6pm, Wednesday 12 June 2024
Takapuna Library, 9 The Strand
Cristina Sanders is a writer of historical fiction, and she will talk about her research in the Turnbull Library and elsewhere to produce her very popular books about aspects of New Zealand’s past. Her recent book, Mrs Jewell and the Wreck of the General Grant, has a huge following. The novel is written from Mary Jewell’s perspective and based on a true story of an 1866 shipwreck with only a handful of survivors. Cristina is also well known for her book, Jerningham, on colonial Wellington and the life of a particularly colourful character in that extraordinary Wakefield family, Edward Jerningham Wakefield.
Cristina’s involvement with books dates back to her experience of growing up in the family’s Gateway Bookshop in Wellington, where all books were tested on children. She went on to work for some years in book marketing and publishing both in New Zealand and London, but now she is best known as a novelist. Her YA manuscript, Displaced, inspired by her family’s immigration from Norway in the 1870s, won the 2020 Storylines Tessa Duder Award. Cristina lives in Hawke’s Bay with her family, where she runs on the hills and, whenever she can, sails away on tall ships. She has frequently spent time crewing on the Spirit of Adventure.
Come along to the Takapuna Library, 9 The Strand, at 6.00pm on Wednesday 12 June. Light refreshments are available before Cristina’s talk at 6.30pm. Jointly hosted by the Friends of Takapuna Library & the Friends of the Turnbull, this event is free and open to all. Bring a friend and sit back, ready to be entertained.