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…
Writing
The Hope Fault: Q&A for Deborah Kalb
Ahead of the US release of The Hope Fault, writer, editor, book blogger and ex-journalist Deborah Kalb asked if I’d answer some questions about the novel. Deborah asked me about my writing process, long-lost manuscripts, where characters come from, endings, and why my next novel is about triplets! You can read my responses in ‘Q&A with … Read more…
Captain Panic and The Hope Fault: on being anxious in an uncertain landscape
The Belgravia Books / Aardvark Bureau / Gallic Books team asked me to write something for their blog, on anxiety as a preoccupation of my novel The Hope Fault. I wrote about extreme campervanning, family nicknames, and being anxious (and writing) in an uncertain landscape. Like the Worst Campervan in New Zealand, my novel The … Read more…
A memory of others
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…
Launching Little Gods
It was my delight and honour to launch Jenny Ackland’s second novel, Little Gods, at Readings Carlton tonight. Here’s my launch speech, which says it all. Update, February 2019: So thrilled that Little Gods has been longlisted for the 2019 Stella Prize. Read more here. Update, March 2019: She’s only gone and made the Stella Prize … Read more…
After Mattie’s
This time two weeks ago I was getting towards the end of my 28-hour journey from Perth, home to Wellington (driving from Perth to Busselton; coaching from Busselton to Perth airport; waiting, waiting; flying from Perth to Auckland to Wellington; don’t ask, it’s a long and not very interesting story), after finishing my month-long stay … Read more…
Ticket to Wonderland
Today is officially my first day waking up in Wonderland, as I (nominally) start the ten-month funding period for the Creative New Zealand Arts Grant I was awarded in May ‘towards researching and writing the first draft of a novel, Wonderland’. This is the second Arts Grant I’ve received from Creative New Zealand. The first, … Read more…
Creative New Zealand funding for third novel
I’m delighted, honoured and relieved to have been awarded a Creative New Zealand Arts Grant in the March/May 2017 funding round, to work on my third novel. In a news post today on the results of the funding round, Creative New Zealand said: Creative New Zealand has awarded 92 grants worth a total $2,032,544 in its latest … Read more…
The most beautiful home movie ever made
I was sorry to hear, a fortnight ago, of the death of film director Jonathan Demme. The tweets and obits all namechecked the films he’s best known for: The Silence of the Lambs (1991, five Oscars), Philadelphia (1993, two Oscars), and (arguably the best concert film ever) Stop Making Sense (1984). But my thoughts turned first to … Read more…
‘A way with words: Writing as a physical activity’ for NZ Listener
New Zealand Listener has this year been running a regular feature, A way with words, in which they invite New Zealand writers to describe their writing day. I was thrilled to be asked to write a piece, and my contribution was published this week (the issue dated 6 May 2017, on newsstands the week before that) under the … Read more…