There were rotting corpses everywhere...

...and man, they could dance. So could the vampires, myriad of wizards and witches and the odd black cat. There's something quite heart warming about seeing a Storm Trooper and Luke Skywalker boogieing on down together in peaceful harmony. The universe is safe.

As you have probably guessed we have survived the school Halloween disco, although a lot of over-excited boys and girls with swords, axes, light-sabres and tridents left me wondering how I'd fill in the "Risk Management Evaluation" form in the case of an accidental beheading or evisceration.

Mr Six year-old wanted to go as a wizard, which was easy as he trotted out in the costume I'd made him for a friend's birthday party. Mr Nine-year old had slightly higher aspirations and wanted to go as Harry Potter, but not any old Harry Potter, no, he wanted to be Harry Potter in his Quidditch Uniform. Right.

So, being the indulgent mother I am, I've spent the last week drafting and sewing a Quidditch Gown, in Gryffindor red and gold and complete with house crest. Must say I'm pretty chuffed with my efforts and he looked very Harry with the appropriate pair of glasses, lightning bolt scar on his forehead and a broomstick.

Actually, I have to admit getting the ole sewing machine out and making it sing was quite therapeutic, even if it was a bit of a distraction from the writing thing. But hey, you're only nine once, and I bet you in 50 years time when someone asks him what he remembers most about primary school, it wont be the maths or the grammar he'll recall. No, he'll say he remembers the night he flew around a hall-full of the living dead, chasing the Golden Snitch to the beat of the Macarena.

Found, by a book

Isn't it funny how books find you. When a book you would normally never pick up or even take a second glance at finds its way to the top of your reading pile and afterwards you are left thinking, thank god!

I've just experienced this with Who is Sylvia? The diary of a biography of Sylvia Ashton-Warner by Lynley Hood.

A diary of a biography you ask? Yes. After four years of intense work Lynley had published Sylvia! A biography of Sylvia Ashton-Warner, in 1988. As part of the process of writing this biography, Lynley kept a diary, which was first published in 1990. With the recent 100 years anniversary of the birth of Sylvia, both books have recently been re-issued.

When I first picked up the book I thought, do I really need to be reading this, by the time I got to the first paragraph of the Authors note, my curiosity was piqued...

"For four years I was obsessed, or possibly possessed,by Sylvia Ashton-Warner. Her powerful presence was too great to be contained within the long hours I spent researching and writing her biography. I thought about her all day and dreamt about her at night. She invaded my life."

By the time I got to the first paragraph of the prologue, I was hooked...

"When this story began early in 1983 I was a forty-year-olf full-time wife and mother. My youngest child had been at school for over a year and I was thinking of rejoining the workforce."

My god, Lynley Hood, a woman I hugely admire and have to admit to finding a little intimidating, was at exactly the same stage in her life as I am now. I had to read on, I had no choice. Fate had thrown this book into my lap.

I was entranced, and roared through the book. It proved valuable in so many ways.

Sylvia Ashton-Warner. Someone whose name I had often heard, but knew little about. I learned a lot about this perplexing and larger than life woman.

The all absorbing process of writing a biography. If any one out there is even contemplating writing a biography of someone, you must read this book. Consider it a standard text, but a hell of an entertaining and personal one.

The journey of a writer. Lynley's personal insights into the changes and mental shifts she experienced during the course of this consuming project are wonderful. She is very honest in her feelings towards family as held separate from her writing. It made me feel a hell of a lot better about some of the thoughts that go through my head.

So here I am today, with an appointment later that may lead to one such consuming project, which I may or may not share with you all - such is the secretive nature of the writer, but I feel so much better armed having read this book. The timing could not have been more perfect.

So thank you Lynley, for sharing your journey and thank you to the universe, for the gift of this book.

Put that idea on ice

I've always had a thing for Antarctica, how could I not? The continent and I have are intimately connected - Lake Vanda, how kind of them to name a lake after me.

My artist and writer friend Claire Beynon has just returned for her second stint in Antarctica with the research team of Dr Sam Bowser. Claire's first trip to Antarctica came about due to an amazing set of chance meetings and an invitation she was brave enough to accept.

Claire has a wonderful website, which includes a section on the works inspired by her last Antarctic experience, and photos.

This being the age of the blogosphere she's set up a blog for this visit called Ice Lines, so we can keep an eye on her and make sure shes not getting up to too much mischief down there. Sam Bowser also has a blog Ice Labyrinth which tells of life in the day of a scientist, including battling with coffee pots and diving in Antarctic waters...brrrrr.

Claire and Sam participated in an Art and Science collaboration and had a lot of fun producing InterfaCE which is featured on Claire's website. As well as being a gopher for the science team, Claire is wanting to explore the Antarctic sound-scape during this visit.

Sam Bowser's area of expertise is studying foraminifera, minute but very clever and complex single celled organisms. After listening to them talking and seeing photos of these little beasties, I quite fell in love with the little critters. So much so, in fact, that a foram even makes an appearance in The Ringmaster, when Sam Shephard (not Bowser) is made to feel very small by her boss and compares herself to a foram. I had to fight for that foram. My editor said, no one knows what a foram is, use an amoeba. I said no way, it has to be a foram, they're clever and amazing and can fight dirty! I won.

I've often wondered if you could write a murder mystery in Antarctica. I recall writer Laurence Fearnley saying she had been considering it when she went to Antarctica as part of the Artists on Ice programme, but decided against it upon seeing the physical constraints of the buildings and lack of privacy. But then in 2000 Rodney Marks was in fact murdered in Antarctica, the continents first homicide, so the possibilities are there.

Of course the big question for me is, would I apply for the Artists on Ice programme to write a story set there, or would I be to big a wuss to go somewhere so extreme and out of my sphere of experience? But then if I did and was successful there would be the chance to see Lake Vanda - Vanda at Vanda. And if Claire can do it, and Laurence can do it. Hmmmm.

So that's where I've been going wrong...

I was having a flick through The Crime and Mystery Book by Ian Ousby and came across these guidelines for crime writers according to Ronald Knox, writer of books such as The Viaduct Murder (1925).

These are his 1929 Ten Commandments for Detective Fiction:

1. The criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the story, but not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.

2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.

3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable

4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.

5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.

6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.

7. The detective himself must not commit the crime.

8. The detective is bound to declare any clues upon which he may happen to light.

9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal from the reader any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.

10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.


Damn, there goes my twin Chinese brothers murderous ghosts detective story.

Sigh.

Nourishing the roots - Burns online

I know I've prattled on a lot about the recent Burns Festival, and as you have gathered, I got a lot out of it.

But wait - there's more...

I finally got to the University of Otago Special Collections exhibition Nourishing the Roots, held in Brasch Court at the University Central Library, and it's a gem. Special Collections Librarian Donald Kerr asked the former Robert Burns Fellows for something to go in the exhibition, something preferably previously unseen or unpublished, and most of the fellows came to the party. The result is a fascinating exhibition with some gems, some nostalgia and lots of laughs.

I was going to do a posting about this exhibition and comment on the personal notebooks some of the writers put in, and in particular Laurence Fearnley's and Sue Wootton's, which are so tidy, and neat, and when I enquired I was assured, that yes, they are always that neat and tidy. Mine are a scrawly mess. Now the wonderful thing is - you can see for yourself - the entire exhibition is available online.

You must look at it.

Follow the link here and see the gems from the exhibition. It is beautifully set out so you can click on each Burns Fellow and see their contribution. Give yourself plenty of time - there's a lot to enjoy and ponder over.

In the meantime, I have ordered myself some large size Moleskine notebooks and have made a vow to get a whole lot tidier, because if by some miracle someday I'm rich and famous and they want to exhibit my memorabilia I'd like to have something people can decipher and that I won't be hideously embarrassed about. One can dream...

All talked out.

Wednesday turned out to be a helluva busy day, with the usual motherly things and then Channel 9 Television's Dunedin Diary book reviews at 5.00pm and then giving a talk at the Dunedin Public Library at 7.30pm. Toss a migraine into the mix and I was rather knackered by the end of it.

So for those who watched the telly, and or came to the library talk (bless you) I apologise if I was a bit vague and gabbley. I did get to trot out my new frock for the library talk, because I thought at least if I feel like death, I can at least try and look like death warmed up.

My Mum was sitting in the front row - she's holidaying with us, down from Napier - so she finally got to hear me speak and give away all our family secrets. She didn't heckle me too much.

The purpose of the talk was to mark the centenary of the Dunedin Public Library, and I got to share the billing with the wonderful Jackie Ballantyne. We've tag teamed before, and really enjoy doing a double act. We were both delighted to receive, as a thank you gift, the newly minted Freedom to Read: A Centennial History of Dunedin Public Library by Mary Ronnie.

Here are my notes for the books I reviewed on Dunedin Diary. This is what I would have said if not distracted by Dougal Stevenson, migraine headaches, nerves and a dodgy memory.



A Year to learn a Woman, by Paddy Richardson

Claire Wright is a freelance writer and is commissioned to write a biography of notorious serial sex offender Travis Crill, which she accepts, despite heavy reservations because of the nice pay check, thinking that it will help set herself and her daughter up financially. Crill is incarcerated for his crimes and seems, on the surface a perfectly normal man from a happy upbringing. As Claire digs into his past she becomes completely absorbed by Travis Crill, trying to understand how this man became such a chilling criminal, to the point it starts to impact severely upon her own life.

Claire’s teenage daughter Annie is facing issues of her own with an all-absorbing friendship with the new girl at school, Savannah, whose manipulations start to pull apart her relationships with friends and her completely obsessed mother.

This comparison of what’s happening in the lives of Mother and Daughter, the differences and the similarities are what make this book a terrific read. It’s about isolation, physical and emotional and manipulation, and it’s one of those wonderful creepy books that make you squirm and feel uncomfortable on so many levels.


Presenting New Zealand: An illustrated history. By Philip Temple

This is a fact filled and fascinating history of New Zealand and is a new edition of Presenting New Zealand, which has been re-illustrated with historic photographs and paintings.

What I really liked about this book is that it gives the geological and social history of New Zealand region by region, and by doing so shows how very differently each area developed depending on the resources they had, harshness of climate and accessibility.
It gives a great overview of the Maori history of each region and then the effects of colonisation, farming, the gold rushes, the many things that shaped our nation.

The new illustrations and photographs are terrific and I felt, in particular the paintings of early settlers, and the view of New Zealand through their eyes was interesting.

This is a great book for anyone wanting to get an informative overview of our rich history, in a compact and very readable book.

Does a triple book launch = a flotilla?!

That was one of the questions posed by MC Jackie Ballantyne at tonight's launch of three books by three Dunedin writers.

The Dunedin City Library played host to a lively celebration of three lovely Dunedin ladies and the very different books they have had published.


Paddy Richardson has just had A Year to Learn a Woman, a psychological thriller, published by Penguin. I loved this book and will post my TV review of it tomorrow. The hilarious thing about this book is that while Paddy was feverishly working away on it and I was battling away with The Ringmaster, we lived, literally, three doors away from each other, and didn't even know it! So what does it say about our quiet little street that the two crime fiction books from Dunedin writers this year came from it's quaint old villas?


Kath Beattie has added to the Scholastic My Story series of books with Poor Man's Gold: The diary of Reuben Radcliffe, Northland, 1899-1900. Kath's family history is intimately associated with the Kauri Gum diggers and Northland and she related some of the little details which came straight from her family stories. Mr Nine-Year Old is lined up to read it - he's loved others in the series.


Martha Morseth has gone the way of science fiction and ghosts with Edge: A cut of unreal, which is a collection of short stories for teenagers. This book tackles right up to the minute technology and also future technologies - time travel anyone?



So three very different books, three lovely ladies, loads of supportive friends and relatives, and one great evening. It's all happening in Dunedin!