Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Women's Work Contemporary Short Stories by New Zealand Women by Marion McLoed Women's Work: Contemporary Short Stories by New Zealand Women by Marion McLoed. Random House New Zealand 2007. edited by Fiona Farrell. "Farrell's choice demands respect and offers enjoyment to the intelligent reader. " Margaret Christenson, Wairarapa Times-Age 15 Dec. 2007. "This volume is fairly bursting at the seams with superb writing . there is just something about the range of voices and subject matter that makes number four the best of the Best. editor Fiona Farrell's thoughtful introduction is the icing on the cake. " John McCrystal, NZ Herald 17th Nov. 2007. "Farrell's intelligent and enthusiastic introduction and the high standard of her choices make this an enjoyable and thorough showcase of our country's recent fiction. " Amy Brown, The Lumiere Reader. 'This popular series continues with a new editor, Fiona Farrell, who has scoured the country and beyond for a sampling of the best stories being written by our writers today. She has selected a variety of voices and styles, with vivid images as diverse as a giant turtle burying its eggs in the sand, children rummaging through piles of kerbside inorganic rubbish and an eel landing on a crisp white shirt. There are moments of tenderness and revelation, humour and insight, each story reverberating beyond the confines of the page, staying with the reader long after its end.' JONES, Renée Gertrude 1929- PERSONAL: Born July 19, 1929, in Napier, New Zealand; married, 1949 (divorced); children: three sons. Education: Studied at Massey University; University of Auckland, New Zealand, B.A., 1979. ADDRESSES: Home— Dunedin, New Zealand. Agent— Playmarket, P.O. Box 9767, Wellington, New Zealand. CAREER: Playwright. English and drama teacher in secondary schools in Wairoa and at Long Bay College, Auckland, New Zealand, 1975-81; Womenspirit Collective, 1979-85; Broadsheet Collective, Auckland, 1982-84; Otago University, Dunedin, New Zealand, Robert Burns fellow, 1989. Also actresss and director with Napier Repertory Players, Wairoa Community Theatre, and in Auckland. Playwright-in-residence at Theatre Corporation, Auckland, 1986. AWARDS, HONORS: Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council Award, 1986; New Zealand Literary Fund Merit Award, 1986; writer's fellowship, University of Waikato, 1995. WRITINGS: UNDER NAME RENÉE. Finding Ruth (short stories), Heinemann (Auckland, New Zealand), 1987. Willy Nilly, Penguin (Auckland, New Zealand), 1990. Daisy and Lily, Penguin (Auckland, New Zealand), 1993. I Have to Go Home, Penguin (Auckland, New Zealand), 1997. The Snowball Waltz, Penguin (Auckland, New Zealand), 1997. Let's Write Plays, Macmillan (Auckland, New Zealand), 1998. Yin and Tonic: Comic Writings, Vintage (Auckland, New Zealand), 1998. Skeleton Woman: A Romance, Huia Publishers (Wellington, New Zealand), 2002. PLAYS; UNDER THE NAME RENÉE. Secrets: Two One-Woman Plays (produced in Auckland, New Zealand, 1982, revised version produced in Auckland, New Zealand, 1987), Playmarket (Wellington, New Zealand), 1984. Breaking Out, produced in Wellington, New Zealand, 1982. (Also director) What Did You Do in the War, Mommy? produced in Auckland, New Zealand, 1982. Setting the Table (produced in Auckland, New Zealand, 1982), Playmarket (Wellington, New Zealand), 1984. (Also director) Asking for It, produced in Kaikohe, New Zealand, 1983. Dancing, produced in Auckland, New Zealand, 1984. Pass It On (produced in 1986), Victoria University Press (Wellington, New Zealand), 1986. Wednesday to Come (produced in Wellington, New Zealand, 1984), Victoria University Press (Wellington, New Zealand), 1986. Born to Clean, songs by Jess Hawk Oakenstar and Hilary King, produced in Auckland, New Zealand, 1987. Form, produced in Dunedin, New Zealand, 1990. Jeannie Once (produced in Dunedin, New Zealand, 1990), Victoria University Press (Wellington, New Zealand), 1991. Touch of the Sun, produced in Dunedin, New Zealand, 1991. Missionary Position, produced in Dunedin, New Zealand, 1991. (Also director) Te Pouaka Karaehe: The Glass Box, produced in Wellington, New Zealand, 1992. (Also director) Pink Spots and Mountain Tops, produced in Wellington, New Zealand, 1992. Heroines, Hussies, and High Flyers, produced in Dunedin, New Zealand, 1993. Does This Make Sense to You? Penguin (Auckland, New Zealand), 1995. Also numerous radio, television, and other plays, including The Secret, The Snowball Waltz, Diversions for an Idle Hour, My Name Is Marma Kingi, Rugosa Roses Are Very Hardy, Dreaming in Ponsonby, Sister to Dragons, Hard and Unfamiliar Words, Husbands and Wives, Beginnings and Endings, Strings, Sheppard Street, and Journeys, and Groundwork. SIDELIGHTS: A self-described lesbian feminist with socialist working-class ideals, Renée Gertrude Jones—who writes under the name Renée— celebrates the lives and achievements of working women in her plays. In doing so, she has earned a place as New Zealand's most prolific female playwright. By providing intelligent and provocative roles for women at a time when feminism has changed the mind-set of theater owners and audiences alike, Renée's plays have been performed by all of New Zealand's professional theaters. One of her most famous works is an historical trilogy that opens with Wednesday to Come, set during the depression years of the 1930s. While waiting for the body of her husband, who has killed himself in a work camp, a young woman sits at a kitchen table with four other women, discussing the tribulations of their lives, and the ways class oppression has added to their struggles, while a march of the unemployed on their way to Parliament passes by their window. Pass It On takes the story to 1951, and a violent waterfront confrontation over workers' rights. Finally, Jeannie Once goes back in time to 1879, as the original matriarch of the trilogy's family arrives in New Zealand with a group of English emigrants struggling to adjust to a strange new world. Other plays, such as Groundwork and The Glass Box, address racial issues, and Renée draws on her own biracial heritage to provide insights into the clash between European and Maori values. BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES: BOOKS. Contemporary Dramatists, sixth edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999. PERIODICALS. Act, December, 1982, Michael Neill, review of Setting the Table, pp. 64-66; June, 1983, Helen White, review of Asking for It, p. 32; October, 1984, J. Thomson, review of Wednesday to Come, pp. 56-58; June, 1985, Sebastian Black, review of Groundwork, pp. 26-27; April, 1986, T. Snow, review of Pass It On, pp. 20-21; June, 1986, "Renée—New Zealand Playwright," pp. 29-32. Ariel, April, 1999, Susan Sayer, "Hillfire and Queer Nation in Godzone," pp. 119-39. Australasian Drama Studies, October, 1984, "What Kind of Society Can Develop under Corrugated Iron: Glimpses of New Zealand Plays," pp. 31-52, M. Thompson, "Promise and Frustration: New Zealand Playwriting since 1975," pp. 122-128; April, 1987, Pamela Payne Heckenberg and Tony Mitchell, "Interview: Renée," pp. 21-28; 1988, Sebastian Black, review of Wednesday to Come and Pass It On, pp. 190-195; April, 1991, Lisa Warrington, "'A Life-Long Affair': Renée's Writing for the Theatre," pp. 70-90; October, 1992, David Carnegie, review of Jeannie Once, pp. 174-176. Broadsheet, March, 1983, Cathie Dunsford, review of Setting the Table, pp. 45-46; April, 1983, Doreen Suddens, review of Asking for It, p. 36; June, 1983, Cahthie Dunsford and Joy Clement, review of Asking for It, p. 44; March, 1984, Elly Guthrie, review of Dancing, p. 45; March, 1984, Diane Quin, revie of Setting the Table, p. 46; July-August, 1984, Sandra Coney, review of Wednesday to Come, p. 46; June, 1985, Paula Morris, review of Groundwork, p. 44; April, 1986, Andrea Kelland, review of Pass It On, pp. 44-45; April, 1987, Julie Sargisson, review of Secrets, pp. 46-47; June-July, 1987, Pat Rosier, review of Born to Clean, pp. 42-44; October, 1987, Ali Bell, review of The Secret, pp.43-44; December, 1987, Doreen Suddens, review of Finding Ruth, p. 44; May, 1990, review of Willy Nilly, pp. 37-38; September, 1990, Lee Harris, interview with Renée, p. 36; April, 1991, Megan Fidler, review of Touch of the Sun, p. 39. Hecate (special New Zealand issue), October, 1994, Joanne Tompkins, "What We Want and What We Get: Renée's Jeannie Once, " pp. 243- 250. Illusions, summer, 2000, John Downie, review of Let's Write Plays, pp. 32-35. Journal of New Zealand Literature, 1983, Sebastian Black, "New Zealand Plays, Playwrights and Theatres: First Productions, January-October, 1982," pp. 5-15; 1985, David Carnegie, "Recent New Zealand Drama," pp. 7-15; 1986, Robert Leek, "Home-Grown Drama of the Mid- Eighties," pp. 1-13; 1987, Robert Leek, "New Drama '86-'87: Various Shades of Laughter," pp. 3-29. Listener, September 22, 1984, Rebecca Simpson, review of Wednesday to Come, p. 37; June 29, 1985, W. Blaxland, review of Groundwork, pp. 52-53; August 1, 1987, Diane Hebley, review of Born to Clean, p. 39; November 21, 1987, Diane Hebley, review of Finding Ruth, pp. 82- 83; July 16, 1990, Annamarie Jagose, review of Willy Nilly, p. 112; August 13, 1990, Rosemary Beresford, review of Jeannie Once, p. 98; April 1, 1991, Rosemary Beresford, review of Touch of the Sun, p. 56; September 4, 1993, Aorewa McLeod, review of Daisy and Lily, p. 50; June 24, 1995, Gerry Webb, review of Does This Make Sense to You?, p. 55; December 13, 1997, review of The Snowball Waltz, p. 46; June, 2002, Inga Stunzer, review of Skeleton Woman: A Romance, p. 64. New Literature Review, 1984, Sebastian Black, "Aggressive Elements: New Zealand Theatre in the 1980s," pp. 15-16. New Zealand Books, March, 1992, Judith Dale, review of Jeannie Once, p. 8; spring, 1993, Rebecca Simpson, review of Daisy and Lily, p. 5, October, 1995, Kim Worthington, review of Does This Make Sense to You?, pp. 6-7; December, 1997, Kim Worthington, review of The Snowball Waltz, pp. 8-9; June, 1999, Denis Welch, review of Yin and Tonic: Comic Writings, p. 5. New Zealand Herald, May 26, 1990, Pamela Cunningham, review of Willy Nilly, p. 6; November, 1990, Betty Patterson, review of Willy Nilly, p. 7; February 18, 1991, B. Rae, review of Touch of the Sun, p. 10; September, 1993, review of Song of the Shirt, pp. 13-16; October 2, 1993, review of Daisy and Lily, p. 6; November, 1993, Elizabeth Probert, review of Daisy and Lily, pp. 7-8; October 25, 1997, review of The Snowball Waltz, p. G6; August 3, 2002, review of Skeleton Woman, pp. G6-G7. Otago Daily Times, September 11, 1993, review of Song of the Shirt, p. 20; October, 1993, Gavin McLean, review of Daisy and Lily, pp. 22- 23; May 20, 1995, Peter Mann, review of Does This Make Sense to You?, p. 23; November 29, 1997, Patricia Thwaites, review of The Snowball Waltz, p. 25; June 1, 2002, review of Skeleton Woman, p. B6. Sunday Star Times, April 27-1997, Iain Sharp, "Crash Course in Kids' Stuff," p. E4; October 26, 1997, Joy MacKenzie, review of The Snowball Waltz, p. E6. Women's Studies Journal, April, 1984, "Feminist Writer Renée: All Plays Are Political," pp. 61-72; August, 1986, Aorewa McLeod, "An Innocent's Look at New Zealand Women Writers," pp. 2-13. The New Zealand Short Story Collection. Marion McLeod worked for several years as a feature writer on the New Zealand Listener, where she specialised in literary profiles. She now works as a script consultant with the film and television company, Gibson Group, for whom she devised the television drama series Cover Story. A widely respected reviewer of contemporary fiction, Marion McLeod is the editor of OUP's anthology of New Zealand women's fiction, Women's Work (also published by the Women's Press as One Whale Singing). The New Zealand Short Story Collection (UQP 1997), co-edited by Marion McLeod and Bill Manhire, contains a diverse range of contemporary and classic stories from New Zealand writers. Bill Manhire is one of New Zealand's finest practising poets. He has won the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry four times, most recently for My Sunshine . Bill has also published several works of fiction. T he New Land- A Picture Book won the Buckland Prize in 1990. He also developed the prestigious fiction list at Victoria University Press, and edited the popular poetry anthology 1 00 New Zealand Poems and the 1991 issue of Bloomsbury's Soho Square . Bill is currently Director of the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington. The New Zealand Short Story Collection (UQP 1997), co-edited by Marion McLeod and Bill Manhire, contains a diverse range of contemporary and classic stories from New Zealand writers. IN SHORT: FICTION. WOMEN'S WORK: Contemporary Short Stories by New Zealand Women. Edited by Marion McLeod and Lydia Wevers. (Oxford, Paper, $16.95.) If one were to take the characters in these stories as signposts for an understanding of New Zealand women, the conclusion would have to be that they lead rather isolated, often melancholy lives encrusted with memories of school days and struggles with the burdens of domesticity. Nonetheless, there are moving evocations of provincial life in a country that, no matter when the authors write - these stories span 1963 to 1985 - seems to sound consistently like Britain of the 1950's. Milk bars, fish and chips, the school tuck-shop and afternoon teas abound. Janet Frame, perhaps New Zealand's best-known novelist, opens the selection of 31 stories with ''The Bull Calf,'' about a high school girl who milks the family cow and one day finds it mysteriously injured. Another story about school in a farming district, ''Flower Man'' by Fiona Kidman, dwells on a teacher of Maori ancestry who is full of ''hate for the rural class strait-laced little township.'' Two stories compete for the most heart-wrenching. ''The Silk'' by Joy Cowley tells of a wife tailoring silk pajamas for her dying husband, who is ''wide-eyed with anticipation'' at the thought of wearing them in his deathbed. Edith Campion in ''Good Morning Wardrobe'' creates Mrs. Crimpton, who has no one to speak to but her closet. Even beyond New Zealand, the mood is glum. ''Diary of a Woman'' by Rosie Scott describes a journey to Australia (''that brash, brainless sprawl of a country'') by a woman intent on retrieving her unfaithful husband. No matter the gloomy views, the writing is almost always intelligent and fresh. Fiona Kidman Biography. Nationality: New Zealander. Born: Fiona Judith Eakin, Hawera, 1940. Career: Librarian, Rotorua Boys High 1961-62; wrote and produced radio plays in the 1970s, has taught creative writing, and has been a weekly columnist for The Listener; President of the New Zealand Book Council, since 1992. Awards: New Zealand Scholarship in Letters, 1981, 1985, 1995; Mobil Short Story award, 1987; Arts Council award for achievement, 1988; New Zealand Book award, 1988, for fiction; Writers Fellow, Victoria University, 1988; OBE (Officer, Order of the British Empire); DNZM (Dame Commander of the New Zealand Order of Merit). Member: New Zealand Writers' Guild; New Zealand Book Council. Agent: Ray Richards, Richards Literary Agency, P.O. Box 31-240, Milford, Auckland 9, New Zealand. P UBLICATIONS. Novels. A Breed of Women. Ringwood, Victoria, Harper and Row, 1979; NewYork, Penguin, 1988. Mandarin Summer. Auckland, Heinemann, 1981. Paddy's Puzzle. Auckland, Heinemann, 1983; London, Penguin, 1985; as In the Clear Light , New York, Norton. The Book of Secrets. Auckland, Heinemann, 1987. True Stars. Auckland, Random Century, 1990. Ricochet Baby. Auckland, Vintage, 1996. Short Stories. Mrs Dixon and Friend. Auckland, Heinemann, 1982. Unsuitable Friends. Auckland, Century Hutchinson, 1988. The Foreign Woman. Auckland, Vintage, 1993. The Best of Fiona Kidman's Short Stories. New York, Vintage, 1998. Plays. Search for Sister Blue. Wellington, New Zealand, Reed, 1975. Poetry. Honey and Bitters. Christchurch, New Zealand, Pegasus Press, 1975. On the Tightrope. Christchurch, New Zealand, Pegasus Press, 1978. Going to the Chathams, Poems 1977-84. Auckland, Heinemann, 1985. Wakeful Nights, Poems Selected and New. Auckland, Vintage, 1991. Other. Gone North , with Jane Ussher. Auckland, Heinemann, 1984. Wellington , with Grant Sheehan. Auckland, Random House, 1989. Palm Prints. Auckland, Vintage, 1994. Editor, New Zealand Love Stories: An Oxford Anthology. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999. Manuscript Collection: Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. I was brought up in the northern part of New Zealand in isolated country areas, an only child whose family moved a lot, and was hard-up. Perhaps because of this, I have often examined the situation of people who live at "the edge" and find it difficult to communicate. My work has been identified to some extent with the feminist movement in New Zealand, particularly my historical novel, The Book of Secrets , (winner of the New Zealand Book award, 1988) which examined the life of migrant Scottish women on their journeys from Scotland to Nova Scotia, and ultimately New Zealand. My most recent short story collection The Foreign Woman , (runner-up to New Zealand Book award, 1994) has been likened to the work of Alice Munro—a great, but probably undeserved, compliment. Fiona Kidman is one of a generation of New Zealand's women writers born during World War II whose works espouse the sub-texts of feminist self-discovery and social validation. Her efforts on behalf of New Zealand's writers, however, are not restricted to gender-based advocacy. As president of PEN and the New Zealand Book Council, she used her influence to establish Women's Book Week in conjunction with her involvement in the United Women's Conventions in the 1970s and the 1975 International Women's Year, which profoundly affected her. She has stated that any account of women's writing in New Zealand during the past two decades is incomplete without reviewing 1975. In a socialist realist style, her fiction depicts New Zealand women, both contemporary and historical, as rebellious heroines who resist the social values that threaten to engulf them. She brilliantly describes the atmosphere of small towns like Waipu in her first novel, A Breed of Women , which created something of a sensation in New Zealand as it broke social taboos. Kidman believes that she is not wholly responsible for her characters' choices, which originate in the subtle underpinnings that construct her psyche and history. That reaction of New Zealand society to frankly feminist estimations of it was repeated around the globe during the crucial 1970s when women began to speak and write about such matters. Kidman exposes the narrow-minded, conformist mentality of bourgeois New Zealand and the limited choices open to her heroine. Harriet, a bright but unsophisticated farm girl, falls into the hands of milkbar cowboys, and ends up in a shotgun marriage to a Maori. Harriet and her friend Leonie present contrasting pictures of unfulfilled women driven to take risks and seek alternative sources of happiness outside marriage, providing a near-perfect paradigm for middle- class New Zealand women of the late 1970s. Her second novel, Mandarin Summer , owes more to the genre of Gothic horror, for it tells a disturbing story by evoking a macabre atmosphere. Set in 1946 in a small Northland community, it narrates the encounter between a wealthy, decadent European family and their hangers-on and a New Zealand family, the Freemans, who have been duped into buying unsuitable land from the Europeans. In a tidy reversal of colonial history, the Machiavellian Brigadier Barnsley coerces the Freemans into a servitude that embroils them in his disputes and passions. Although the scenes concerning his opium-addicted, incarcerated wife, his Jewish mistress, and the final conflagration that destroys the homestead are inspired by Jane Eyre , the novel exerts a weird fascination while exploring a new twist on the theme of incest. Emily, the eleven-year-old narrator, sees more than is good for her, even though at times her retrospective child's point of view slips into adult reportage. Kidman distorts the lens of romantic fiction by telling an implausible tale with compelling directness. Although the second half of Paddy's Puzzle is also set at the end of World War II, the novel opens in the small town of Hamilton during the 1930s depression. The traumas caused by Winnie's pregnancy, poverty, and her husband's abandonment of the family to seek work anticipate the abortive, juvenile love affair of her heroine Clara, whom Winnie has also raised. But her early life does not entirely explain Clara's subsequent fate —a life of abandonment in prostitution, and then tuberculosis—outlined in a grim account of her dying days in Paddy's Puzzle, the name of a tenement slum for prostitutes on Karangahape Road. Through this cityscape Kidman explores the seedy side of life during the war with pathos and dramatic flair. Although Clara's death may convey a message about the afflictions women suffered at a time of limited social support, it reveals Kidman's fascination with forms of self-entrapment and marginal states of existence. Paddy's Puzzle was re-issued in the United States under the title In the Clear Light . In The Book of Secrets Kidman returns to historical fiction, telling the lives of three women through letters, journals, and dreams. The novel is an exploration of the isolated, strangely un-emancipated figure of Maria, who lives in solitude as a witch. Her story has its roots in fact: the account of the charismatic figure of Reverend McLeod who led his followers from poverty-stricken Scotland to Nova Scotia and New Zealand is true. The plot's main focus is the three generations of women who enact some pattern of retribution through their association with McLeod. Isabella defies him, is raped, and goes mad; her daughter, Annie, submits to his order; and Maria eventually achieves some kind of spiritual victory. The theme of hidden lives once more demands negotiation with religious and social values, which reflect an irrational patriarchal power structure. But Kidman lets her story take its path rather than imposing a determinedly feminist pattern on her historical sources. Kidman's True Stars tells a contemporary story of love, betrayal, politics, and death in the last days of Lange's Labour government. Her subjects are the citizens of Weyville: the left-wing yuppies who rose to prominence at the time of the 1981 Springbok tour. They gained a political voice through their freshly elected Labour MP, Kit Kendall, and the Maori activists, along with the drop-out generation. Together they represent a range of topical issues in New Zealand during the 1980s, including the need to confront a collapsing dream with the reality of a nearly defunct government. The victimization of Kit's wife, Rose, and her conflicting family and social loyalties signal the full extent of those confused times. Kidman shows her strengths as a journalist, capturing with immediacy the class and social divisions of the times, the tensions of small-town politics as played out against a national context, and the personal dilemmas faced by the middle-aged Rose. In a tightly organized plot, she ties together these different strands in such a way that each interacts with the other to create a thrilling denouement. Kidman has been called an "ordinary woman" who dares to challenge, and she takes on a common effect of provincial and lower middle-class life with Ricochet Baby . Lower economic classes are often forced to ignore the serious effects of the so-called mysterious women's illnesses, such as post-natal depression. Kidman's examination of one woman's bout with the hormonal imbalance reveals how devastating the postpartum syndrome can be on the family as well as the individual. The novel The House Within delves even further into an ordinary woman's psyche as Bethany Dixon negotiates her complex network of relationships, the numerous roles to which women often devote themselves in an irrationally generous manner. She plays mother and step-mother, wife and ex-wife, daughter-in-law, sister, and lover in fragments and snapshots that span twenty-five years. Despite her devotion to the woman's roles she plays, Bethany has yet to establish her own identity separate from those she serves, and her own place in the world. In compensation for this, she is addicted to food, children, and Peter, a departed ex-husband who Bethany continues to regard as her emotional focal point. Fiona Kidman is one of New Zealand's most honored novelists, as well as the author of numerous critically acclaimed collections of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction, as well as dramatic works including radio plays. She has won a number of awards and scholarships: the Ngaio Marsh Award for Television Writing; the 1988 New Zealand Book Award for Fiction for The Book of Secrets ; the Literary Fund Award for Achievement. As a writing fellow at Victoria University in 1988, she was awarded the OBE, and in 1998 was made a Dame Commander of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her ceaseless, all-encompassing service to literature. Like her predecessor, Katherine Mansfield, she may be remembered best for her short stories, which discuss marital infidelity, marital break-up, and failed relationships. However, her talent for weaving together stories as easily as many women juggle the bits and pieces of their families' lives is evident in the novel The House Within , which takes the form of interwoven stories, each narrated by the central character. Kidman's prose is economical, yet often sensual. Her women characters become the outsiders in a narrowly conformist society, and this status is dramatized by sexual transgression and punishment. She has been called a "raider of the real" because of her unerring look and prolonged gaze at women's lives written in the social-realism style.