It was Aunt who taught me not just to look, but to really see. She taught me to look with an artist’s eye, and that’s what I’ve done in my work. I’ve seen the planets with an artist’s eye, charted their courses with a sense of the beauty their paths carve through space. Connecting memory, … Read more…
short fiction
Surface Tension
The roads have changed, the houses of Helen’s childhood gone, and she is always shocked when she visits to come this way, to see the great walls of roadway where the little dark houses used to be. She turns the car into North Street, pointing straight at the sea. In ‘Surface Tension’, two long-ago lovers … Read more…
Trick the Light
At the western end of the bay, where the beach curved around, long shadows from Norfolk pines fell on the beach, formed strips of shade on the white sand. We fell in and out of darkness as we walked. ‘Trick the Light’, a chapter extracted from The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt, appears … Read more…
Once Had Me
The car winds between steep fields that sweep down, green, to meet the road. The high sides of hills make corners you can’t see around. The sun’s out, but everything’s still soaking, the road steaming. Lucy presses the button and the window glass moves down, widens the gap, lets in damp fresh air. ‘Go right, … Read more…
‘Once had me’ wins short story award
Last week, I won the 2014 Sunday Star-Times Short Story Award for my story ‘Once had me’. The story was published in the Sunday Star-Times over the weekend. The SS-T Short Story Award, now in its 30th year, has been won by some of New Zealand’s best (and my favourite) writers — including Sarah Quigley, … Read more…
Tracy Farr on Helen Garner’s Postcards from Surfers
Perth writer Annabel Smith invited me to write about a favourite book – and what it means to me – for the Friday Faves feature on her website. I chose Helen Garner’s 1985 collection of short stories, Postcards from Surfers. This book reminds me why I go back to Helen Garner’s writing, why I love … Read more…
Keeping it short and sweet
It’s been a week for (very) short fiction, for me — a nice change from the long slog of the novel. Back in May this year, as the deadline for 2013 National Flash Fiction Day (NFFD) competition — for stories of 300 words or fewer — was approaching, the NFFD folks (in NZ Society of Authors Newsletter Friday 17/5/13) asked 2012 … Read more…
Yargnits
They walk on the crunch of gravel and shells. There are voices from the marae, kids and grownups all outside and inside and the noise of them carrying on the still-warm night air. To the left of them is the sea, flat, like a lying down window. Dark like a window at bedtime, with only … Read more…