Beer goggles

Bonsai (CUP, 2018)

It’s a long walk up between streets, a Wellington short cut, past cabbage trees and damp, tightly-planted agapanthus. […] Stopping to catch their beery breath, turning, they see the city below them. Closer, lights glow in scattered windows of the university buildings, patterning the sky. In ‘Beer goggles’, Warren and Lola take “a Wellington short … Read more…

A memory of others

Another 100 NZ Short Stories

This month marks 20 years since the publication, in May 1998, of my first piece of fiction, in this fine wee book: Another 100 New Zealand Short Short Stories, edited by Graeme Lay, and published by Tandem Press (it’s out of print now, though probably in secondhand bookstores and libraries; stories from three volumes in the series were – … Read more…

Short Story Club, on stage and on air

Jesse Mulligan Short Story Club on RNZ

Back in May 2017, Jesse Mulligan kicked off a new weekly feature on his weekday afternoon show on Radio New Zealand: Short Story Club. The idea for Short Story Club first came up, if I’m not mistaken, one afternoon a few weeks earlier when Jesse had frequent bookish guest and LitCrawl Queen Claire Mabey on the show. It works like this: every … Read more…

Short Story Book Club Live at LitCrawl Wellington

LitCrawl Wellington 2017

I’ve been enjoying heading in to the RNZ studio now and again this year (here, here, here and here) to take part in Short Story Club, a weekly feature on Jesse Mulligan’s afternoon show. One of my stories, ‘Once had me’, has even been the story for discussion (not, obviously, a week I took part in the discussion; … Read more…

At the bay

Good Dog 2016

The kids are busy at the river mouth. … There’s one black dog right in there with them, a mad barker, lolling and lollopping. Another dog, black-and-white, more serious, is hanging back, watching, crouched up the beach on its haunches, front paws out, ears up, attentive, as if it’s watching skittish sheep. The dog glances … Read more…

Portrait as a Tehuana, 1989

She rummages in a plastic shopping bag under the table, and pulls out something stiff and white. Lacy, like old-fashioned underwear. ‘It’s nearly finished,’ she says, holding it wide near her face, making a shape I can’t distinguish. ‘What is it Lou?’ Liz asks. ‘Frida’s undies?’ ‘One of her costumes, cara.’ Lou’s fake Mexican accent … Read more…