Rachael King
Rachael is a writer, reviewer, former literary festival director and ex-bass player who lives in Ōtautahi Christchurch. Song of the Saltings, published worldwide this year, is her first book for young adults. Her novels for middle readers include The Grimmelings, which won the Booksellers’ Choice Award and was named one of New York Public Library’s best books of 2025, and Secrets at Red Rocks, which won the Esther Glen Medal (as Red Rocks) and is now a television series. Two new books in Rachael’s Violet and the Velvets junior fiction series are also being published this year. Rachael’s adult novels, The Sound of Butterflies and Magpie Hall, were translated into nine languages. Rachael received a Waitangi Day Honour Award in 2020 from the New Zealand Society of Authors for her work at WORD Christchurch bringing Behrouz Boochani to New Zealand. In 2023 she was named Best Reviewer at the Voyager New Zealand Media Awards. She is also, unexpectedly, a cast member for the 2026 season of Traitors New Zealand.
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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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.