A Home Grown Cook: The Dame Alison Holst Story (Hyndman Publishers) is fresh in the bookshops. This memoir is the writer/chef’s 100th book, something to celebrate. I’m a fan, one of the thousands of home cooks who have turned to her recipes for good homely inspiration. The Foreword by Sharon Crosbie is a marvelous tribute …
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13 March 6-7.30 p.m. Taihape Public Library On and Off the Track: A New Zealand Book Month rail tour Fiona talks about her work and life, and invites questions and discussion 14 March 6 –7.30 p.m. St John’s Ambulance Hall, Otorohanga Fiona talks to secondary school students in Taihape before catching the train to …
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A happy outcome of the Telling Stories class for 2011 is that class member Marlene Ditchfield convened a gathering of members, who have formed a regular ongoing writing group. It plans to meet regularly in 2012. The group calls itself ‘A Thorn in Your Side’ which well represents the sparky irrepressible nature of our meetings …
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Fiona (Fiction), James Belich (Non Fiction) and Peter Bland (Poetry) were each awarded the 2011 Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement at Premier House on 22 August. The Dominion Post stories are here and here. Fiona’s speech on the night: I’d like to congratulate my fellow award winners this evening, how pleased I …
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The Captive Wife is now available through about half a dozen eBook retailers throughout the world, the most prominent being Amazon (both the US and UK sites), eBooks.com and Kobo. And exciting news that At the end of Darwin Road and The Book of Secrets have been selected for conversion into e-books too. They should …
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At first glance, the letter looked like another promotion from Vodafone. I carried it up the steps that lead to our back door. For the past forty years we have lived in an old Wellington bungalow that stands on a cliff top and looks out to sea. We planted the kowhai trees when we came here and now they are huge. This is where I’ve lived my life as a mother and a writer. But something was about to change.
The letter informed us that a ten-metre cellphone tower would shortly be erected by Vodafone on the roadside verge beneath the cliff. A company representative would later describe it as ‘the perfect site.’
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This year I was a judge of the Commonwealth Fiction Prize (South East Asia Pacific Region). A Man Melting was the winner of Best First Book division. The Best Book division was won by Australian Kim Scott for That Dead Man Dance (Picador). The final Commonwealth-wide results will be announced in Sydney on May 21, …
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I launched Sue Orr’s new book of short stories in February. This is what I had to say about From Under the Overcoat: ‘Sue Orr’s stories have that mesmerising quality that makes the reader race on, hoping they will never end, yet desperate to find out what happens next. Their stylishness marks a new departure …
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Selwyn Central Community Board has very kindly named a street in Rolleston after me. The new street, between Tennyson Street and Rolleston Drive, is now called Kidman Street.
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The Treaty of Waitangi Companion: Maori and Pakeha from Tasman to Today Edited by Vincent O’Malley, Bruce Stirling and Wally Penetito, Auckland University Press, 2010 Vincent O’Malley is another member of my family to publish recently. The Treaty of Waitangi Companion tells the story of the Treaty and Maori and Pakeha relations through the many …
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