In Disneyland, California you can catch a ride called the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. The beginning is a bit mundane; queuing for tickets, a fake, creaky hotel lobby complete with corpse-painted concierge, crowds milling about while mashing junk food into their mouths. In the ride cart you trundle into an elevator which hoists you upwards. You note the dandruff and droopy collar of the man in front of you. At four storeys the elevator doors open to reveal a typical summer sky and then, without warning, you find yourself in spine-curling free fall, dropping at an uncontrollable pace. Adrenalin rocks through your system and there is a sense of suspended reality, as your perception of the situation radically alters in a millisecond. For me, reading Mary Robison’s dialogue produces that same sensation of suspended reality. How does she do that?
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The girls slept until late afternoon, in a shallow grave of damp sand, sharing a single mangled blanket. Above them a monstrous granite boulder hung weightless, casting deep shade. All day the beach had been littered with bodies. Girls with soft brown limbs and apple breasts had sprawled yards away, on bright, fluffy towels. G-string bikinis framed pert behinds and gym smoothed thighs strutted across the powder- fine white sand. But now the sun had begun its slump towards the sea, and the chill wind fanned against the curve of the bay. The visitors leaked back up the stone staircase, hauling the beach trappings of the day; striped umbrellas, soggy costumes, empty ice-boxes and disrepaired hats. Behind them the white sand lay destroyed, studded with litter and footprints. Seagulls whirled and dove like vultures picking at the scattered bones of a sea creature.
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I married my beloved Jason on Saturday, the 26th March 2011, at the Historic Village in Tauranga. It was pretty small wedding, only about sixty people, and we had the idea of an indie/vintage wedding – intimate, warm and friendly enough for us to indulge our family and friends. It turned out to be a magical, one-of-a-kind night, and even though the weather was overcast, we managed to get wonderful photos. Now that we have recovered from all the excitement I thought I’d review all my wedding vendors, because when all is said and done, those are the people that made my day.
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My six year old son and I spotted Joy Cowley once, during a layover at Sydney airport. We trailed after her, trying to scrunch up the courage to tell her how much her books had meant to us. We had read Agapanthus Hum and Mrs Wishy Washy when Conor was still clutching a blankey, and I’d just finished a paper at Massey University on her wonderful teen novel Hunter. Her fantastic imagination had been a delight and an inspiration for years. On that day Joy seemed a wonderful caricature from one of her own books, a Kiwi Nanny McPhee, with bags and cardigans and a wonderfully serene smile. We were in awe, and never did get up the nerve to approach her.
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CASSY GREEN, member of Tauranga Writers and the New Zealand Society of Authors.
She runs Scribblyfish Communications.
Once, while backpacking across Europe in my twenties, I found myself in the seaside village of Glyfada, Corfu, on a murderously hot afternoon.
I settled into a nearby tarverna with an ice-cold coke. The only English title displayed on its creaking bookstand was a moussaka splattered copy of The Bone People by Keri Hulme.
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25 of the Best Books on Writing
I have read literally hundreds of books on the craft of writing, and most of them get slung to the side for being too obvious, pedantic or overflowing with false enthusiasm. The books that actually make it onto my bookshelf, bristling with post it notes and used frequently, have to contain original content and hard won knowledge.
The following twenty five books all made the cut. Some are for the beginner and others more advanced, but if you read them, you will walk away better armed to face the blank page.
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It is heart breaking to realise how many lives are broken and lost during war time. Even after the endurance of extreme hardship there is no guarantee that your fellow countrymen will welcome you home with medals and sympathy. How do you cope with a shattered life, on-going poverty and your health blighted by past experience? Well some, like Paula Kogel, write down every painful word, no matter how hard, and remind the world that war is not about great battles and generals dripping with ribbons, it’s about everyday families caught in the crossfire of nations and the hollow echo of their experiences upon the next generation.
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I’ve been creating a small business, a boutique writing and public relations agency called Scribblyfish. During the first few months of setting up the business I spent winter nights networking across the Pacific, toiling over quotations and reworking articles and stories. Around 3am the temperature would dip and, shivering in a pool of lamplight, I’d start to wonder why writers write.
Personally, I think it is because of the djinn.
Writers tend to start out as voracious readers; miniature torch lit humps under the bedclothes, fascinated by Enid Blyton’s fairies and underground trains. Since those days I’ve always imagined that, in each story I begin to read, I appear in the shape of a tiny, lizard-like djinn with golden scales, glowing eyes and sharp little claws. She arrives on the first page as a swirling dervish as insubstantial as desert sand, too subtle for any of the characters to see…
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Sean O’Leary’s latest short story collection, My Town, is a series of linked stories with a character called Stevie, a drugged out itinerant worker criss-crossing Australia in the search for work and/or meaning. Every location promises a new start and instead reveals the harsh truth in the saying “everywhere you go, there you are”. Stevie is a strong and likeable narrator, and while you ponder his disastrous decision-making, the prose is as clean and clear as a window pane. O’Leary easily transports you to the dingy underside of each city, from the cheap motels to the heat-soaked taverns.
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There is silence in this crowded room, except for the deep hum of overhead fluorescent lights. At each desk paired heads are hunched over chequered boards, concentrating on imagined battlegrounds. Pieces of medieval military panoply stylised into bland plastic shapes. Castles grind forward in neat lines while horses leap lightly across ritualised angles. Emotions run deep, as a lost bishop shreds carefully placed defences, or a favoured battle plan shows unexpected weaknesses.
My father and my son make up the closest pair. My father has a lantern jaw and bushy grey eyebrows that overshadow intense blue eyes. His tall frame is bent over the table, lost in thought. He is dressed in an arctic jacket and thick socks, haunted by the creeping cold only diabetics feel. His name is Peter William Grimley, and his family can be traced back to the Norman Conquest…
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