David Herkt reviews The Hope Fault for Fairfax NZ

The Hope Fault (Fremantle Press, 2017)

David Herkt’s lovely review of The Hope Fault for Fairfax was published in their regional papers around New Zealand this weekend. It is a novel [that] has a gravity and a weight. It is dense with sensation and thought. The small moments of existence are turned to catching the light. Farr is a master of describing a situation and teasing out its … Read more…

‘Backwards story gives novel a backbone’ interview in Post

The Hope Fault (Fremantle Press, 2017)

On the last day of my recent trip to Perth, I met Sarah McNeill at a Shenton Park cafe for coffee and a chat about The Hope Fault. Sarah’s story was published in Perth’s Post newspaper. The Hope Fault is a uniquely crafted novel that interweaves the intimate and the remote, and beautifully captures the shifts, faults and … Read more…

The Hope Fault — publication day

Today is, officially, publication day for my second novel, The Hope Fault. Fremantle Press have produced a beautiful looking book, and it was a particular delight to work once again with publisher Georgia Richter on this novel. It’s such a thrill to be with Fremantle Press — Georgia and Jane Fraser and Claire Miller and … Read more…

Books+Publishing reviews The Hope Fault

The Hope Fault

Lou Heinrich reviewed The Hope Fault for Books+Publishing in February, ahead of the novel’s publication on 1 March 2017. [The Hope Fault] echoes the thoughtfulness of Jessie Cole’s Deeper Water, with its literary reflection on the geography of family, and the way domestic life can be invaded and divided. A gentle anxiety underlines the air of contentment, as Iris meditates on the mystery … Read more…

Ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive – a 2016 countdown

Let’s face it, 2016 has been a crap year for the world. And politically, 2017 scares the poop out of me (though let’s hope New Zealand seizes the opportunity later this year to #changethegovernment). But in writing terms, for me 2016 was a great year, and — with my new novel due out in a … Read more…

The Hope Fault – Notes, resources and references

Hope Fault close-up 2015 South Island Geology map, Unfolding the map exhibition

Like most writers, I’m a magpie, taking shiny things from the world around me and making them my own, absorbing and transforming them in my writing. So, in addition to the acknowledgements printed in the back of the book (reproduced at the bottom of this page), I wanted to acknowledge some of the sources, resources … Read more…

Publication day: Good Dog! anthology

Good Dog 2016

Today marks the publication of Good Dog! New Zealand Writers on Dogs, an anthology edited by Stephanie Johnson, and produced in glorious hardback by Vintage / Penguin Random House New Zealand. It includes writing — poetry, fiction, essays, old and new — from a cast of New Zealand writers, including Fiona Kidman, Charlotte Grimshaw, Tina … Read more…