Elizabeth Knox
Elizabeth Knox is an acclaimed novelist and essayist. Her novel The Vintner’s Luck won the Deutz Medal for Fiction in the 1999 Montana New Zealand Book Awards, and the Tasmania Pacific Region Prize, and is published in thirteen languages. Dreamhunter won the 2006 Esther Glen Medal, and its sequel, Dreamquake, was a Michael L Printz Honor book for 2008 and, in the same year, was named an ALA, a CCBC, Booklist, and New York Library best book. A collection of essays, The Love School, won the biography and memoir section of the New Zealand Post book awards in 2009. Mortal Fire won a NZ Post Children’s book award and was a finalist in the LA Times Book Awards. Elizabeth’s most recent novel is the bestselling The Absolute Book; her memoir Night, Ma is published in 2026. Elizabeth is an Arts Foundation Laureate, was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2002, and was awarded a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in 2019.
2026 festival sessions
Night, Ma
Elizabeth Knox in conversation with Noelle McCarthy
12pm-1pm, Saturday 25 July, Whitehaven Theatre Marlborough, $25
Elizabeth discusses her memoir, Night, Ma, a book about the net of family which people are held by, but also slip through. About the actual daily work of love; the physical and cognitive work love requires.
Buy Tickets Here
A Fantastic Night Out
Rachael King and Elizabeth Knox in conversation with Noelle McCarthy
6.30pm-7.30pm, Saturday 25 July, Whitehaven Theatre Marlborough, $25
Leading lights of fantasy writing, Elizabeth Knox and Rachael King join Noelle McCarthy, whose own latest book is infused with Gothic vampire energy, for an enthralling conversation. In Rachael’s atmospheric new novel, Song of the Saltings, sixteen-year-old Lotta lives on a remote island bound by fear, sacrifice, and ancient secrets. When strange songs begin calling her back towards the creature that once spared her life, she must decide whether to obey tradition or challenge everything her community believes. Elizabeth’s Kings of this World returns to the Southland of Dreamhunter (2005), and Dreamquake (2007) and follows Vex and her friends, whose extraordinary powers of persuasion draw them into a world of danger, loyalty, and unsettling moral questions, told with the luminous storytelling that has made Elizabeth one of New Zealand’s literary treasures. They’ll delve into world-building and transformative journeys, but who knows where the magic will lead when these three storytellers share the stage.