The Long Forgetting: Post-colonial Literary Culture in New Zealand Patrick Evans Canterbury University Press, $34.50, ISBN 9781877257698 Approximately halfway through Patrick Evans’ study comes a paragraph that, upon reflection, more or less sums up the way the book works. The…
Trainland: How Railways Made New Zealand Neill Atkinson Random House, $39.99, ISBN 9781869419059 I’ve always loved trains. A job in Timaru once in the days of steam had me driving regularly to Oamaru. North of the Waitaki River the main…
Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy Lynley Dodd Mallinson Rendel, $30.00, ISBN 9781877423147 Beginner writers often think that writing a picture book must be easy. But a story – any story – needs drafts and more drafts before it is ready…
Shadow of the Mountain Anna Mackenzie Longacre Press, $18.99, ISBN 9781877460005 Smashed Mandy Hager Random House, $18.99, ISBN 9781869419424 Gool Maurice Gee Puffin, $19.95, ISBN 9780143304005 Each of these kidult novels tells a compelling story in a tightly written…
Book Self C K Stead Auckland University Press, $38.99, ISBN 9781869404123 It isn’t in the spirit of the age that a Goethe will still attract his Eckermann, or a Dr Johnson his Boswell. A companion free of all other commitments,…
Pebbles at the window, Elizabeth Smither
Elizabeth Smither urges writers to recognise the rewards of rejection. I once spoke to a writer who assured me he had never had a rejection slip. Years later I met an editor who told me he had received frequent submissions…
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