Who said romance is dead?
Certainly not Mary Scott, who was one of the first women to write romantic comedies firmly grounded in New Zealand rural life.
Scott's phenomenally successful novels about life on a farm in the backblocks of New Zealand will be talked about during May’s fourth annual Featherston Booktown, a three-day literary festival celebrating everything about books and reading being held in the south Wairarapa township from May 11th – 13th.
Literary critic and historian Lydia Wevers, ONZM
(pictured left), will give a captivating talk about Scott’s famous novels Breakfast at Six and Dinner Doesn't Matter, and discuss the things Kiwis love about country life. Weavers is an authority on the issue with her area of scholarship in New Zealand and Australian literature. Several of her books have focused on early New Zealand travel writing and writers and she has also edited a huge range of literary anthologies, including, Goodbye to Romance: Stories by Australian and New Zealand Women 1930s –1980s.
Her own book, Reading on the Farm, which utilises the Victorian library on Brancepeth Station in the Wairarapa, its staff, and its customers as a means to reflect upon the significance of books, reading, and intellectual life in colonial New Zealand, was published to great acclaim in 2010.
Mary Scott: The Rural Romantic is one of 25 literary events being held during this year’s Featherston Booktown, which will open with the popular Fish ‘n’ Chip Supper on May 11th at ‘Rose & Smith’ at the Tauherenikau Racecourse. This event includes an after-dinner speech by acclaimed writer and reviewer, Kate De Goldi who writes fiction for all ages.
De Goldi has been a recipient of The Michael King Fellowship and has won the New Zealand Post Children’s Book of the Year twice. Her most recent novel, From the Cutting Room of Barney Kettle, won the Esther Glen Medal at the 2016 NZ Children’s Book Awards. Featherston Booktown Patron, Ms Joy Cowley ONZ, world-famous children’s author and an active supporter of Featherston Booktown since its inception will also be in attendance.
For more information visit www.booktown.org.nz or email info@booktown.org.nz.
Tickets for Booktown will be onsale via www.eventfinda.co.nz
Details: Mary Scott: The Rural Romantic
When: Saturday May 12th, 11.00am – 12.00pm
Where: The Dining Room at The Royal Hotel, 22 Revans Street, Featherston
Entry: Koha