Blog Archives
Margaret Atwood in New Zealand, Anne Else
Beginnings and Endings Mostly I want to read what writers write, not look at r listen to them. But in the mid-1980s, I went to hear Margaret Atwood. Murder in the Dark had recently appeared, and she read “Happy…
The need for a conservative rudder, Simon Upton
In 1987 I was rash enough to publish a slender volume of essays with the title The Withering of the State. It was written in the months preceding the biggest stock market crash for a generation and fully two years…
Triumph in the regions, Lauris Edmond
Women’s Book Festival In the first week of October this year a major national institution will make its annual appearance. In libraries, theatres, halls of various kinds, cafes and school rooms, in large cities and smaller towns all over the…
More than the myth he became, Tom Beard
I was four when Baxter died and living on the other side of the world. It seems that everyone here has a Baxter anecdote ‑ something along the lines of “I remember finding Jim passed out next to my letterbox”…
Wielding the jawbone of an ass, Fleur Adcock
I last saw Jim Baxter towards the end of 1962, eating steak and chips for lunch in a restaurant on Lambton Quay. I was about to leave for England, but not so imminently that I felt the need to make…
The virtue of defeat, Bill Oliver
I am not sure why I or anyone else should bother about the politics of a poet, especially of a poet whose typical response to politics varied only between contempt and rage. Still, he wrote a considerable number of political…
A rare breed, Michael Morrissey
The literary politician. Sounds faintly implausible? Like a ballerina plumber or a crocheting bricklayer? I am referring of course to the politician who writes poems, novels or plays rather than the politician who is a mere apologist, pamphleteer or self…
Shaping the Women’s Book Festival for a future, Rachel Lawson
For most of us the Listener Women’s Book Festival appears without question each September. Women crowd to events all over the country to put a face to their favourite authors, ask tricky questions about their lives and characters, and splash…
Letter from Auckland, Iain Sharp
Earlier this year I was asked to write a short profile of Maurice Gee for Pacific Way, the Air New Zealand in-flight magazine. This involved a long-distance call from the Pacific Way office in Auckland to Gee’s home in Wellington…
Essay – Iain Sharp
Iain Sharp: Letter from Auckland: Son of Landfall At the time of writing, it’s in the midst of a closing-down sale, like much of Auckland, but for the last couple of years there has been a music shop on the…