Bookmark Kāpiti | 9-10 August, 2025

What is it?

Bookmark Kāpiti is a festival of stories, people and places connected to the Kāpiti Coast. It’s a book festival with a twist. The organisers, presenters and performers are all connected to this beautiful place and the events are held at venues, right along the Coast; not just in one place.

What is its history?

Every event needs a seed and in this case, it was Waikanae local Kirsten Le Harivel. After 10 years of successfully running an annual writers’ retreat, she applied to the Kāpiti Coast District Council for some funding to start an annual book festival.

She offered to deliver 12-15 events across the coast with an emphasis on inclusion. As well as readers and people interested in books, the festival promised events for all ages and with an accessible range of prices, including free.

Kirsten envisaged the streams would include heritage, environment, culture, tamariki and family activities as well as writing workshops and discussions. She was working part-time and raising two young children, so she enlisted the support of Te Horo local Keryn Mells and Cerid Jones from Paraparaumu to get the festival off the ground.

In just a few short months, they have curated 25 events across multiple locations in all of the towns in Kāpiti. The festival promises a diverse range of experiences and activities with a focus on what is important to people here. Writers, contributors and performers have been generous with their time and welcomed the opportunity to be involved in a book festival on their own doorstep.

What’s on?

We have events for all ages and all interests! There are gardening, environment, historical fiction, illustration and publishing talks. For the literary-minded there are workshops on writing memoir, world building, script and song writing.

Whānau can engage with a number of library talks from prominent writers, children’s performances with the renowned writers of The Bomb and Dazzlehands and te reo storytelling. For rangatahi there is a spoken word and a queer ruri rongoā workshop. The whole family can kōrero with Ōtaki’s own Hori and print a t-shirt featuring kupu to express their harikoa.

The festival showcases an open mic session, a spoken word performance and Bookmark’s Big Night Out – an evening of story, music, light and soul with local music and performers, Mocean, Jess Deacon, Te Kahu Rolleston and Hinemoana Baker.

We also have our very own book market, Author Alley. You can book a stall on our website.

Not all of our stories are written by authors in books. Any budding cyclists or walkers can explore the expressway shared path and learn about our colonial history, quirky happenings, book settings, places of environmental interest and another look at the cultural history that is already documented in the pou along the way. CycleStory will be open for a few weeks before the event and a further week after. As well as learning some fascinating tales of early Kāpiti, you can win prizes, send in your own writing and participate in our online quiz.

Many events will include the opportunity to buy books direct from authors!

What else?

Alongside, is CycleStory – almost an event on its own. CycleStory offers the opportunity to walk or ride along the expressway shared path in your own time for several weeks, both before and after the festival. Storyboards will signal places of interest and travellers can learn a snippet of heritage, cultural or literary information. CycleStory will also have places to stop and write a poem or collect information to answer a quiz question.

How are they going to do it?

Obviously, three people can’t actually run 25 events at the same time, so they are enlisting the help of booklovers to volunteer their time in return for the opportunity to see some of our offerings and be involved in this exciting new event.

Bookmark Kāpiti would not be happening without the support of Kāpiti Coast District Council Arts Sustainability Fund and Festival Fund; and Kelly & Co. Realty and Valley Audio, alongside event sponsors The Cuba Press, and New Zealand Society of Authors - Wellington Branch. Writers Practice is the umbrella for the event in its first year.