60 seconds with new Coalition Board member Kiran Dass
WORD Christchurch Programme Lead and writer Kiran Dass has joined the Coalition for Books Board. We sat down with Kiran to chat about her role at WORD, the nexus between festivals and the Coalition’s activities and a few bookish things besides.
Tell us a bit about your focus as WORD Programme Lead.
We’ve just gone to print with this year’s WORD programme so I can’t say too much yet, but excitement levels are high in the office! All will be revealed at the launch on 18 July. As Programme Lead I oversee the programme and help shape it, to bring the many threads of it together to make it a multifaceted but coherent thing. I work closely with our wonderful Executive Director Steph Walker, and with our amazing Programmers-at-Large – Catarina de Peters Leitão (Te Whānau-ā-Apanu), Audrey Baldwin and Melanie Dixon who have each contributed thoughtful and vibrant sessions to the programme. It’s thinking about the things we care about and the ideas we want to explore, and the voices we want to hear, and then bringing those to life in our beautiful city.
How do you see your work with WORD aligning with the Coalition’s focus and activities?
Writing and storytellers from Aotearoa have always been a foundational source of inspiration for our programme. We deliver a world class festival – we work with some of the most exciting international talent but we’re focussed on creating experiences and fostering conversations that are unique to us because they reflect who we are in Aotearoa and Ōtautahi, and the issues communities and writers here are engaging with. Work that uplifts and promotes local books, ideas, writers and storytellers is important to WORD’s kaupapa. Art produced here has a distinctly New Zealand atmosphere, worldview, perspective and voice. It’s special and something that is unique to us. We need initiatives like the Coalition to help spread the word about our stories and storytellers – to help raise visibility and accessibility. One thing I think I can bring to the Coalition Board is a voice for festivals to help connect what the Coalition is doing and loop it back to festivals, and what we create and offer. We’re all in this together.
What’s on your reading pile right now?
I don’t have just one reading pile. I have multiple towering TBR piles in different parts of the house, and frankly, they’re bewildering. But I’ve come to terms with the fact I will never stop this madness and that TBR books provide a sense of comfort for me. Imagine running out of things to read? They are sort of arranged by incoming date. On my bedside table for current reading is Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein, Audition by Pip Adam, The Words for Her by Thomasin Sleigh. And I have just started reading the forthcoming Anne Enright novel The Wren, The Wren which was immediately bumped up the pile as she’s one of my favourite writers. From page one it made me laugh and got me hooked. An Inventory of Losses by Judith Schalansky constantly lives on my bedside table and is something I dip into every now and then. The last book I read and reviewed was Lioness the new novel by Emily Perkins. She’s always been one of my favourite New Zealand writers.
In an alternate universe with no books (the worst timeline), what would you be doing instead?
This is a terrifying consideration. I am assuming we still have music, writing and storytelling in all its many other forms? I would be writing, most likely about music which is my other love.
What do you think about people who peek at the last page of a novel before they're anywhere near the end?
Is this something that people do? Maybe it’s some kind of compulsive impulse. I’m not sure if it is a useful thing to do, there would be no context! I’m not one to judge how people read though. When someone is unsure about a book I just tell them to read the first ten or so pages to see if they want to stick with it or not.
What's the best book related event you've ever attended or programmed for that matter?
Way too many to itemise from over the past 18 years of my book-related professional life! Is a time machine available? There are so many excellent writers and thinkers I’m looking forward to hearing at WORD this year that I know if I could travel to the future to answer this question the answer would include them. Anything that mixes music/sound, writing and books is my kind of event. I had fun chairing a Q&A for the launch of Canadian writer Matt Goody’s book Needles & Plastic: Flying Nun Records, 1981-1988 last year. Seeing Tayi Tibble read at the Poetry Bash at the Vancouver Writers Festival was a proud moment. She completely changed the energy and temperature of the room, everybody was enthralled.
After Airini Beautrais won the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction in 2021, I saw her read and have some of her poems set to music by Elizabeth de Vegt at a spectacular spot on Durie Hill, overlooking the majestic Whanganui awa with interjections from ruru at dusk. That was special. At this year’s Auckland Writers Festival I loved The Art of Noticing masterclass with Jenny Odell, author of How to Do Nothing. It just hit many of my nerdy, esoteric sweet spots including a Pauline Oliveros Deep Listening exercise.
One of my favourite writers Sinead Gleeson in conversation with Kim Hill at Verb Wellington was an excellent session. Also attending the book launches of my clever friends who have written books over the years has been memorable.
At WORD last year I participated in a session Words, Wine & Sound which looked at the way words, wine and sound can intersect. That was fun and interesting, not to mention that it combined three of my greatest loves!
In June we welcomed two new Board members to the Coalition Board. Kiran Dass joins to represent WORD and Mary Wadsworth joins to represent Booksellers Aotearoa.
Read the sixty second interview with the second new appointment to our Board, Mary Wadsworth.