The WORD Christchurch festival is the largest event for books, stories and ideas in the South Island of New Zealand.
[citation needed] It also ran an annual schools programme showcasing the New Zealand Children's Book Award finalists.
[8] The 2018 event featured Australian writer and adventurer Robyn Davidson, former Islamist radical turned anti-extremist Ed Husain, Australian author, poet and hip-hop artist Omar Musa, British author Juno Dawson, New Zealand politician Margaret Austin, author and illustrator Gavin Bishop and many others.
[9] On 29 November 2019 a special event was held featuring Behrouz Boochani, the award-winning Iranian-Kurdish writer and film-maker who wrote about and filmed his experiences in the Australian offshore detention camp, the Manus Island detention centre, where he was held for six years.
[12] In 2021, the festival was postponed from September to November and its programme had to be downsized, with many events being run as virtual or live-streamed, due to the ongoing impacts of the pandemic.