal framework for censorship in Aotearoa | New Zealand, whether filthy historical novel Fanny Hill is worth reading and if a sense of politesse would be the best way to regulate speech.

Stephanie and Anna talk about pen names, historical fiction and how having a play performed is like being a god.

Anna talks with Tim Heath about performance poetry, punctuation and how writing a poem is like falling in love

Anna and Jos Franks talk about spaces for women to raise their voices, what it means to arrange a song and how the bookshop moved Jos from step one to step two of her SHE choir Auckland journey.

Anna and Hayden Glass talk about the value of art, spaces to be human in, and how Hayden came to own The Open Book.

Anna and Julie Fry talk about hard books, kids' books and the joy of co-owning a bookshop

Anna talks with Sophie van Waardenberg about Love Actually, the human uses of poetry and the bucket of the mind.

Anna and Cian Dennan talk about politics and poetry, the beautiful/brutal aspects of owning a vagina and bringing light.Trigger warning: sexual abuse, heavy duty swearing.

Anna and Irene Corbett talk about the word as a tool, art that does service, dementia, religion and rollerblading.

Anna chats to Alex about one long flow of manstuff, stealing stuff and the sensation of composition.

Anna and Lisa Samuels talk about soft text, the scrutable, and the blank line.

Anna and IK Patterson Harkness (aka Immi) talk about storytelling, the writer as character, heartbreak and vegan propaganda.