From stories like A Christmas Carol to The Handmaid's Tale to Martha Wells' Murderbot series, speculative fiction has the power to envision future technologies, provoke discussion, and create social change. Join multi award-winning speculative fiction author, Lee Murray, in conversation with Piper Mejia as they discuss what speculative fiction is and how it can impact our lives in Aotearoa.

Speculative: The Future of Literature is part of our debut programme, Into the Night. Join us for a special night of celebrating local authors, storytellers and artists. Over one evening we will present a series of talks across multiple venues in Tauranga CBD. Venue hop or stay in one place; the choice is yours.

Sponsored by Sharp Tudhope

About the Speakers
Lee Murray is a writer, editor, poet and screenwriter from Tauranga. A Shirley Jackson Award and five-time Bram Stoker Award® winner, Lee holds a New Zealand Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction and is an Honorary Literary Fellow of the New Zealand Society of Authors.

Piper Mejia is an advocate for New Zealand writers and literature. Her short fiction has appeared in a range of national and international publications. A collection of her short stories, The Better Sister, which includes Planned and Expected (shortlisted for the Australian Shadow Awards 2019), was published by Breach in July 2020.

As a child, Piper stayed up late reading horror and biographies, two genres that have fed into her love of writing speculative feminist Horror as she explores the question, “What if …”