THE GROOVE BOOK REPORT

Provided courtesy of Daniel Vernon, all rights reserved. A viral election cartoon, a fake band that got real and a comic book of Māori legends: YeeHawTheBoys is having quite a year.  Daniel Vernon is a Pōneke cartoonist and graphic novelist who goes by @YeeHawTheBoys online. He is also Danz, the frontman of DARTZ ('Crispy' Christan Pianta, Guitar; Clark Mathews, Bass; 'Rollyz' aka Hakopa Kuka-Larsen, Drums), the Flying Nun punk band that turned a stunt into a career. His third book, Local Legends, reimagines three Māori pūrākau as action, horror and romance, and he is introducing it at VerbCrawl this Saturday.

"Here's a vampiric pic of me by Todd Karehana, the pose was a happy accident" - Noelle McCarthy From Cork to Aotearoa, McCarthy has made a working life of stories: writing them, broadcasting them, and giving them room to unfold. She began in radio at Auckland’s 95bFM in the early 2000's, then spent more than a decade at RNZ, including hosting Summer Noelle and other shows. With her husband, writer John Daniell, she makes long-form narrative podcasts through Bird of Paradise Productions, established in 2017. Their work includes A Wrinkle in Time and The Service. In 2023, she was writer in residence at Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters.  Two memoirs have followed, each with its own way of bringing the past to the open door of the present. Grand: Becoming my mother’s daughter, published by Penguin on 29 March 2022, centres on her mother, Carol, and won the 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards’ E.H. McCormick Prize for a first book of general ...

Wellington’s much-loved LitCrawl returns under its new name, VerbCrawl, on Saturday 14 November 2026.  This long-running celebration of books, poetry and performance turns the central city into a literary trail, with around 25–26 events across 13 venues from about 6.00pm to 9.15pm. Pre-party activity begins from 5.00pm, while the after-party starts at 9.15pm at Meow. Tickets are $10 per event.  The crawl moves through bookshops, galleries, bars and cultural spaces including Aurelia Books on Willis Street, City Gallery Wellington, St Peter’s on Willis, Peg Gallery and Meow. One of the more unexpected settings is Drapers Fabrics, which hosts Cult Icons with Chris Tse and Haro Lee.  The programme features writers, poets and performers including Chris Tse, Haro Lee, Tusiata Avia, Gregory Kan, Jordan Hamel, Jo Randerson, Noelle McCarthy, Airini Beautrais, James Brown, Shariff Burke, Lucy Corry, Joy Holley, Lucy Black, Nadia Freeman, Rebecca Hawkes, Nadine Hura, Melody Thomas a...