Women Authors From New Zealand

"First I played ingénues and western heroines; then I played western heroines and ingénues. That diet of roles became as monotonous as a diet of spinach. The studio wouldn't trust me with any other kind of role, because I had no experience in any other kind. And I didn't see how I was ever going to acquire any other experience if I couldn't get any other kind of role. It was a vicious circle."

"I bumped into every kind of disappointment, and was frustrated at every turn. Roles promised me were given to other players, pictures that offered me a chance were shelved, no one was particularly interested in me, and I had not developed a strength of personality to make anyone believe I had special talents. I wanted so desperately to succeed that I drove myself relentlessly, taking no time off for pleasures, or for friendships - yet aiming at the stars, I was still floundering."

"(on doing interviews) Quite frankly, I'd rather have my throat slit."

"If people don't like your work, all the still pictures in the world can't help you and nothing written about you, even oceans of it, will make you popular."

"[on Hollywood] I hated the place - not the work, but the lack of privacy, those terrible prying fan magazine writers and all the surrounding exploitation."

"The fact that I did not marry George Bernard Shaw is the only real disappointment I've had."

"I am not an adult, that's my explanation of myself. Except when I am working on a set, I have all the inhibitions and shyness of the bashful, backward child . . . unless I have something very much in common with a person, I am lost. I am swallowed up in my own silence."

"I guess I became an actress because I didn't want to be myself."

"It's a strenuous job every day of your life to live up to the way you look on the screen."

"I discovered that — contrary to what I’d expected — in the 40 years since the publication of Witi Ihimaera’s first book, the mainstream media’s representation of these authors has not become more nuanced, or less racist. Instead, the racism has gone underground, coming out as a kind of simplistic “celebration”, and keeping all such authors firmly on the outside: nice, exotic additions to “New Zealand Literature."

"My interest in the way these writers are portrayed in the media began * when I started a PhD in creative writing at Victoria University, in 2009. I realised that even though some of them were challenging ethnic stereotypes with their work, they were often completely exoticised in the media around them."

"The voices belong to some of Aotearoa’s foremost writers: Tusiata Avia, Tina Makereti, Chris Tse, Paula Morris, and Karlo Mila, among many others, who I’ve interviewed for my upcoming book, The Outliers: Who do we want to be?"

"And the city of Troy is Pākehā culture, which I envisage in this book as a walled fortress. In front of this fortress, the horse is taking shape. There are voices clamouring inside it, about to be let out."

"But, in this story, the Trojan Horse is a non-fiction book that I’m writing about the media in Aotearoa — and the warriors are writers. Māori writers, Pasifika writers, French and Chinese and “other” writers. Any writers that haven’t been identified by the press as part of a Pākehā mainstream."

"I am a Greek-New Zealand writer and I am building a horse like this — or, more accurately, I’m allowing it to build itself."

"In the story of the Trojan Horse, after a ten-year siege, the Greeks pretend to sail away and leave a “gift” of a wooden horse on the doorstep of the city of Troy. The Trojans pull the horse into their city. But, under the cover of night, a select force of men creep out of it, torching the city, and thus winning the war for the Greeks."

"Wellington, with its hills and fault lines and glittering sea, is like a perfect espresso cup of culture and energy. It’s also home to a lot of quiet minorities, like the Greek community I come from, who carry stories that might be less well known than others. I can’t wait to return"

"The river was my Rubicon', Mona said. 'I had heard stories about the terrible Wilberforce: so many people had been drowned in it. I tried not to think about the time when I could have to cross it. But the road had come to an end at a corrugated iron shed. Somewhere beyond it I knew we would find the station, Mount Algidus, a green, high-country oasis amid the snow and the tussock."

"Before I was married I knew nothing about station life," she said. "I could have distinguished between a cow and a sheep and I could sometimes tell the difference between a lamb chop and a pork chop, but that was the limit of my experience, and I was determined to keep my ignorance to myself"

"I feel the word iconic is overused and inappropriately attached to lesser events or items than is deserved. However, I am going to use it to describe this book. A River Rules My Life was first published in 1963 and reprinted 9 times. Why? Because it is engaging, entertaining and captures a world within our nation but apart from the normal Kiwi experiences. To add to this, 50 years on, we can include a view of times past, when battling the elements and life without technology was a possibility."

"Later that evening, he sat in the bar, pint in one hand, pipe in the other, with good food beneath his belt and listened to the natural harmony of the Welsh fishermen singing their songs of Wales and the sea"

"Sybil was now banging on about how hard Humph worked and the havoc caused by boarding school fees for seven. Jack refrained from telling her that you would expect seven children to be more expensive to raise than one or two and that no one had an electric cattle prod on either her rump or Humph's as they herded their offspring into private schools."

"& so I bring my journal writing & sit amongst / the ferociously chic at Cafe Flor (which I call / Cafe Voyeur) in an era when everyone has a therapist & no one has a lover. and I have a slice of carrot cake / and a frothy mochachina, sprinkled generously with nutmeg / & cinnamon, sitting there pondering "The Convolution of Desire / & Terror that is the paradigm of human sexuality." And I write / it down completely impressed with myself, smug with the glow, / wondering if anyone-man or woman, or middle aged transsexual / with bad makeup from the nether twilight world of the Tenderloin-- / would stop by to cruise me. YES, EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE / I HAVE AN OUTSTANDING MOMENT OF OBSOLETE HAPPINESS."

"He's been in the Coast Guard his entire life, and one of the things he does and does well is what the Coast Guard motto is, be always prepared. He takes every new event and gets down and starts working and sees it to its end."

"My biggest fear has always been that someone would be trapped back here and couldn't get help. No ambulance or police would be able to get through. It's good to know that after all of these years, my family will be safe. I've been stuck many times from the outside and couldn't get home and I've been stuck on the inside and couldn't get out."

"Back to the bedroom, very soon! As soon as all this settles I will be incognito again – for the next two years!"

"Yes, I have a story pretty much mapped out, but again they change as you are writing it. It’s centred around another murder that I know of, and that I’m quite intrigued with, and its more contemporary. So it think possibly I will explore contemporary issues through it – I’m quite looking forward to it."

"Apparently we Kiwis are really bad at that, not sticking to genre! We must have a real creative freedom – I like it."

"Yes, I have a few favourites. Tim Winton is a favourite; I just love the way his language is so beautiful and the way he crosses that line too into magical realism, where you are in this normal place and this strangeness will waft in, whether it’s a ghost or whatever – I have much respect for that. At the time I also read Hamish Clayton’s Wulf and that inspired me a great deal – again the language and the story – I found him to be extraordinary. And I’ve always loved Janette Frame, and she does similar things. At university I tended to lean more towards sort of gothic novels, so it will be interesting to see what my next one is like. I’m not planning it to be dark or scary in any way, but definitely explorative – just see where it takes me. It’ll be interesting to see whether this dark, slightly gothic thing is me – I’m not sure. Maybe it was just this novel."

"I just write and then I go back – and I am hideously painful at going back and back and back, and then I give it to my husband to read, and he will go “hmmm” and so then I go back again. But initially I just let it out. And I cut big sections out, where you’ve just ‘walked into the forest to pick daisies’ – after a while you become more disciplined at seeing those parts and chopping them out. Then when I’m done I feel great – there is no other feeling that equates to that."

"You do become quite ritualistic as a writer, and very precious about your time. Because I have no office in our house I write from my bed – so it’s a crazy little set up – I have my bed and my shelves all around me and I get up very early, kick my husband out, feed the dog, then I come straight back to bed before doing anything. I close the blinds, shut the door so it’s a darkened room, and I find that helps me focus because if it’s a beautiful day, or the wind is blowing its very distracting. So the dog usually snuggles next to me and I do this sort of head clearing thing, which seems to be a necessity, which I never realised I was doing until half way through the book when I was sort of breathing and feeling something starting to percolate – and then I would start. And I would start by reading what I had written the day before, and maybe editing. And there is always this push into the new prose – I don’t know if other writers feel that, but I actually sort of have to kick myself up the bum and say ‘go!’ It’s almost like you have to be brave and say ‘just go!’ and then you’re off."

"I didn’t. It was originally called ‘Mother Mary under a Bed of Carrots’ – that was my working title. But my agent thought it was too whimsical, and he gave it the title ‘Purgatory’, which I struggled with for quite some time – because it was so serious, and scary, and a bit daring – but I absolutely love it now, absolutely couldn’t imagine another title – so thank you Michael!"

"Yes, and it’s also that ghostly side – it’s not a scary thing, or death not being a scary thing, it’s just a part of everyday life, that perhaps we are not aware of as much. So to me there were all these openings that I could play with, and explore. For personal reasons too – so I really enjoyed it."

"Of course they are both Irish Catholics, so they would have had this sense of purgatory, and praying loved ones out of purgatory. But again, there is that whole grey area, and I really wanted to play with that whole idea. I have this quote from Pope John Paul, which says “heaven and hell are primarily eternal states of consciousness, rather than geographical places of later reward or punishment”. I thought that means that in life we are able to put ourselves into a state of purgatory, because it’s a state of consciousness – and therefore the punishment and reward can be cause and effect. I overlaid that on James – he has placed himself inside a state of purgatory and try as he might he just can’t seem to get himself out, whether through his own choices or through circumstances – really it’s a bit of both – and in the end he chooses his ultimate fate. And for John, still being here as a ghost, to me it made sense that he was in a state of purgatory too. Maybe for him it was choice, maybe it was literally that he was anchored to the ground somehow – to the cottage that he was born in. Then I started looking into Maori mythology, and how some return to watch over their mokopuna as birds or trees, and I thought that that was really very beautiful. They have the choice of going home – and with the Irish, home was either going back to your original home, or heaven – whatever that is for you. And so to me, that whole place of purgatory opened up opportunities, rather than being restrictive. And I thought, ‘what if we have a choice?’ We could become the brightest star in the sky so that our family could know that was us, or we could become an owl that comes to visit, or we could go home– they are all beautiful stories – why not choose?"

"No, I was quite isolated from that part of the family. My mother was an only child and her father died quite young, so there was no contact. My grandmother went on to have many more children to her next marriage, as they did back then, so that was the family. But having said that, there is a relative I have been in contact with recently, just through the novel coming out, and she has described how members of her family were horrified at her delving into this, as they didn’t want the dirty linen brought out. But I haven’t really gone there – the family was much more notorious than I have written, I knew about that."

"Yes, very much so. I wanted to know what made him do what he did – because there is always a story. Maybe some people are born bad but a lot the time its circumstantial, and I can kind of understand. But in the end we are formed by the choices we make."

"Exactly – we can put people inside a box and say ‘your this sort of person for doing this, you’re that sort of person.’ I don’t like that at all, so I think you’re right – there is this whole middle ground that people forget, that we all move between."

"No, and I don’t really think it was like that back then, in the early nineteenth century. I think the two sides at times really did reach out to each other – especially the lower class Europeans."

"It’s all come through stories that I read of the time. The young girl being arrested for stealing a handkerchief and being put on the ship – that was a real twelve year old girl. And the famines, and the cottages being bowled over to make way for new crops and sheep while it was all going over to England – that was all happening at the time. And the same in New Zealand. The character of Abel is a ‘Pakeha Maori’, he didn’t actually exist in the story with James, but my research on Pakeha Maori – I based Abel on one particular fellow – they intrigued me. And this one that I researched in depth actually did become a mediator in the Maori land court in Auckland, and to me that was just too much richness to leave behind. There was a whole parallel going on between the Irish and the Maori, and I wanted this affinity to be shown, and also the different perspectives of these two Irish guys that came out, and the way it changed them and how they reacted to it – perhaps not as you would expect they would. And at the time someone like Abel would have been perceived as being lost, gone off the rails – but he wasn’t. He had that sprit ritual call. And again, while researching that time, the Kingitanga, there was that spiritual call that was much wiser than a lot of the European ways. In the research I also came across one of the men who was in charge of the 65th, and he resigned because he refused to accept the way the Maori were being treated – so that really was there too. There was a lot going on."

"I had the help of a fellow from the Dublin historical society – he was sending me pictures and information and I did a lot my own research – so it wasn’t hard to imagine what it was like."

"Yes, definitely, and you think about all the different branches and stories that must be in your family. I have since discovered that there is Jewish and German heritage as well, and I’m thinking, ‘what other stories are there’? I think it’s really important to know where we’ve come from, because now I can actually identify with my Irish-ness, and I can understand."

"No, again I sort of stumbled along. I was writing form the perspective of James Stack initially – I had tried writing it from the mother’s point of view, but it didn’t work. So I was halfway through the novel with James Stack, when I discovered the story of the ghost of John Finnegan, and I started looking into that. Then I went to the site and found the old cottage and got talking to an elderly neighbour who had lived there forever, and he was telling me about the ghost, and as the house was abandoned for two years the neighbours would dare it each other to stay overnight to see if the ghost appeared. And this elderly gentleman had done it himself, but he said ‘it was all hoo-ha, he didn’t appear.’ But I kind of felt something while I was there – I really felt this connection to the little boy – it really intrigued me why he was still there. And so I went home and I left the second half of James behind and I wrote John’s section all in one go, and then wove it throughout the story. John became the hero from there. So it was all sort of piecemeal, it all came together as I discovered things."

"No, not at all. The family tree came to me in a peculiar way – my mother and my father’s second wife are cousins, so their family trees are the same – so it was my father’s second wife who did the tree, and I never got hold of it until she died. Both her and my mother are unfortunately no longer with us, and my brother had the family tree, and I saw it there and swiped it. So I’d never seen it before that – I’d known it existed and I had tried to get it, but was unsuccessful. So I went home and unravelled it, because it was all in this funny little scroll, and it was the first time I saw it. Then I was researching straight away and I thought this would be a short story. The interest wasn’t initially around the family thing, but the story – I wanted to know who these people were and their times. Both James Stack and the Finnegan family were Irish Catholic, so they had come out from different parts of Ireland – one south, one north – and I wanted to know what brought them out here, who they were and what it was like here for them; that really was the basis of my research."

"Yes, the names were right at the top of the tree, the four Finnegan family members, with a note saying “murdered” on it – “Otahuhu murders 1865” – with the murderer’s name and the date he was hung. Everything else was just standard on that family tree, with little dates, and arrows, no information at all apart from that, so I thought ‘that is rather interesting.’"

"Yes, I’ve been quite overwhelmed actually. It’s really not what you expect, especially for a first novel, so I am absolutely thrilled that people are connecting – not only to the family side, the interest in chasing your own roots – but also to the history of Pakeha in New Zealand, and what it was like from that side too. I’m really intrigued to see what people find in it – they all find something different, and I’m liking the layers that people are seeing. So I’m thrilled, you couldn’t ask for more."

"Yes I hope so – I want to continue to write fiction, I really have the fiction writing bug, but I hope I haven’t lost the knack for writing poetry. I’m going to keep plugging away at it every now and then, because I do love it. It’s a very difficult art form, and I admire the people who have done very well at it."

"It was a huge learning curve, to be honest. I never pictured myself writing a novel, so when my husband suggested I take some time off work and do some writing, I thought I’ll have a go at some short stories. And then I discovered this story, and it just wouldn’t fit within the form of the short story, so I enrolled in a fiction course – I had joined it for short stories, though it was generally for beginning fiction – but I had to figure this out a lot quicker than the course offered, so alongside that I bought about thirty books on ‘how to’, and how other authors have done it, and really threw myself into figuring out the structure of a novel. With poetry you can’t just ‘dip in’ – the poems are a complete little story on their own, they are like little starbursts. But this story took two years, and I couldn’t write poetry that whole time, because it just felt like a completely different discipline. What I did learn was to try and bring the poetry through with me, so I still felt like a poet writing this book. So in a way I think I’ve been able to have the best of both worlds."

"As the car swung through the gates of Baldry Court she sat up and dried her eyes. She looked out at the strip of turf, so bright that one would think it wet, and lit here and there with snowdrops and scillas and crocuses, that runs between the drive and the tangle of silver birch and bramble and fern. There is no aesthetic reason for that border; the common outside looks lovelier where it fringes the road with dark gorse and rough amber grasses. Its use is purely philosophic; it proclaims that here we estimate only controlled beauty, that the wild will not have its way within our gates, that it must be made delicate and decorated into felicity. Surely she must see that this was no place for beauty that has been not mellowed but lacerated by time, that no one accustomed to live here could help wincing at such external dinginess as hers."

"Then, one April afternoon, Chris landed at the island, and by the first clean quick movement of tying up his boat made her his slave. I could imagine that it would be so. He was so wonderful when he was young; he possessed in great measure the loveliness of young men, which is like the loveliness of the spry foal or the sapling, but in him it was vexed into a serious and moving beauty by the inhabiting soul. […] [F]rom his eyes, which though grey were somehow dark with speculation, one perceived that he was distracted by participation in some spiritual drama. To see him was to desire intimacy with him so that one might intervene between this body which was formed for happiness, and this soul which cherished so deep a faith in tragedy."

"When she came back into the parlour again she was wearing that yellowish raincoat, that hat whose hearse plumes nodded over its sticky straw, that grey alpaca skirt. I first defensively clutched my hands. It would have been such agony to the finger tips to touch any part of her apparel. And then I thought of Chris, to whom a second before I had hoped to bring a serene comforter. I perceived clearly that that ecstatic woman lifting her eyes and her hands to the benediction of love was Margaret as she existed in eternity; but this was Margaret as she existed in time, as the fifteen years between Monkey Island and this damp day in Ladysmith Road had irreparably made her. Well, I had promised to bring her to him."