Words on Wheels
- WOW 2008
- For any queries about WOW contact us at events@bookcouncil.org.nz
No Town Too Small to be WOWed
What has twelve legs, four wheels, and a pile of literary awards? The New Zealand Book Council’s Words on Wheels or WOW tour that sends a group of top writers into rural New Zealand each year.
Words on Wheels visits a different area of rural New Zealand each year on a six year cycle. In 1999 it was the deep south, in 1998, the East Cape. WOW 2000 went to the upper South Island, the 2002 WOW tour travelled around the Waikato and 2003 went to the East Coast and Auckland City. In 2005 it visited the top of the South Island.
Writer David Hill has taken part in three WOW tours and says its something he loves. "Words on Wheels tours reach the places that many other arts tours cannot. Every time I do a tour I hear people say how brilliant it is to see and hear writers in the flesh. This is the New Zealand part of the New Zealand Book Council in action."
Screenwriter Victor Rodger, novelist Louise Wareham-Leonard, poet Michele Amas, non-fiction writer Paul Diamond and young adult's writer Ken Catran visited the East Coast in February 2008. A report of this visit, written by Louise Wareham-Leonard, can be found here.
WOW 2007
In 2007 Words onWheels is touring Waikato and the Bay of Plenty with internationally acclaimed fantasy novelist, Elizabeth Knox; bestselling historical novelist, Deborah Challinor; poet and playwright, Bernadette Hall; children’s writer, Vince Ford, and performance poet, reviewer, and non-fiction writer, David Eggleton.
The week-long WOW 2007 tour, from Monday 26 February to Saturday 3 March, will visit Te Awamutu, Te Kuiti, Taupo, Rotorua, Kawerau, Whakatane, Papamoa, Tauranga, Matamata and Morrinsville. All events are free of charge. For a more detailed schedule, click here.
For more information about this programme contact Charlie Holland, Events & Touring, New Zealand Book Council. Ph 04 4991569 Fax 04 499 1424 Email events@bookcouncil.org.nz
WOW 2006
In 2006 Words on Wheels celebrated its 15th birthday with a tour of Northland. On board for the tour were poet and novelist Elizabeth Smither, fiction writer and playwright Jo Randerson, novelist Paula Morris, young adult writer David Hill, poet Hinemoana Baker and fiction writer Richard Wolfe.
Starting off at the North Shore on Saturday 25 February, WOW travelled as far north as Doubtless Bay and ended in Warkworth on Sunday 5 March.
