Welcome to episode 154 of Sweetman Podcast with support from our sponsors – T Leaf T, Yeastie Boys and La Petite Chocolat. 

Now – as you probably know, as well as the usual platforms (this site, soundcloud, iTunes/Apple) you can now get to Sweetman Podcast on Spotify – follow it there and have it saved in your Spotify library.

Here I have a conversation with Peter Wells. 

He is a New Zealand writer and filmmaker, an activist, an icon. His list of achievements is too long for any single conversation – too long for this blurb. But he has been successful as a creator of both non-fiction and fiction, and documentary and fictional feature films. He was one of the co-creators of the Auckland Writers Festival – and in 2006 was awarded a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to film and literature.  

Here’s a recent post from his friend Stephanie Johnson. Peter is now an inducted Fellow of the Academiy of NZ Literature.

His latest book, Hello Darkness, will be released this coming weekend, February 9. It is Peter’s story of his diagnosis and treatment living with terminal cancer. Wells writes about his life and in contemplation of his death in a series of posts that started life on Facebook, moved from there to essays on The Spinoff and will now live on in book form.

I met Peter last week at his home in Auckland. I spoke to him for the half-hour or so that exists on tape for this podcast. We talked about Facebook and his engagement with it, the writing of the book and his cancer.

It is always a pleasure and privilege to meet people and speak to them for this podcast. With Peter we liaised across several months – and I kept giving him opportunities to turn me down, to back out of it. He wanted to speak of the book and his life. And I’m so grateful that he allowed me into his home to capture this.

Here now is episode 154 of Sweetman Podcast, my conversation with Peter Wells.
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