I’m incredibly grateful to Jared Davidson and Verb Festival for letting me podcast this amazing event.

Jared’s book Blood & Dirt: Prison Labour & the Making of New Zealand (Bridget Williams Books, 2023) is an outstanding work of scholarship and creativity. I am a huge fan of this book and I feel very grateful to Jared who trusted me with this conversation.

At the end of this talk, we took questions from the audience. Unfortunately, my recording didn’t pick these up very clearly, so I’ve recorded and inserted summaries of the questions in my own words. I hope that is okay with the people who asked them. I was so excited by how many questions were asked - the event felt like a conversation and it was really great.

Thanks also to the amazing team at Verb. Every year they build this incredible ‘city’ made up of communities who are interested in ideas, writing and reading. It is an amazing thing to be involved with and I love it so much.