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.