Hagstone is a beautifully written, prescient and eerily haunting fiction debut that takes in the darker side of human nature and the mysteries of faith and the natural world.

On a wild and rugged island cut off and isolated to some, artist Nell feels the island is her home. It is the source of inspiration for her art, rooted in landscape, folklore and the feminine. The mysterious Inions, a commune of women who have travelled there from all over the world, consider it a place of refuge and safety, of solace in nature. All the islanders live alongside the strange murmurings that seem to emanate from within the depths of the island, a sound that is almost supernatural – a Summoning as the Inions call it.

One day, a letter arrives at Nell’s door from the reclusive Inions who invite Nell into the commune for a commission to produce a magnificent art piece to celebrate their long history. In its creation, Nell will discover things about the community and about herself that will challenge everything she thought she knew.

‘Wild, elemental and brimming with ideas and intelligence, Hagstone feels both ancient and very modern. I adored it’. Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses.

Sinéad Gleeson’s essay collection Constellations: Reflections from Life was published by Picador in 2019 and won Non-Fiction Book of the Year at 2019 Irish Book Awards and the Dalkey Literary Award for Emerging Writer. It was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and Michael Deon Prize. She is editor of The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers (named for a line from Maeve Brennan, which includes a story by Brennan), The Glass Shore: Short Stories by Women Writers from the North of Ireland and The Art of the Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories. Sinéad also collaborates with artist and musicians, with commissions from The Wellcome Collection, BBC, Frieze and various galleries. In 2022, with Kim Gordon, she co-edited This Woman’s Work: Essays on Music, published by White Rabbit Books. Hagstone is her first novel. 

Presented in partnership with Auckland Writers Festival, WORD Christchurch and HarperCollins New Zealand. Supported by Culture Ireland.

PHOTO CREDIT: Bríd O'Donovan

We’re absolutely delighted to welcome back Irish bestselling author, Sinéad Gleeson! Sinéad is one of Ireland's most beloved literary voices and she thrilled audiences when she appeared at Verb's 2019 festival. Join Sinéad for a discussion on her much anticipated first novel Hagstone with the brilliant Noelle McCarthy. There will be book sales and signings afterwards, thanks to our friends at Unity Books.

General Admission: $26 Concession: $23
Verb Community members: $21 (check your ReVerb e-newsletter for the code).

’Startling, engrossing, darkly playful’ Roddy Doyle

‘I read Hagstone with with a feeling of ease and awe. Packed with the most incredible, sensuous nature writing; I felt I was living and breathing on that island’ June Caldwell

The brilliant Trent Dalton will be in conversation to discuss his big-hearted, gritty, magical and moving new novel, Lola in the Mirror in this special fundraiser for The Wellington City Mission.

There will be books sales and signings afterwards, thanks to our friends at Unity Books.

Lola in the Mirror is a big, blackly funny, violent, heartbreaking and beautiful novel of love, fate, life and death, and all the things we see when we look in the mirror, written by one of Australia’s bestselling authors. 

All tickets to this event include a donation portion that will be passed on directly to The Wellington City Mission (WCM) for their new building project, Whakamaru; all you need to do is turn up and enjoy the evening!

• $25 Your $5 WCM donation within this ticket price can help provide a community space to drink coffee and chat by contributing to the pay-what-you-choose Café build.

• $30 Your $10 WCM donation within this ticket price can help provide shower and washing facilities by contributing to the Laundry build.

• $50 Your $30 WCM donation within this ticket price can help provide free groceries by contributing to the new Social Supermarket build.

TRENT DALTON is a two-time Walkley Award–winning journalist and the international bestselling author of Lola in the Mirror, Love Stories and All Our Shimmering Skies. His books have sold over 1.3 million copies in Australia alone. The adaptation of his debut novel, Boy Swallows Universe, became Australia’s most watched Netflix TV show within three days of release and broke Top 10 lists in 60 countries across the world. He lives in Brisbane with his wife and two daughters.

About The Wellington City Mission
Empowering, transforming, and creating fullness of life for Wellingtonians who need support, The Wellington City Mission (WCM) provides free holistic assistance for anyone who needs it, regardless of religious belief, age, gender, ethnicity, or social background. The WCM supports a broad range of people, treating  everyone with dignity, respect, and without judgement.

Whakamaru
The completion of Whakamaru in late 2024 marks a significant milestone for the WCM, launching a transformative 24/7 residential and community hub. Whakamaru, will feature a pay-what-you-choose Café, free laundry facilities, an accessible Medical Centre, a new Social Supermarket, Financial Mentoring and Social Work services, 35 supported transitional housing apartments, and more. 

Whakamaru, a name gifted by mana whenua, means 'to shelter and to protect', and is set to be a life changing space for our city; for both the manuhiri who need access to WCM services, and the volunteer community who collaborate alongside them.  

Your donation to Whakamaru through this Verb x WCM collaboration supports the completion of an iconic inclusive community hub where every Wellingtonian belongs, and there is ‘no us and them’.

In The Vaster Wilds, a servant girl escapes from a settlement. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief of everything that her own civilization has taught her.

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Included in Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2024 list.

'Exhilarating' GUARDIAN
'Her writing has a timeless quality' THE TIMES
'[Has] a visionary quality' OBSERVER

Lauren Groff is the author of three New York Times bestselling novels – Fates and Furies (named by Barack Obama as his favourite book of 2015), The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia – as well as the story collection Delicate Edible Birds. She graduated from Amherst College and has an MFA in fiction from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Groff’s fiction has won the Pushcart Prize and the PEN/O. Henry Award, among others, and has been shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. In 2017, she was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists. Her stories have appeared in publications including The New Yorker, the Atlantic, One Story and Ploughshares, and in several of the annual The Best New American Stories anthologies. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her husband and two sons.

PHOTO CREDIT: (C) LUCY SCHAEFFER

We’re thrilled to welcome bestselling US writer Lauren Groff to Te Whanganui-a-Tara to discuss her profound and explosive new novel about a spirited girl alone in the wilderness, trying to survive. Lauren will be in conversation with Melody Thomas. There will be book sales and signings afterwards, thanks to our friends at Unity Books.

General Admission: $30 Concession: $27
Verb Community members: $24 (check your ReVerb e-newsletter for the code).

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Included in Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2024 list.