The Weekend for Saturday 20 January 2024

08:12 Film director James Ashcroft on his latest project

Writer and director James Ashcroft (Ngāti Kahu and Ngāpuhi) studied at The Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School then spent seven years as chief executive and artistic director of Māori theatre company Taki Rua.

Ashcroft is in demand since his debut feature film Coming Home in the Dark debuted at Sundance Film Festival in 2021. He has just wrapped filming of his latest project, The Rule of Jenny Pen, a psychological thriller adapted from a short story by Owen Marshall. Filming brought Golden Globe winner John Lithgow and Academy Award winner Geoffrey Rush to Aotearoa, alongside Once Were Warriors star George Henare.

James joins Susana Lei'ataua on The Weekend to talk about balancing family life with growing Hollywood demands. 

 

08:35 Katherine Morgan Schafler: Perfectionism is power

As a psychotherapist and former on-site therapist at Google, Katherine Morgan Schafler has worked with hundreds of self-confessed perfectionists.

In her book The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, Katherine argues that perfectionism doesn't need fixing and that it can actually be a source of power.

 

09:05 Annabel Abbs: Coming to terms with sleeplessness

Grief plunged London-based writer and novelist Annabel Abbs into a discovery she shares in her latest book Sleepless. 

Unable and unwilling to sleep, Annabel starts out examining her own restless relationship with darkness, before branching out to take us on a tour of other sleepless women including Katherine Mansfield, Laura Cereta, Virgina Woolf and painter Lee Krasner. Eventually, she concludes that many people have achieved great things at night, and shares her learnings on how you can too. 

Sleepless is her seventh book in as many years so her nocturnal schedule is clearly working! 

 

09:35 Linda Tuhiwai Smith wins award for Literary Achievement

Last year, for the first time in the 21-year history of the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement, all three categories were won by women. Lee Murray picked up the fiction award, the non-fiction award went to Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith, and Tusiata Avia picked up the poetry prize.

In the third and final instalment of our conversations with the winners Susana Lei'ataua catches up with Linda Tuhiwai Smith.

Linda also treats us to a reading from her book Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples.

You can listen back to part one of the series featuring Lee Murray and part two with Tusiata Avia. 

 

10:05 Nisha Shankar: How to train an astronaut

Nisha Shankar is chief training officer at NASA's Johnson Space Centre. She takes astronauts who are fresh out of basic training and teaches them the skills they need to thrive on the International Space Station.

During the two-year course Nisha teaches the prospective crew a range of skills from docking a cargo vehicle through to how to wash their hair in zero gravity. Interpersonal skills also play a huge part in her training. Once an astronaut is in space there is no escape from their fellow crew members, so they'd better get on!

Nisha joins Susana Lei'ataua on The Weekend to share exactly how to train an astronaut.

 

10:30 Jemma Forman: Can cats play fetch?

Cats have a reputation for being aloof and difficult to bond with - yet research suggests they will engage in games of fetch. However, there is a catch. It is found that although they will play fetch without being trained, cats tend to play by their own rules. What does this mean? That they'll only fetch when they want to and only for specific people.

Jemma Forman is a PHD student at the University of Sussex. She conducted research into catch fetching behaviour alongside academics from the University of Northumbria.

She joins Susana Lei'ataua on The Weekend to discuss the findings and whether it's possible to truly understand our feline companions. You can stay updated on Jemma's future research into cat behaviour on the University of Sussex website. 

 

10:47 Māori Lit Blog: what to read in 2024

Jordan Tricklebank is the brains behind the Māori Literature Blog Instagram page. The page celebrates Aotearoa's rich history of Māori writers by sharing and reviewing both new and classic works. Jordan also maintains a public Google Drive spreadsheet listing works of Māori literature from 1964 through to today. As part of the Maori Lit Blog project Jordan also publishes Puhia, a journal showcasing the work of Māori writers and artists.

To tell us more about Maori Lit Blog and the authors we should be keeping an eye on Jordan joins Susana Lei'ataua in the Auckland studio.

 

11:05 The story of Treasure Island Caravan Park 

The same families have been visiting Treasure Island Caravan Park in Patua, Northland, for decades. During that time the little kids that zoomed around the camp ground have grown up to become big kids and have little kids of their own. Whether it's swimming, fishing or exploring the area, wonderful generational memories have been made.

For her new book, author Elaine Webster spent time with park owner Nita Joseph. Nita and her late husband Tim opened the park in 1985 and put a lifetime's worth of hard yakka into creating the perfect summer holiday destination. With the camp ground now for sale and this chapter of Nita's life closing, the book serves as a reminder of times gone by and the often-unseen graft it takes to run a caravan park.

Elaine and Nita join Susana Lei'ataua on The Weekend to discuss Looking For Treasure - The Story of Treasure Island Caravan Park which is full of those wonderful stories alongside photographs and maps.

 

11:30 Dr Jud Brewer: Why we eat when we're not hungry and how to stop 

If you sometimes find yourself elbow deep in a bag of chips late at night you're certainly not alone. Dr Jud Brewer is an internationally renowned addiction psychiatrist and neuroscientist and is professor at the School of Public Health and Medical School at Brown University.  He has spent over two decades studying habit change including automatic eating. His 2016 TED Talk has been viewed more than 19 million times and his book Unwinding Anxiety was a New York Times bestseller.

Dr Brewer joins Susana Lei'ataua on The Weekend to speak about his new book The Hunger Habit: Why we eat when we're not hungry and how to stop.