Blog Archives

A child’s-eye view, Anna Mackenzie

The Mapmakers’ Race Eirlys Hunter, Gecko Press, $25.00

Time Twins Arne Norlin and Sally Astridge, Submarine, $25.00

Finding David Hill, Puffin, $20.00

The bonds of family and place, seen from an appropriately youthful viewpoint, are the key players in three recent offerings for younger readers.

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Posted in Children, Literature, Review

Back in the day, Chris Else

Tane’s War Brendaniel Weir, Cloud Ink Press, $30.00

Gone to Pegasus Tess Redgrave, Submarine, $35.00

Rotoroa Amy Head, Victoria University Press, $30.00,

Over the last ten years or so, the number of established New Zealand publishers bringing out local fiction has shrunk to less than a handful, while the annual output of eager talent from our creative writing schools has continued apace. As a result, there have been a lot of manuscripts out there struggling to reach a readership. Gradually, solutions have been found; literary ambition, like love, inevitably finds a way, resorting to such outlets as self-publishing, collectives and small one- or two-person companies.

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Peacetime at last, Helen Watson White

Astride a Fierce Wind
Huberta Hellendoorn
Submarine, $38.00,
ISBN 9780473395216

Writing in retirement in the small Dunedin apartment she shares with her husband Bart, Huberta Hellendoorn characteristically uses a domestic metaphor to describe her ever-changing experience:

The revolving dryer reminds me of my life, the moving and whirling of complicated situations, sometimes sudden, other times slow in reaching a climax. Tossed about by circumstances that could only be fully acknowledged by the passing of time and often hard work.

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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review

Brave writing, Charlotte Simmonds

The Walking Stick Tree
Trish Harris
Escalator Press, $35.00,
ISBN 9780994118646

A Small Blue Thing
Julie Hanify
Submarine, $35.00,
ISBN 9780994123770

The Case of the Missing Body
Jenny Powell
Otago University Press, $30.00,
ISBN 9781877578311

What Does the Sea Sound Like?
Evie Mahoney
Mary Egan Publishing, $30.00,
ISBN 9780473367718

My friend Uther once called a play A Show About Superheroes, partly as a ploy to get non-theatre people into theatres, under the logic that there are people who will go to anything if it is about superheroes. Similarly, there are people who will read any book on certain topics.

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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review

Writing about writing, Anne Else

Talk of Treasure  Jane Carswell Submarine, $35.00, ISBN 9780994137913 How do you depict the process of writing? Very few of the many films about writers try to show their protagonist actually doing it. Doctor Zhivago demonstrates why: Omar Sharif sits

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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
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