Verb Readers & Writers Festival returns to Pōneke

Verb Readers & Writers Festival returns to the capital running September 25th - 27th, alongside some exciting pre festival teaser events running from September 23rd. This year's programme features an exceptional lineup of local and international authors, with the first two artists announced below.

Across the festival weekend, writers and artists will take to the stage of the iconic Pōneke venue, The Hannah, for a series of joyful events filled with inspiring conversations; where creativity bursts off the page. Book launches, workshops and lively, crafty activations will be set up in satellite venues, all in the heart of Te Aro.

The 2026 festival offers audiences an expansive and stimulating programme of brilliant conversation, playful performance and bold ideas.

Co-directors Gabrielle Vincent and Kate McDonald say 'Programming our first Verb Festival is both an enormous privilege and an exciting opportunity. As new Co-Directors, we've been thinking carefully about what makes Verb so special: a love of storytelling, a spirit of curiosity, and the connections that happen when writers and readers come together. This year's programme honours that heart while bringing together artists that are familiar to Verb as well as fresh voices, and plenty of surprises to the stage. We can't wait to welcome audiences back to celebrate stories in all their forms.'

The full programme and tickets will be live from Friday 14th August, but the Verb team are incredibly excited to share now, two authors, who will be joining the programme, as a sneak peek of what’s in store. The much loved, 13th New Zealand Poet Laureate - Chris Tse alongside New Zealand music icon, Jon Toogood with his unflinching and no-holds-barred memoir.

In this special event chaired by Nick Bollinger, legendary frontman of Shihad and The Adults, Jon Toogood, pulls back the curtain on a 37-year career that helped define New Zealand rock, and the personal cost that came with it. From a music-obsessed childhood in Wellington to the roar of international stages, this is a life driven by sound. Weaving powerful conversation with solo performances of his songs, Jon revisits the moments that shaped him, taking the audience on a VIP tour through a life of music, sharing untold stories, songwriting secrets, and the candid truths about mental health. 

Tickets for this intimate in-conversation event, Jon Toogood: Home Again, go on sale on Thursday 23 July and can be purchased at verbwellington.nz, with general admission tickets from $25. 

Chris Tse is back with his fourth poetry collection, Dance-Floor Romance. Unfolding in the strobe-lit landscape of the club, this latest collection from Tse reflects on joy, nostalgia and legacy – and what it means to make a vocation of vulnerability. But when the lights come up after the last dance, how do we brace ourselves to face the world outside? Dance-Floor Romance is poetry that seeks answers from the art we turn to in times of uncertainty, that ‘Holds the present as much as it / holds a whisper of the future’, and amplifies it. 

Chris Tse is the author of the poetry collections How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes, HE’S SO MASC, and Super Model Minority. His new collection, Dance-Floor Romance, will be published by Auckland University Press, and available from Thursday 10th September 2026. Chris was Aotearoa New Zealand’s Poet Laureate from 2022-25. 

The events in the 2026 Verb Readers & Writers Festival programme proudly reflect authors who triumph in writing from a place of reflection; what it means to look back, and what that looks like when looking to the future. How do we encourage change in our society? What agency does literature give us; as a reader and a writer? Verb Readers & Writers Festival 2026 presents a programme that will inspire hope, contemplation, creativity and instill the nourishment of books in our society.

For 2026 Verb is also excited to have two new co-directors at the helm, Gabrielle Vincent and Kate McDonald. Vincent is a curator and producer of live performance from Tāmaki Makaurau. As well as being co-director at Verb, she is also the Family and Schools Programmer at Auckland Writers Festival. McDonald has long been a part of Verb, working across different capacities including Volunteer Coordinator and Front of House Manager. During her bookselling days, she led the festival bookselling teams from 2022 -2024.

The Verb team are also looking ahead to November 14th for its satellite and much loved ‘weekend crawl’ event. Full details and programme to be announced in October at verbwellington.nz

Full 2026 Verb Readers & Writers festival programme announced and Tickets on sale  - Friday 14 August at verbwellington.nz

Hard copy programmes can be posted upon request by emailing kate@verbwellington.nz or collected from festival venues, bookshops and cafes in the CBD (from August 14th). 

Verb are also incredibly proud to continue its longstanding relationship with Unity Books as the festival’s official bookseller, the Unity Books team will be on hand at all events with their expert advice, knowledge and books on sale.