The very best fiction explores both external and internal geographies. Recent novels from writers Rosetta Allan and Craig Cliff travel through very different landscapes, but take their characters and readers on physical and emotional journeys. Caroline Barron joins the two authors in conversation to map out what makes for a compelling fictional journey and how place can shape the direction of a character’s narrative arc.

Craig Cliff is the author of the story collection, A Man Melting¸ which won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, and The Mannequin Makers, which has been published in the US, UK and Romania. His latest novel, Nailing Down the Saint, tackles Hollywood, fatherhood and levitation.

Rosetta Allan completed the Masters of Creative Writing at The University of Auckland with First Class Honours in 2017, and was awarded a Sir James Wallace Masters of Creative Writing Scholarship. Purgatory, her bestseller and debut novel, was published in 2014. She was recently the first New Zealand writer in residence at the St Petersburg Art Residency in Russia. Her second novel, The Unreliable People, was released in May. Currently, she is the Creative NZ/University of Waikato Writer in Residence.


Caroline Barron is an award-winning writer, manuscript assessor, serious reader, Otago Daily Times book reviewer, and board member for Michael King Writers Centre. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Auckland and a Bachelor of Communications (journalism) from AUT.

Saturday, 7 September 2019, 1:30 pm 2:15 pm, Titirangi War Memorial Hall, 500 South Titirangi Road, Auckland.