My favourite books of 2012.

I thought I’d kick some life back into my blog by completing an annual ritual that I have sadly shunned for the last two years: naming my favourite books. This was the year that my reading returned to form after a period of slackness, and I think it’s because my kids are old enough that I’m not so exhausted that I just fall on the couch and zone out every night. In 2012 I read, or attempted to read (this was also the year of not finishing books if I didn’t want to) 26 books. Here are the highlights, roughly divided into categories. But first, some random facts: only two of these books are by men; eight are by New Zealanders; six of them are by people I know (one of the hazards of being a writer and a reader in a small country); four of them are published for children and young adults; four of them were not published this year; four of them I haven’t actually finished yet but am confident they deserve their place on here; one of them I listened to as an audio book as I jogged around the streets of my neighbourhood, transporting me away from roadworks and broken footpaths to a New World.

So, here are my picks:   

First books by dear friends (yes I am biased but I stand behind my recommendations. These books are wonderful for wildly different reasons)

The Girl Below, Bianca Zander

Sea Fever, Angela Meyer

Zen Under Fire, Marianne Elliot

Books supposedly for young persons (Writing for children has led me to reading children’s books and it has opened up a huge, sparkling world to me)

When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead

The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness

The Apothecary, Maile Meloy

Fire in the Sea, Myke Bartlett

Books that have generally been raved about (and which I have enjoyed very much)

The Forrests, Emily Perkins

A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan

Kirsten McDougall, The Invisible Rider

Two books by Janet Frame. 

Gorse is not People, Janet Frame
In her Own Words, Janet Frame



A book by a family member that I have yet to start but I hope the author will forgive me and I just know it will be amazing.

Mad on Radium, Rebecca Priestley


Yes I know I have cheated but it's my list and I'll do what I want. So there.

Publication Day!

It's here - publication day for Red Rocks.  It's always a strange feeling to describe. I sit at home while my book may or may not yet be on the shelves in bookstores around the country. But of course I'm excited, and that's what launch parties are for, to make the author feel like Something Big has happened.

Speaking of launches, mine is at The Children's Bookshop in Kilbirnie on Thursday, June 7, from 5.45-7.30. Come along for a glass of wine, some nibbles and some electrifying speeches from the likes of me and the fabulous Jolisa Gracewood. All are welcome, but it would also be helpful if you could RSVP to reception@randomhouse.co.nz if you are thinking of coming along so we don't run out of aforementioned wine.

The wonderful Children's Bookshop is the perfect venue for the launch, as it's a stone's throw away from the action of the story, which is Wellington's south coast.

I've done a small interview over at the Christchurch Libraries website in celebration. You can read it here.  And in this weekend's Sunday Star Times, I've written a wee piece about the books I loved as a child and the effect they've had on me. Do take a look.

Hope to see you at the launch, and in the meantime, I'm off for a glass of wine to wet my new baby's head well and truly. Cheers.

Festivals & Festivities.

I'm off for my annual dose of literary society - to the Auckland Writers & Readers festival this weekend. I'll be there primarily as a punter, but I will also be chairing this session with Paula Morris and Stephanie Johnson, which should be lively and intelligent given the calibre of the brains and personalities involved (I'm talking about the writers, not the chair... oh never mind). They have both written wonderful novels, based on the lives of their ancestors and there will be a lot to talk about. I am also looking forward to seeing Jeffrey Eugenides, Emily Perkins, Eion Colfer, Geoff Dyer, Jesmyn Ward, Mal Peet, just to name but a few.

Then it'll be back to Christchurch to start preparing for the launch of Red Rocks (see below). The official launch will be at the Children's Bookshop in Kilbirnie on June 7, and I'll be posting more details as I have them. I'm hoping then I can have a bit of a break, but things just seem to thunder on and just as one thing falls out of the wagon, another usually jumps in to take its place.

Introducing... my new book.

I can finally reveal the cover of my new book, Red Rocks, a novel for children aged 8-12, out June 1. Here’s the blurb:

“While holidaying at his father's house, Jake explores Wellington's wild south coast, with its high cliffs, biting winds, and its fierce seals. When he stumbles upon a perfectly preserved sealskin, hidden in a crevice at Red Rocks, he's compelled to take it home and hide it under his bed, setting off a chain of events that threatens to destroy his family. Red Rocks takes the Celtic myth of the selkies, or seal people, and transplants it into the New Zealand landscape, throwing an ordinary boy into an adventure tinged with magic. With its beautiful writing and eerie atmosphere, junior readers will be thrilled and moved by this captivating story.”

It's been exciting watching it come together: first the editing process, then the layouts arriving and needing proofreading. Twice. Choosing a cover design, with lots of back and forth. I love the cover. It's eye-catching and retro looking at the same time, which is kind of fitting, as it's an old-fashioned sort of a kids' adventure, the kind I loved as a child. I see Jake standing in sillouette, very static and grounded on the rock, while he looks out at the wild sky that promises a maelstrom of magical adventure and danger. Will he be tempted?

And so it begins. Again.

It feels as though every time I write a new blog post I seem to be apologising for or at least acknowledging the fact I haven't been keeping this blog up to date. So I'm not going to do that this time.

What I'm going to write about is new beginnings. Because for the fifth time in my life I am starting a new novel (discounting of course all the false starts I had in my 20s when I should never have been attempting a novel, but counting my first, unpublished novel). What happened to the last one I was writing? Well, if you look to the right of this blog you'll see my 'picometer' widget which has been tracking my progress on the children's novel I was chipping away at. And guess what? I finished it. Quite a while ago actually. And it's going to be published, too, but I'll post about that in more detail at a later date. Let's just say that I surprised myself, because I am always complaining about what little time I have to write with two pre-school-aged (hence the neglected blog) but it turns out that just tapping away a few hundred words here and there actually gets you a book. Admittedly a very short book.

What this all means is that I am starting again. I have been trying to start again. But damn, I have just been reminded how damn hard beginnings are. My children's book was actually a breeze in that department. The whole idea came to me while I was out walking one day and I went home and wrote the first chapter. The voice of the story, of the main character, arrived in my head immediately, and once you have the voice, the book just writes itself really. So of course when I had my big idea for my new book, I just expected that I would sit down and out it would come. But it didn't, did it? And then I remembered how long it took me to really get started on Magpie Hall. Months actually. I even wrote about 10,000 words of a completely different book, but that one died a horrible death and Magpie Hall assembled itself from its squashed bones and guts. And it took me so long to find Rosemary's voice. I wrote so much that never made it into the book, just finding my way into her head, into her life. The result being that I knew an awful lot about her, which was a good thing, but at the time it was actually quite painful. I moaned about quite a bit on this blog, actually. In fact I started this blog as a diary of writing Magpie Hall, really. Maybe this process will bring me back to this blog as I work through things.

So. New beginnings, and lots of words to write that will never make the final cut but which will get me into the head of my character. In the meantime I am learning things about her, and her family, who I think will be quite wonderful. They're already becoming like real people in my mind, just not on the screen. I won't lie, it's an exciting time, but I just have to remind myself that each book is not necessarily as easy as the last.

Here's what I'm listening to at the moment in case you interested. Tiny Ruins' Some Were Meant For Sea. Sad and sublime. Nothing like a bit of melancholy to get me writing. (In fact, the cover of this album reminds me of my children's novel)

Upcoming Events and a Catch Up.

I cannot believe how busy life is at the moment. My poor old blog seems to be the last thing I get to these days after looking after two kids under 5, mentoring other writers for the New Zealand Society of Authors and the Hagley Writers' Institute, judging the BNZ Short Story Awards (Novice section), serving on various boards and panels, presenting a citation at the Arts Foundation Icon Awards, being stranded by ash clouds, writing a novel for children, and launching and publicising The Silence Beyond: Selected Writings by Michael King. Twitter suits me well these days, as instead of sitting down and composing a post I can just go blah! on Twitter in thirty seconds (and you can follow me here), on everything from books I'm reading to those pesky earthquakes. But don't worry, this isn't a death of the blog announcement, it's a quick update of where I'm at, with some links, and an announcement of some upcoming events to keep me even busier.

But back to The Silence Beyond. A slightly revised version of the introduction I wrote appeared in the Listener a while back. It is available to read online here. It says everything I want to say, really. I am very happy with the book and its reception so far. I will be discussing the book, the process of assembling it, and Dad's work, with Lloyd Jones at an event in Christchurch on July 27th. More information can be found on the Christchurch Writers' Festival website. Lloyd has kindly offered to take a break from his hectic schedule, between Bougainville and Hobart, to help give the wearied book-lovers of Christchurch something to look forward to. The festival is putting on other fantastic events too, throughout August and September; information can be found on the website.

A few days after that, I will be appearing as part of Great Lake Tales in Taupo, in an event at the Hilton on July 31st. I'll be talking about how I started writing, and the process of writing and researching my two novels, The Sound of Butterflies and Magpie Hall. I might even read from my current project, a children's novel called Red Rocks. More information, and details of a bookstore signing, can be found here.

Things should settle down a bit after that, and with more writing time I hope to devote more time to writing about writing ie keeping this blog active.

Andrea Eames*.

When I was the writer in residence at Canterbury University in 2008, part of my job was to make myself available to creative writing students who might want to talk to me and ask me advice. Only two students ever contacted me. One of them was Andrea Eames.

She emailed me and asked if she might come and have a chat to me. We made a time and when it came I opened the door to a beautifully dressed young woman with brown hair (I know it's now blonde). The chat turned into an hour's conversation. Andrea was writing a novel, had nearly finished it in fact, and wanted some advice about getting agents and publishers. I took a copy of her manuscript with no promises that I would be able to read it. It's a cliche I know, but Andrea, in that fusty old English Department, really was a breath of fresh air. We bonded over our love of vintage clothes and blogging (it turned out that Andrea has an extremely popular blog about, among other things, fashion, or more specifically, style). I showed her some swing dancing videos, which were my obsession at the time. We talked about writing, and books, and probably a whole lot of other things. She utterly charmed me and I think the next morning I made just that little more of an effort when I got dressed.

Andrea was just 23 (I think) at the time, and she gave me a little information on her background. I immediately asked when we met if she was English, because of her accent, which I couldn't quite place, but she was actually from Zimbabwe (she also revealed to me the shockingly ignorant questions people sometimes ask her when they hear where she is from, which I won't share). Her novel was based on her experience growing up under the Mugabe regime.

So, thus far, I knew I liked Andrea very much, and I knew she had some incredible material for a first novel, but could she write?

Uh, the answer was a resounding yes. I read the first few chapters of her book and I didn't hesitate, when it came time for Andrea to send it out into the world, to recommend her to my London agent. My agent was similarly impressed and took her on immediately. Before long she had a book deal with a highly respected London publisher, Harvill Secker. I was so thrilled for her and couldn't wait to read the finished novel in proper book form.

It was a bit of a wait. But nearly three years on from that first meeting, the book is out and I am happy to report that it is wonderful. I was gripped from beginning to end, and couldn't wait each evening to fall into bed with it, to find out what was going to happen to Elise and her family, and to experience the world she brought to life, like magic, using only words. How could someone so young be so astute, so intelligent, bring so much? I'll tell you. Bloody hard work. And a sharp mind, and a good heart.

Please go and buy The Cry of the Go-Away Bird. You will not be disappointed.

*note the outstanding taste in publicity-shot headgear.

We are safe.

Just a quick sign-in to let readers know my family and I are all safe after the Christchurch earthquake. One day I may recover enough to write about it, but for now we're taking it day by day. Huge virtual hugs to others in Christchurch and around the country affected by this terrible disaster.

xxxx

My website is now fixed!

As you were. Thanks for visiting.

My official website is down.

Apologies to anyone trying to get into my official website - it seems to have been hacked by someone nasty. The situation is being remedied and business should be resumed soon.