Women Authors From New Zealand

"I am in my last year of study at Brandon University, toward a Bachelor of Arts Degree, majoring in Creative Arts (writing and theatre), with a double minor in Philosophy, and Gender and Women’s Studies."

"Nobody has to be a writer. But when it’s going well it’s good fun and satisfying."

"If I was feeling flat about my writing, I used to return to a book called Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg and it helped me to forgive myself for often writing rubbishy, dull stuff. (And it also has some really good suggestions, about daily writing practice that I found useful.)"

"Sometimes I find that to think of it as being like having a bit of a headache is useful. Okay, it’s there, and I can either retire to bed feeling sorry for myself or just go on doing what I do as best I can. But if I decide I am suffering from Writer’s Block and stop writing then there is no chance of my writing well."

"There is a duality to South Africa, as in all of life itself, that is evident, and as stark as the inequality among its citizens"

"Our stories are important and need to be told"

"Things that make me want to write vary."

"I don’t have a favourite genre. I try to ready widely."

"In the stillness the voice inside is louder, much louder, and cannot be ignored"

"“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”"

"Perhaps all South Africans need to embrace the mirror of yesteryear, and fear it not, for it holds the answers to the questions that we seek today. Questions that, if left unanswered, will still be asked by generations yet to come.”"

"Then I close my eyes, and I imagine a world where I sabi and you sabi that we are okay, as we are"

"Guilt isn't in cat vocabulary. They never suffer remorse for eating too much, sleeping too long or hogging the warmest cushion in the house. They welcome every pleasurable moment as it unravels and savour it to the full until a butterfly or falling leaf diverts their attention. They don't waste energy counting the number of calories they've consumed or the hours they've frittered away sunbathing."

"Cats don't beat themselves up about not working hard enough. They don't get up and go, they sit down and stay. For them, lethargy is an art form. From their vantage points on top of fences and window ledges, they see the treadmills of human obligations for what they are - a meaningless waste of nap time.”"

"Cleo's motto seemed to be: Life's tough and that's okay, because life is also fantastic. Love it, live it - but don't be fooled into thinking it's not harsh sometimes. Those who've survived periods of bleakness are often better at savoring good times and wise enough to understand that good times are actually great.”"

"Then there was the realisation that I didn't actually feel that much better when I was thin(ner). In fact the 'thin' version felt worse because I lived with hunger clawing at my stomach all the time, and in fear that I was going to get fat again. After years of neuroticism I'd finally understood those who loved me would continue to put up with me fat or thin, and those who didn't ignored me. As a middle-aged woman I was pretty much invisible anyway. To pass unnoticed through an image-obsessed society is surprisingly liberating"

"If humans could program themselves to forget time, they would savor a string of pleasures and possibilities. Regrets about the past would dissolve, alongside anxieties for the future. We'd notice the color of the sky and be liberated to seize the wonder of being alive in this moment. If we could be more like cats our lives would seem eternal.”"

"“I used to wish I had an easier life," he mused. "Some families sail through years with nothing touching them. They have no tragedies. They go on about how lucky they are. Yet sometimes it seems to me they're half alive. When something goes wrong for them, and it does for everyone sooner or later, their trauma is much worse. They've had nothing bad happen to them before. In the meantime, they think little problems, like losing a wallet, are big deals. They think it's ruined their day. They have no idea what a hard day's like. It's going to be incredibly tough for them when they find out.""

"I have worked at Vispero since June of 2018."

"Some phrases you have to say out loud. it's like someone has poured warm milk into your skull, you know? It's just beautiful — I loved it."

"She groaned as her face turned to press against the rosewood floor. "Welly, remind me to order a better mattress for my bed. This one is far too firm.""

"Writing didn't really get a look in until we had children. I made the decision that I was going to stay home and bring the kids up myself, and oddly enough that gave me the opportunity and the time to write finally. I say time very loosely there..."

"...of course it wasn't called Lord of the Flies to begin with; it was called something awful like A Cry of Children. And it took 22 goes to get the manuscript actually on the desk at Faber and Faber for someone to accept it. All these stories come out . . . the professional book reader who looked at Lord of the Flies and said 'rubbish, dull, pointless'."

"...legends are not only necessary to us, but however strong the legend, even if you try to demolish it, you can't. In fact you end up reinforcing it . . . We writers are mythmakers, whether we like it or not. The moment you write a book, you are very often adding to and sometimes creating a myth, and I've done both and I'm very happy with that."

"...a lot of really bad books, like just shit books, are written with really great plots that really move along, and why should the devil have all the good tunes you know? I like a good story in a book. It's not very fashionable to say that, because people associate good stories with the kind of books that are a cop-out: books that are like bad middlebrow popular fiction. But what's bad about being entertained?"

"Trouble in Time came about when I was visiting my Poppa with my son who was about 3 at the time. I remembered my Poppa hooning around on his motorbike on his small farm, helping people in his little rural town here in New Zealand and being on the go. My son saw a frail elderly man sitting in his chair in the sunshine. Grandparents have done cool things in their lives - just ask them!q"

"Oh, Eliza," Wellington gasped, now remembering why he was in these lush surroundings. "No broken nose, I hope.""

"...I have a problem with historic novels, I think that they tend to become history lessons and this book at times becomes a history lesson"

"Part of that shorthand is the way that she works as well. I mean she's got this very reduced, very spare kind of style, which I loved. But more than anything I found it so compelling because of this fantastic unconsummated love, that really acts as a huge narrative pull."

"The writing! The ideas and where my characters take me. That eureka moment when you've been stuck with something and BAM! the answer hits me."

"He taught me everything. He just used to say, and I'll never forget that, he said 'it's not big words and adjectives — that's boring'. And I thought 'ah yes' . . . I learned from that. Simplicity is the art of writing."

"Read lots and find out the stories you like to read - which will be the stories you'd like to write, more often than not. Practice your writing like you would practice and instrument or sport, constantly looking for a better word or description of something."

"It's typically Jamesian because in a way its an unambiguous story: you know exactly what's going on, but it creates these ambiguities of feeling in you, because you want her protected, yet you can't like the father who's protecting her..."

"I'm always happy because your definition of 'young" is elastic..."

"Go and do something else. Have a rest from it for a while - could be an hour, could be a week. The answer usually shows itself and I'm away again."

"I am working on a new story set on an island. A boy has come to the island with his father to look for his sister who has disappeared.... It's in two viewpoints - the other being a native of the island who wants to leave as soon as she's old enough - just like her elder sister. Or did she?"

"The way Doyle paints it is that the brotherhood, the Sinn Féin became the home for all these poor — you know, the woebegotten souls who were like trying to find their way."

"It's not a world that I know but I came to know something about it though the book which was good, but I see...when I look at literature, when I look at books I look at the structure of them and ... I saw a fairy tale actually, when I think about it you know the traditional princess who becomes a maid who rises to become a queen and all these mad people inbetween on that journey..."

"...what I liked about it is . . . you never know if you're nuts, you know? And he had no idea, until they started finding the bodies..."

"The fact that he can focus so deeply on a dinner, or a conversation at a beach, or you know, the impending non-consummation of a marriage, was really wonderful. It had all the depth. But I was quite captivated by the food, the English food, and how kind of unappealing it was. It was just so banal and humdrum."

""S'all right," Braun slurred. Her voiced dropped to a whisper. "My ample bosom broke my fall."

"I have a new scarlet coat and I look like a fire engine and I don't give a damn..."

"...I wouldn't really be interested in writing a biography about someone who was obvious and straightforward. It's the enigma of a particular personality, I think, that drives your interest as a biographer. With someone like [John] Mulgan, someone like [Ralph] Hotere, there is a core there which is truly enigmatic, and which obviously fuels the work."

"In fact her writing reminds me of your writing actually . . . it's insightful and it's layered. And it's a bit like intellectual quicksand"

"I used to worry about not having ideas to work on, but found the less I worried about it and kept my eyes and mind open to things around me - the ideas came all on their own. I love people and thinking about how they tick, why they do things and what happens next!"

"A great deal of my fiction deals with extreme violence erupting in normal lives."

"...all those other 'How To' books were just about people that knew about this thing. This is different, because he's not a bird-watcher; this is his journey into that world . . . I'd like it hardbacked and leather, because it's a lovely book. It's one you'd want to treasure."

"Hers was the first voice like hers that I had discovered in literature before. I was good at English . . . I had never come across a voice like hers before. She was a black woman from the States, and she just blew my mind..."

"I never decided that I would; I was just never able to stop."

"So far it has worked by imagining you in all the places I would like you to be"