'I finished reading Weber’s engaging book over a weekend attending readers’ and writers’ events at the Wellington International Festival midway through March 2020. A week later the festival closed early, just prior to Covid-19 lockdown and stay-at-home protocols sweeping Australasia, as they did across the globe. In this period, some writers and some festivals have worked hard to maintain a virtual presence, keeping the word alive, as it were, online. What will post-Covid literary festivals look like? How closely will they resemble the festivals Weber evokes so well? Will northern hemisphere writing megastars still travel south? If festivals will largely comprise Australian and New Zealand writers, will audiences still be keen to turn out, debate and, most importantly, buy books in such large numbers as has been the custom? It is, of course, too soon to tell.' (Introduction)
