We've been made aware of some authors receiving scam emails purporting to be from the Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki Team, with an invitation to speak at this year’s event, and being asked to make payment to do so.

Invitations to the Festival will only ever be extended from an official writersfestival.co.nz email address, and we would never ask authors to pay to appear at the Festival, nor ask them to share any card details or to make an online payment relating to their involvement.

It appears that scammers are targeting publicly available email addresses. Please be assured that no AWF data has been compromised or leaked.

Peer Festivals and some book clubs have reported a similar scam and we’re all working quickly to investigate and report the issue.

In the meantime, if you’d like to check the validity of an approach you’ve received from the Festival or want to report what you believe to be a scam email, please forward it to lfineran@writersfestival.co.nz

The NZ Society of Authors have suggested that writers monitor scams on the Writers Beware site and visit the Society of Authors UK site for further advice on how to navigate these scams.

Ngā mihi nui,

The Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki Team