A record-breaking 60,000 people turned up for the Auckland Writers Festival at the weekend.

CK Stead acknowledged that in the past he was dogmatically opinionated. Photo / Dean Purcell
CK Stead acknowledged that in the past he was dogmatically opinionated. Photo / Dean Purcell
Cats were a feature of the Auckland Writers Festival weekend, thanks to two senior authors.

On Saturday, headline act Haruki Murakami, wearing a T-shirt featuring a cat silhouette above the words "Keep Calm and Read Murakami", talked about how the family cat was his only friend when he was growing up: "My parents didn't understand [me] at all. I love my books, I love my music, I love my cat."

2015 Honoured New Zealand Writer CK Stead closed the festival last night with three poems including an elegy to his dead cat, Zac. When Stead had a problem with a poem "Zac the Knife", according to the elegy, "slept on it".

Stead told the audience he finds it hard to recognise himself in his irascible public image, but now assesses that in the past he was dogmatically opinionated. "They were damn good opinions, but I was too emphatic, too forceful, too excited really."

A record-breaking estimated festival audience of 60,000 meant author-signing queues up to two hours long and dozens of people turned away at free events. Five awards were announced over the five days, including the $12,000 Sarah Broom Memorial Poetry prize, won by Wellington poet Diana Bridge. More