Noelle McCarthy

Noelle McCarthy is an author, broadcaster and producer. Her first memoir, Grand: Becoming my mother’s daughter, won best first book of non-fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in 2023. That year, she was the writer in residence at Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters. Noelle grew up in Ireland and started her radio career at 95bFM in Auckland in the early 2000s before going on to work at Radio New Zealand for more than a decade. She makes long-form narrative podcasts as Bird of Paradise Productions  alongside her husband, John Daniell. Noelle lives in Featherston with John and their daughter and many copies of Dracula

 

 

2026 festival sessions

Stakes

Noelle McCarthy in conversation with Rachael King

9.30am-10.30am, Sunday 26 July, Whitehaven Theatre Marlborough, $25

Noelle discusses Stakes, her darkly funny, sparkling follow-up to her bestselling memoir Grand. As a young reader Noelle was captivated by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Danger and desire felt safer on the page than in real life Catholic Ireland of the 1990s. Twenty years later, dealing with the messy realities of adulthood, Noelle found herself drawn back to Dracula. Stakes explores the power of a gothic horror to help us process real life horror stories.

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