The four day, 14-event festival programme was released in Wanaka on Monday to an audience of about 200 patrons and supporters.
It reveals a range of funny, gritty, inspiring and thought-provoking events to talk about between April 4 and 7.
Festival director Sophie Kelly said the festival "challenged the things that matter".
She and co-programmer Philip Tremewan had tried to do things differently for this festival, the first in six years after Covid-19 pandemic interruptions.
As the world continued to tackle issues raised in a "post-truth world", the Aspiring Conversations Festival aimed to take the chat out of the social media echo chamber and confront it, while having fun, she said.
Chinese-Kiwi playwright Nathan Joe starts the festival on April 4 at Wanaka’s Rhyme & Reasons Brewery with his show Dirty Passports, "featuring your favourite minorities behaving badly ... all for the audience’s displeasure".
Included in this show are slam poetry and spoken work artists from Maori, Samoan, Tongan, German, Scottish and Irish descent — including Ngaio Simmons, Eric Soakai, Alvie McKree and Rushi Vyas.
On April 5, Lake Hawea climber Lydia Bradey joins forces with bibliophile, adventurer and writer Ruth Shaw, of Manapouri, women’s sports journalist Alice Soper and singer Julia Deans to talk the audience through the times they each took a chance on something and how it turned out.
On Saturday, April 6, New Zealand journalists Susie Ferguson (Radio New Zealand), Paddy Gower (Newshub) and Guyon Espiner (Radio New Zealand) will be up early to read and review the news in the Otago Daily Times and other news outlets over breakfast.
Ferguson will return later in the day to tackle the gritty topic, Truth and Lies, with science communicator Siouxsie Wiles, writer Byron C. Clarke and Disinformation Project director Kate Hannah. Also on Saturday is a conversation about the Treaty of Waitangi with Kai Tahu.
Ko Kai Tahu Me Te Tiriti tells the story of seven Kai Tahu rakatira (chiefs) who signed the treaty and it discusses the impact of signing on Te Waipounamu [South Island].
Espiner and Gower will be back on April 7 to chat with writer Lotta Dan about the odds of quitting alcohol.
