Blog Archives
Jack Lasenby: 1931–2019 Barbara Larson It’s sad when our old people leave us. Losing the charming, astute, irascible, ferociously uncompromising, funny and gifted children’s writer Jack Lasenby makes this especially so. Jack Millen Lasenby was born in the small Waikato…
Obituary Gordon Challis (1932-2018) Cliff Fell Like other poets before him, Gordon Challis, who died in March 2018, had written his own epitaph, or an epitaph of sorts. In “Hard to Get at”, from his 2003 comeback collection, The Other…
Obituary Peter Wells (1950-2019) Siobhan Harvey Into the apparent silence of diverse voices in Aotearoa New Zealand literature, award-winning novelist, essayist, historian, anthologist, filmmaker and playwright, Peter Wells spoke. His was an articulation which, in life, was strong, uncompromising, inquisitive,…
Obituary Raymond Frank Grover (1931-2019) Brad Patterson Born in Matamata in 1931, the eldest son of a transient school-teaching family, Ray Grover’s early years were in small rural settlements at the Bay of Islands and on the Wanganui River. After…
Dancing between order and chaos Novelist and children’s writer Barbara Else remembers Barbara Murison (b Wellington Nov 26, 1931, d Waikanae, May 7, 2017) Barbara Murison, librarian and life-long advocate of children’s reading, exemplified Margaret Mahy’s definition of the librarian…
Literacy and literature Julia Marshall, publisher at Gecko Press, raises a cheer for the cheerleader for children’s books, John McIntyre. John McIntyre of The Children’s Bookshop in Kilbirnie was a champion and friend of many. His wife and partner in…
“A nice guy” C K Stead recalls the poet and critic Mike Doyle (1928-2016) Late in December, I received a phone call to say my former colleague, and friend of many years, Mike Doyle had died at home in Canada.…
“Half a stranger at home” Professor Paul Morris reflects on the work of Sir James McNeish (1931–2016) As a writer and a man, Jim McNeish was drawn to human life beyond the physical and social borders of the settled middle…
Obituary Roger Robinson, writer for the Runner’s World/Running Times website, puts the work of Norman Harris (1940-2015) into proper context. We all know, and most of us enjoy, the drama of sport, the physical one that we watch on the…
Harmonious sensuality Ross Harris recalls the life and work of fellow-composer Jack Body (1944-2015) Jack Body was born in the small North Island farming town of Te Aroha to parents with little interest in music. Even so, he was playing…