In August and early September a little band of Canadians travelled to writers’ festivals in New Zealand and Australia, so now I am a connoisseur of the flat white, a more potent latte than you’ll find in Canada and a source of rivalry between the two countries down under (though perhaps Australia doesn’t know it, in the way that an older sibling tends to be unaware of the younger). Each thinks it has the better coffee. I praise both.
Our little band was organized by Hal Wake of the Vancouver Writers’ Festival and accompanied by Marsha Lederman of the Globe & Mail. The three authors were the outstanding writer/storyteller/performer from the Yukon, Ivan Coyote; Sheila Watt-Cloutier of Inuvik, whose The Right to Be Cold flows out of years of impressive work defending the world of snow and ice inhabited by the Inuit; and me.
Radio New Zealand’s Kim Hill interviewed a number of authors who attended the Christchurch Festival. Her interview with me is here.