An Addicted Reader - An Online Salute to Lydia Wevers

Due to the complications of the COVID lockdown we have had to postpone the online tribute for Lydia Wevers until further notice. We will update this information once the timing for the new event date has been finalised. Thank you for your patience!

It was with great sadness that we learnt of Lydia Wevers' death on Saturday 4 September 2021.

A self-described compulsive reader, Lydia was an accomplished scholar specialising in New Zealand and Australian literature and was a leading literary historian and critic. She taught at universities in Europe, Britain, Australia and, most recently, Victoria University Wellington.

Featherston Booktown loved Lydia Wevers – maybe it was her constant generosity, or her bravery, her positivity, or her “well what are we going to do about this” attitude?

At the annual Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival In 2018, 2019 and 2021, Lydia delivered fascinating, beautifully researched and written sessions about famous NZ women writers from the 20th Century. In 2019, Lydia also spoke about her book on the old books in the Brancepeth Station Library. The events always sold out. She felt, given that Featherston had six second-hand bookshops on the main road, someone should be talking about old books that still might be found in those shops.

Featherston Booktown would like to honour and celebrate Lydia in an online live-streamed event on Sunday 17 October from 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm.

Distinguished poet and polymath, Gregory O'Brien; internationally awarded writer, Lloyd Jones; a friend from University days and arguably the best literary editor in Aotearoa New Zealand, Jane Parkin, and academic, writer, poet and Festival Director, Chris Price, will talk with Rob Kelly - one of Lydia's Ph.D. students and now a producer for Radio NZ - about how they knew and remember Lydia. They will read from a piece of Lydia's writing that best captures her spirit for them.