Sports Writing Legends Feature At Festival

Sports Writing Legends Feature At Festival

With only a week to go until the programme for the fifth Auckland Writers & Readers Festival is launched, I wanted to draw to your attention one of the events that might be of interest to you as a sports journalist (the writers involved will need no introduction, but updated bios are listed below):

Run for Your Life

Maritime Museum¨C Princes Wharf

Saturday 21 May ©¦ 4.30pm-5.30pm

Former Auckland Star journalist Garth Gilmour presents his biography of Arthur Lydiard - the most influential and successful running coach of the last fifty years. He shares a lane with Spiro Zavos (How to watch a game of rugby) and New Zealand Listener columnist Joseph Romanos (Sporting Rivals). Chaired by Peter Williams.

The paperback edition of Garth Gilmour¡¯s biography of coaching legend, Arthur Lydiard: Master Coach, will published at the beginning of May. During 2003/04 Arthur worked closely with his long-time friend Garth Gilmour to tell his full story for the first time. This paperback edition has been fully revised in the months following Arthur¡¯s death. Garth has had a long and distinguished career in journalism, which crystallised into an enthusiasm for sports, particularly athletics leading him to an association with Arthur Lydiard in 1960. Gilmour has also written biographies of Peter Snell, Murray Halberg, paraplegic world champion, Eve Rimmer and ultra-marathon runner Sandra Barwick.

Joseph Romanos is one of New Zealand¡¯s most experienced sports reporters and columnists. He has covered many major events, including four Olympic Games, four Commonwealth Games, four world track and field championships and international cricket, rugby, rugby league, boxing, golf and tennis. He has won a variety of journalism awards, including the National Sports Journalist of the Year, National Sports Feature Writer of the Year, six times National Sports Columnist of the Year. Romanos is also the author of 30 books (including coaching manuals and novels) covering a wide range of sports.

Spiro Zavos, a first generation Greek New Zealander, saw his first rugby test in 1949 at Wellington¡¯s Athletic Park when he was twelve years old and was struck with a lifelong passion for ¡®the perfect game¡¯. He has written six acclaimed books on rugby, and his rugby column in the Sydney Morning Herald is a talking point for rugby followers on both sides of the Tasman. He lives in Sydney with his wife, teacher and children¡¯s book author Judy Zavos. His latest book is How to Watch a Game of Rugby.

The programme for the fifth Auckland Writers & Readers Festival will be available from 25 March and it¡¯s overflowing with events that surpass the promise of this year¡¯s Festival theme, ¡®Nourish: Feasting the Mind and Feeding the Soul¡¯. The Festival offers a full menu of 63 events featuring over 100 leading international and local writers, talking about fiction, poetry, travel, sport, food, crime, biography, history, writing for television and film, and that 21st century phenomenon, ¡®blogging¡¯.

The Festival begins on Thursday 19 May, and continues with three full days of on-stage interviews, panel discussions, book launches and readings before culminating in the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Dinner on Sunday 22 May. Tickets go on sale from Ticketek on Friday 8 April. Friends of the Festival can book a week early from 1 April.

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