Author Talk | Harry Ricketts with Erik Kennedy

Scorpio Books and Te Herenga Waka University Press warmly welcome you to an author talk featuring Harry Ricketts in conversation with Erik Kennedy. This author talk comes on the eve of publication day for Harry’s new poetry collection Bonfires on the Ice. Pre-order your copy today!

All welcome, this is a free event. No RSVP required as this event is not catered.

About the speakers

Harry Ricketts is a poet and literary scholar and has published around 30 books. He has lived in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, since 1981. Until his retirement in 2022, he was a professor in the English Programme at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. His books include the internationally acclaimed The Unforgiving Minute: A Life of Rudyard Kipling (1999) and Strange Meetings: The Lives of the Poets of the Great War (2010). His recent books include the poetry collections Winter Eyes (2018) and Selected Poems (2021), and the memoir First Things (2024). With historian David Kynaston, he is the co-author of the award-winning Richie Benaud’s Blue Suede Shoes: The Story of an Ashes Classic (Bloomsbury, 2024).

Erik Kennedy is the author of the Ockham-shortlisted There’s No Place Like the Internet In Springtime (2018), Another Beautiful Day Indoors (2022), and Sick Power Trip (2025), launched at Scorpio Books earlier this year! Originally from New Jersey, he lives in Ōtautahi Christchurch.