Launched!

Magpie Hall is now officially out in the world. Available at all good (New Zealand) bookstores yada yada. I feel something like relief.

It had a great launch at Mighty Mighty, which was the perfect venue - it conjured up all the lushness of a Victorian tattoo parlour. The book was launched by my good friend Gemma Gracewood who said unbelievably nice things about Magpie Hall and about me. Afterwards we discussed the fact that while Rosemary Summers isn't based on anyone we know, she is someone we could imagine knowing (indeed, Sally, the manager of Mighty Mighty, is herself a tattooed lady who collects taxidermy). After the speeches, Gemma was joined on stage by three more friends (Nigel, Carmel and Andy) from the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra, and they serenaded us with songs by Nick Cave and The Be Good Tanyas, both inspirations for the novel and on my list.

The launch was somewhat overshadowed by the sad death earlier in the week of our friend Heather McKenzie. She was sorely missed and will continue to be so.

Further to my last post about my new website, within days of it going up it was chosen as one of 8 great author websites, alongside the likes of Dan Brown, Peter Carey and Isabelle Allende! Thanks to my fantastic designers Sharon Blance and Brence Coghill. Sharon also took my author photos. If any authors out there would like to contact them in view to having their own website done, please feel free to leave your contact details in the comments here and I will pass them on. They were wonderful to work with and really listened to what I wanted, the result being my dream website. These two are multi-talented and are also the best swing dancers around.

Finally, if you are in Christchurch, I am doing an event tomorrow night (Tuesday, November 10) with Women On Air at Our City, Oxford Terrace. For more details visit www.womenonair.org.nz, or www.rachael-king.com. Please tell your friends!

Truly, Madly, Deeply.

I found out over the weekend that Anthony Minghella has died of surgery complications following an operation for cancer. Minghella directed many films based on great books - The English Patient, The Talented Mr Ripley and Cold Mountain, and one of his next projects was The Ninth Life of Louis Drax by Liz Jensen, a book I have been meaning to read.

But it is his first film that I will remember the most. I first saw Truly, Madly, Deeply at the Auckland International Film Festival in 1990 and I have seen it countless times since - one of the few films I have ever seen that I can watch again and again. I guess that makes it my favourite film of all time. Juliet Stevenson is superb in it as Nina - a scene early on in the film sees her crying to her therapist about the death of her partner Jamie, played by Alan Rickman before Hollywood found him. She bursts into angry, shouting, snotty tears about him leaving her. She is spellbinding.

She misses him so much that he comes back to her. While she plays the piano for a Bach piece and hums the cello part that accompanies it, he reappears, playing. He hangs out with her. More tears, more snot, but also great joy and silliness of a couple just hanging out. But things start to fall apart. He is perpetually cold. He invites his dead mates over and they watch videos. Eventually Nina realises that it's not going to work and she moves on, and Jamie lets her.

The film is a real tear jerker but it's also funny and so real that you have no trouble suspending disbelief. It is so unsentimental that it's hard to believe the same director went on to direct the schmaltz of Cold Mountain. But because of Truly Madly Deeply, I would forgive Minghella anything.

Because of that film I love Juliet Stevenson, I love Alan Rickman (who else can make a moustache look so sexy?), I love Bach's Cello Sonata in G Minor and always feel this odd mix of longing and contentment when I hear it (also this great rendition of "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore"). And because of all these things, I guess you could say that I love Anthony Minghella. Wish he'd made a film of my book. He would have been perfect.

Richard King

This evening I heard the very sad news of the sudden death of Richard King of Canterbury University Press. I didn't know him well, but I met him a few times. Only yesterday I bumped into him at the University Bookshop and he welcomed me and told me to drop into CUP and visit anytime - it meant a lot to me as I don't really know anybody in this new place. He and his partner Gillian, who had already made me feel so welcome the day before, invited me for coffee then and there; I was at the end of my lunch break and, wanting to form good work habits early on, declined. "Another time," we said. I wish I had gone for that coffee now.

My thoughts are with Gillian and their family, friends and colleagues.