Straight Line Was a Lie: Liz Stokes on writing The Beths’ most personal album yetÂ
Alex Casey talks to Liz Stokes from The Beths about breaking through writer’s block and accepting the mess.…
All 81 albums nominated for the 2025 Taite Music Prize, reviewed
Max Johns embarks on a comprehensive tour of the current NZ music landscape. Summer read – originally published…
Sorry! The economic recovery you ordered has been delayedÂ
Expectations were repeatedly raised and dashed, but 2025 ended up being another frustrating year in the desert for…
The Spinoff’s favourite TV shows of 2025
From the modern horrors of Adolescence to the campy twists of The Celebrity Traitors UK, here’s everything we…
The beep test: ‘Ritual humiliation’ or efficient fitness appraisal?
You probably did it at high school. Your kid probably did too. But why? *BEEP*: Wait, what’s happening?…
How hard is it to eat enough vegetables? Pretty hard
The vast majority of New Zealanders fall short of the recommended five servings of vegetables a day, according…
The cost of being: A creative with ‘wildly varied’ annual income
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, an arts sector creative…
How two AI book covers forced the publishing industry to reckon with its future
Elizabeth Smither and Stephanie Johnson’s latest books, both published by Quentin Wilson Publishing, have been yeeted from the…
When art is life: the exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) Chris Knox biography, reviewed
Claire Mabey reads Not Given Lightly, Craig Robertson’s long-awaited biography of iconic, contradictory artist Chris Knox. Where do…
Who can write a novel today?Â
Claire Mabey argues that it’s high time we stop thinking of creative work as a nice-to-have; and instead…
An ode to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Bee Trudgeon has had a lifelong love affair with CS Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.…
What is ‘dark academia’ – and why is it having a moment?
Claire Mabey unpacks the not-quite-a-genre of dark academia: its features, themes and examples. What is dark academia? “Dark…