Words on Wheels

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."

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 2007 Partners

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.


Top

BNZ 2008


Receive our email newsletter

Want to find a book group? Put a notice up on our book group noticeboard

Renew your Book Council membership and be in to win

Check out upcoming literary events in your region

International visitors can find out more about New Zealand literature by visiting the Aotearoa New Zealand Literary Map and the Literary Pin-ups series, presented in conjunction with Steele Roberts Ltd