Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival 2024

Calling all book lovers. The Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival lights up Wairarapa with a weekend devoted to fantastic literary endeavours. Authors, journalists and booksellers gather to offer the public a huge array of events. Engage in workshops, lively panel discussions, kids events, buskers, and, of course, a bustling book fair. Visit the seven resident booksellers based in Featherston. They’ll be joined by 18 booksellers from around the country. The curious, exotic, and plain hard-to-find will be on offer. 

Now in its ninth year, the Karukatea Festival is hugely popular. This year’s programme features 39 events and hosts 77 presenters and literary provocateurs. The lynchpin events of the 2024 festival include the famous Fish‘n’Chip Supper and the Saturday Night Gala. The always popular Mrs Blackwell’s Mother’s Day Afternoon Tea will also return. 

The Fish‘n’Chip Supper’s special guest speaker is Dame Susan Devoy. She will share stories from her life as Race Relations Commissioner, and TV and squash star. The Saturday Night Gala celebrates the lives of two writers. The Pasifika poetry of Moana Nui A Kiwa and the life of renowned musician, journalist, activist, and truth seeker Moana Maniapoto. Mrs. Blackwell’s Mother’s Day Afternoon Tea returns with a feast of speakers and writers. Engage over tea and home baking to explore alternative farming practices.