BELL GULLY NATIONAL SCHOOLS WRITING FESTIVAL 28-29 AUGUST 2004 FEATURED WRITERS AND OTHER GUESTS Hinemoana Baker Cliff Fell Lorae Parry William Brandt Eirlys Hunter Susan Pearce James Brown Anna Jackson Chris Price Kate Camp Laura Kroetsch Jo Randerson Glenn Colquhoun Anna Livesey Damien Wilkins Kate De Goldi Margaret Mahy Donna Wright Ken Duncum Emma Neale Last year we asked participating writers how they became writers, what the best and worst things were about being writers, and what their top tip was for young writers. The most common tip was read, read, READ! Last year’s comments are on the festival website at www.vuw.ac.nz/modernletters/festival03_writers.htm. For this year’s programme we asked participating writers to tell us which books they wished they had written, why they avoided reading some books, and what they thought beginning writers should read. HINEMOANA BAKER Mätuhi | Needle (poetry) will be published in November this year by Victoria University Press and Percival Press. “I wish I had written 100 New Zealand Poems (ed Bill Manhire, Godwit, 1994). Which is cheating a bit because it’s an anthology, but features many of my favourite poems and poets. I’d be pretty stoked if I’d written any of them. Actually, I wish I’d edited it, too. I like how it avoids printing the author’s name beside the poem title – it encourages me to take each one on its own merits. I also like the decisions Bill’s made about which poem to put next to which other poem. I find it a satisfying whole book as well as a collection of great individual poems. “I’ve never read Little Women. Why? Because of the title. “Who ever reads the books they ‘should’ read? I sometimes try, but I fall asleep. They become that strange ‘thunk’ in the night when I turn over. They make the pile beside my bed another few centimetres taller. 1 “I think we all end up reading whatever makes us feel excited about writing and reading. When I was a beginner writer I read a lot of song lyrics as well as actual books. I used to pore over LP covers – mainly the ones that belonged to my older sister as, unlike me, she had the budget to buy them. I was intrigued by the ways the words were transformed by the phrasings and melody once they were sung. I would feel an intense excitement listening to a song for the first time and reading the lyrics at the same time. I’d read ahead a bit and try to predict how on earth the singer would manage to fit those two lines into the rhythm they’d already made. My admiration was great. “I didn’t grow up in a ‘literary’ household, but I had great English teachers. So my early adolescence was a kind of unholy soup of Leonard Cohen, Hone Tuwhare, Kate Bush and David Bowie lyrics, Cilla McQueen, Fiona Kidman, poems in the Listener, Stephen King novels (my mother loves horrors), Sons for the Return Home, Pounamu Pounamu by Witi Ihimaera, Elton John’s ‘Yellow Brick Road’ lyrics, Richard Bach and the Bible (I’ve somehow ended up with 5 of them, given to me by various family members).” WILLIAM BRANDT The Book of the Film of the Story of My Life (novel) Victoria University Press 2002 Alpha Male (short fiction) Victoria University Press 1999 “I wish I had written The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. I’ve chosen this one instead of War and Peace or Moby Dick or Rembrance of Things Past or The Bible or some other unbelievably well known classic, because, while The Master and Magarita is (let’s face it) a masterpiece and better than anything I’ll ever write, it has a sensibility which I (at least) think of as being close to my own. It’s a story which in a parallel universe I feel I could have written. Should have written. I muse about this book from time to time, and wonder if I could try something like it. I feel close to it. It even has some of the same weaknesses as my own writing. The book itself is a coded cry of rage against political evil, written by a desperate, doomed man, trapped in Stalinist Russia. What has this to do with my own blissfully easy existence? Nothing. How can I possibly feel close to this book? I don’t know. I guess that’s what they mean when they say great literature is universal. “I struggle to think of a great book I have avoided reading in the sense that I’ve deliberately eschewed it. A great book I haven’t got round to reading – yet – is James Joyce’s Ulysses. Maybe that’s the same thing, I’m not sure. Technically it’s on the list, but then again, it has never made it to the top. I’d have to say I do have an underlying fear that it’s going to be boring and hard to understand. Worse still, boring because it’s hard to understand. I’m afraid I won’t get all the brilliant allusions and in-jokes and then I’ll feel like a putz. But I will read it. One day… “I think a beginning writer should read widely. Find out what you like, and find out what is similar to the stuff you’re writing. Then read lots and lots of that. 2 (But continue to read widely as well.) For a beginning writer it will be a complicated sort of dialectic – in your reading you’ll be looking for work which resembles your own, while in your writing, you’ll be trying to produce work which resembles what you’re reading. Gradually, you’ll learn not only what makes you similar to the writers you like, but what makes you different from them as well. You don’t need to worry about being unique – you are that, automatically. It’s perfectly safe to seek writers to emulate, to look for role models, heroes/heroines. In fact it’s very healthy.” JAMES BROWN Instructions for Poetry Readings Braunias University Press 2003 Favourite Monsters (poetry) Victoria University Press 2003 Lemon (poetry) Victoria University Press 1999 Go Round Power Please (poetry) Victoria University Press 1995 “I wish I had written Praise by American poet Robert Hass. The poems manage to be lyrical yet conversational, emotional yet intelligent, wise yet commonplace. I like poetry that hits the head as well as the heart and that does so without jumping up and down yelling ‘Look at me’. I’d also be very happy to have written The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Pobby and Dingan by Ben Rice, and Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme, all of which show the value of humour when dealing with serious subjects. “Which books have I avoided? Too many to choose from, but… Ulysses by James Joyce. I’ve tried. Perhaps there just wasn’t enough narrative – sometimes ‘literary’ books become so tied up in their words they forget one of the chief pleasures of reading is finding out what happens next. I suspect Ulysses might be one of those books that has to be studied more than read, which makes me long for school and uni and being forced to read books you’d never otherwise go near but, thanks to prodding, coaxing and guidance, ending up being really pleased to have read. Beginning writers should read good anthologies. For example, An Anthology of New Zealand Poetry in English, The Picador Book of Contemporary New Zealand Fiction, or the annual Best American Poetry/Short Stories/Essays series. There are a lot of anthologies out there, and the best ones will introduce you to the top range of voices. Contemporary literary magazines like Landfall or Sport will do likewise. When you find someone whose work you like, investigate them.” KATE CAMP Wellington (anthology of fiction) (ed) Exisle Press 2003 On Kissing (essay) Four Winds Press 2002 Realia (poetry) Victoria University Press 2001 Unfamiliar Legends of the Stars (poetry) Victoria University Press 1998 3 “I wish I’d written The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon because it is the kind of book I most love to read. It’s totally engrossing with an amazingly gripping plot, you really care about the characters, and the setting is so strong it’s like watching a movie … except with all the smells and tastes and feelings too. The book is about two cousins who write a comic book together in 1940s New York, called ‘The Escapist'. At the same time they’re trying to rescue their family in Europe from the Nazis. I am sick with jealousy when I think of this book “I’ve never read Ulysses by James Joyce. It sounds really hard. “I’m sure everyone is going to suggest that beginning writers should read everything and anything and lots. I think it’s good to read in the area and the era you’re going to write in. In about 1994 I decided to apply for the creative writing course at Victoria to write poetry. I realised I’d never read any poetry being written by people in New Zealand in 1994. So I got some books by contemporary poets and read those. Up until then my idea of ‘contemporary’ writing was stuff from the 1960s and 1970s – since that’s the most up to date stuff I’d studied.” GLENN COLQUHOUN On Jumping Ship (essay) Four Winds Press 2004 Playing God (poetry) Steele Roberts 2002 An Explanation of Poetry to my Father (poetry) Steele Roberts 2000 The Art of Walking Upright (poetry) Steele Roberts 1999 Uncle Glenn and Me (children’s picture book) Reed 1999 “I wish I’d written Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone because now I would be rich.