An Hour With Jackie Kay at #AWRF

Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, Saturday 18 May, 11.30am

Scottish poet, fiction writer and memoirist, Jackie Kay is one of my favourite writers, so I was beside myself with excitement about hearing her read and speak. When you have loved any public figure for a long time, there is always the fear the the ‘real life’ experience won’t meet your (no doubt unreasonably high) expectations, but this was not the case for Jackie Kay. She was wonderful and this was my favourite session. She has a strong stage presence and shines with humour, wisdom, optimism. It’s an infectious brew!

The session was expertly hosted by New Zealand writer Stephanie Johnson who asked intelligent questions of Jackie Kay.

Early in the session, Jackie read her poem ‘Fiere’ (pronounced ‘Fairy’ but with a rolled scottish ‘R’) from the book of same name, a poem about enduring female friendship. Her broad Scottish accent is delightful and that, combined with the poem’s musicality, was stunning.

See her read it here – trust me, it’s worth a watch!

When she finished there was a collective sigh of satisfaction from the audience and Jackie said, “I love the wee moans people give at poetry readings. We poets live for those wee moans.”

Jackie Kay spoke of her New Zealand connection – her (adoptive) parents met in Christchurch at the Coffee Pot Cafe. This is Jackie’s first visit to New Zealand but she feels like it is something of ‘a pilgrimage of my parent’s love’ and she was headed to Christchurch after the festival to visit some of those key sites in her parents history. She talked about a plastic ‘Maori’ doll she had as a child, sent over from her grandmother who was still in New Zealand. “I loved that doll. I called her Ngaire. One day, though, a girl came up to me on the street and said to me: ‘Just because you’re a darkie, doesnae mean you’ve got to have a darkie doll.’

Jackie Kay has a Nigerian birth father and was adopted by a white Scottish couple, so grew up black in a very white community. Incidents of casual racism peppered her childhood and even now she is often interrogated by fellow Scots about her lineage. Her adoptive father loved jazz and she said she would stare at the covers of his jazz records, at the black faces on the covers and saw them as her “earliest black family: Aunty Ella Fitzgerald, Uncle Duke Ellington.” She spoke at length about the subject of her memoir Red Dust Road – her search for her birth parents, her exploration of Nigeria where her birth father was from and her realisations of the extent to which we are shaped by love more than genetics.

“Identity is fluid. Love is what really matters. People who feel deeply loved have a different aura about them” she said. Her adoptive parents did deeply love and cherish her. When she went to Nigeria she felt “the land was welcoming me, even when my father wasn’t.” Her birth father, a deeply Christian man saw her as “a living emodiment of his past sins.”

She read other poems and excerpts from her short stories, endearingly skipping over the sex scenes “that’s all a bit much for an Auckland writing festival audience at eleven in the morning”. Her fiction writing about old age was very moving, artful writing which raises questions about how we treat old people in our society.

Jackie Kay’s session mirrored the experience of reading her work, one minute you’re laughing until tears roll down your cheeks, next minute the tears are not mirthful but sad. The best wisdom is often framed in humour and Jackie Kay has the uncanny knack to provide both in perfect balance.

After the ‘hour with Jackie Kay’ I took the opportunity to have my own ‘minute with Jackie Kay’. I waited in a very long line for my chance to have a quick exchange with this great author while she signed ‘Red, Cherry Red‘ one of her poetry books for me. I had true fan-girl nerves and as I stood there I wrestled with the dilemma of whether or not to give her the copy of my own poetry book, ‘The Comforter‘.

Although I wanted to, I was also worried it was inappropriate, pushy, over-the-top…but when the moment arrived, I did it, nervously burbling to her “sorry, sorry, probably the last thing you need is more junk to cram into your suitcase”. Jackie said “This is not junk, it’s a gift. Thank you so very much for bringing it for me, it’s wonderful” and smiled at me with a grin so warm I basked in it for the rest of the day. What a gracious and generous writer she is, and a deeply human and humane person.

Written by Helen Lehndorf.

Thank you to Auckland Writers & Readers Festival for providing Helen’s ticket to this event.

Fiere
by Jackie Kay
Published by Picador
ISBN 9780330513371

Red Dust Road
by Jackie Kay
Published by Atlas
ISBN 9781935633341

Red, Cherry Red
by Jackie Kay
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN 9780747589792

The Comforter
by Helen Lehndorf
Published by Seraph Press
ISBN 9780473196073

Sylvie Simmons – Mr Cohen Revealed at #AWRF

Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, 17 May, 5.30pm

Sylvie Simmons – click image for source

Both host Noelle McCarthy and writer Sylvie Simmons looked every inch rock’n'roll for this session, both head to foot clad in black velvet/lace/denim. One of the world’s leading rock journalists, Simmons is the author of a recent biography of Leonard Cohen I’m Your Man  during the writing of which she had access to both the man himself and his archives. (She has also written biographies of Serge Gainsbourg and Neil Young.)

She charmed the audience from the first minute with her honesty, wit and ability to tell a tale well. Clearly this was a session filled with music-nerds and Leonard Cohen-devotees hoping for juicy details and original anecdotes from biographer Simmon’s close proximity with the enigmatic musician, and she delivered both in abundance.

Noelle spoke of how Simmon’s strength as a biographer was the way she cultivated a sense of intimacy between the reader and the subject: “She allows you to meet the artist and to be party to their whole life: their creative process, their family, their public and private faces.” Simmonds described Leonard Cohen as “wise, droll and cool”, a man who was enjoying “a tsunami of love and affection at the end of his life.” Earlier in his career, his home country Canada and the USA were slow to see his genius and he was bigger in (according to Simmond’s) “the darker countries: the UK and Scandanavia.”

Early on, Cohen had a very conflicted relationship to his career. He suffered depression and always questioned his own motives for wanting fame. He said that taking his music on tour in the early days he felt like “a parrot and a pimp” but now he enjoys performing and touring and enjoys the irony of having “full-employment” in his seventies. He said of returning to touring after his long absence: “It was like returning to a beach years after your last visit to see if a sandcastle you’d built was still there.”

Sylvie Simmonds said she was shocked to discover the Cohen still enjoys drugs, including LSD and speed. When she commented on his use of speed, Cohen said “You should hear how slow I am when I’m not on speed.” She described the process of writing a biography of a living subject as being like “writing a murder mystery without a corpse” and enjoys the deep research involved. She said the the haunting quality of Leonard Cohen’s music was due to it being a mixture of ‘the sacred, the profane and the humane” and that Cohen (primarily a poet) saw his songs as “a mixture of prayer”.

This session was thick with wonderful details about Leonard Cohen, real gems, delightful morsels for the Cohen fan. My favourite morsels were:

• Cohen likes McDonald’s ‘Fillet’o'Fish’ burgers, but prefers to get it to take-away so he can eat it at home with a glass of wine
• As a young person, he was told by his family and his family Rabbi that he couldn’t sing
• As a teenager he learned hypnosis and mesmerism, some of the skills of which have been useful in his performance career
• Leonard was given slightly special treatment when he joined the Zen monastery on Mount Baldy: he had his own toilet, and was allowed to have a coffee and a cigarette each morning at 3am before joining the other monks for meditation
• When meditating, he said he always had to work through his ‘Top 40′ sexual memories before he could settle his mind to meditation

There was much more besides, but perhaps the best way to get the low-down on Leonard Cohen is to read Simmons wonderful biography. At the end of the session, an audience member asked Simmons about how she became a rock journalist, she said it was all that she ever wanted to do because of her passion for both music and writing, but “because I appeared not to have a penis, I had to leave the UK for the USA where in Los Angeles I had a shot at it.”

Noelle McCarthy did a great job of hosting the session with energy and intelligent questions and Sylvie Simmons finished the session with a live ukelele version of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ showing that not only is she a phenomenal writer, but she can sing with a beautiful high voice which sounded like early (pre-heroin) Marianne Faithful.

Here she is singing the same song at a different event:

Leaving the session with a new version of a classic Cohen song resounding around my head was the perfect way to exit this juicy, funny and riveting session.

Written by Helen Lehndorf.

Thank you to Auckland Writers & Readers Festival for providing Helen’s ticket to this event.

 I’m Your Man
by Sylvie Simmons
Published by Vintage
ISBN 9780099549321

Lauraine Jacobs – Everlasting Feast at #AWRF

Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, Friday 17 May, 4pm

Launched just three weeks ago, Lauraine Jacobs’ new book Everlasting Feast is the best kind of food memoir, one with lush food photography (by Elizabeth Clarkson) and some of her signature recipes. (All the flowers in the book are from Lauraine’s own garden.)

Lauraine Jacobs wrote for Cuisine magazine for many years and now writes for The Listener. In her new book, Lauraine tells colourful stories from her rich career in food and food writing in a way which is both educational and lively.

Lauraine has previously published ten recipe books and so felt with this book it was time to do something a bit different, to bring her love of story-telling together with her passion for food. Through close telling of her own journey with food, Lauraine explores the country’s journey in food since the 1950s. In this session, Lauraine spoke engagingly about both the national and international food scenes with a wry sense of humour and a sharp intelligence.

The book covers Lauraine’s life from a five-year old Brownie and is a very Auckland book, featuring the various places around the city where Lauraine has lived and worked. Lauraine has encountered many notable food writers in her career, especially through her involvement with the International Association of Culinary Professionals, which she first joined, then eventually chaired. Through the Association she met Julia Childs, who she said was a spirited raconteur who would often still be telling stories in the bar at 1am, a woman who truly earned her legendary title and who bought real cooking back to America in an era of Betty Crocker packet foods and tuna casseroles made with cans of Campbell’s soup.

Lauraine spoke passionately about the importance of starting our cooking from fresh, seasonal produce. In her book she writes in depth about her favourite ingredients: lemons, herbs, butter and salt.

She said her favourite quick meal is fresh fish with salad, which is a lovely fusion of those four ingredients – the lemon and butter enliven the fish, the salad is bought to life with lemon, herbs and salt. Lauraine somewhat controversially declared that ‘most New Zealand butter is rancid on the shelf’, that the paper packaging does not adequately keep it fresh and that for years she has bought Danish butter because it is cultured butter and as such tastes fresher. The local exception to this being Louis Road Creamery butter, which has caused her to buy local butter again. According to Lauraine, the best way to treat butter is to cut it into small cubes at the time of purchase, wrap them in foil, freeze and take out as required. She also believes that our local olive oils are better than most imports.

When asked by a member of the audience for what she considered one of her signature dishes, she chose her Red Salad (shown above) a salad developed for a special Christmas issue of Cuisine magazine, which she believes to be one of her most successful recipes. This recipe features in the new book. 

When asked what the next trend would be in food, and she spoke hilariously about cake trends “Cupcakes are dead. Macarons have now been over done. Whoopie Pies never gained traction. Next up is the artisanal eclair.” She recently travelled to San Francisco and encountered beautiful eclairs there made with rich chocolate ganache and paper-thin pieces of dark chocolate as an embellishment. Apparently, the eclair is also on the rise in Paris, so we can expect to see them appearing in New Zealand cafes soon.

Lauraine was also asked what her ‘Desert Island Cookbook’ would be and she cited Constance Spry’s 60 year old The Constance Spry Cookery Book because it contains solid recipes for everything from casseroles to jams, but a more recent book which has inspired her is the Ottolenghi: The Cookbook.

According to Lauraine, one of the biggest changes in New Zealand food is how often we shop for ingredients now, the
notion of ‘the weekly shop’ is dying and people are shopping at
supermarkets on average four times a week now.

I really enjoy people with strong opinions plainly spoken, and Lauraine Jacobs delivered on this front. She is clearly a deeply intelligent person, with both an artistic flair for beautiful food and the analytical, forward thinking mind of someone who is always looking to the future of the food industry, how it might improve and change. This was an excellent, educational session and the hour flew by in an instant.

Further recommendations from Lauraine’s session:

• Recipe search and organising site 
• Specialist food-writing bookshop featuring new and vintage food books

Written by Helen Lehndorf. 

Thank you to Auckland Writers & Readers Festival for providing Helen’s ticket to this event.

Everlasting Feast
by Lauraine Jacobs
Published by Random House
ISBN 9781775532538

The Constance Spry Cookery Book
by Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume
Published by Grub Street
ISBN 9781908117175

Ottolenghi: The Cookbook
by Yotam Ottolenghi
Published by Ebury Press
ISBN 9780091922344

Books are good for you #nomnom

via Text Publishing on Facebook 

Finalist author Tina Matthews reads A Great Cake #nzpcba

This morning Tina Matthews was named a finalist in the 2013 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards.

Here she is reading her finalist book – complete with a ringing glass that will tell you when to turn the page as you read along at home.

There’s even a cake recipe at the end. Bonza.

A Great Cake
by Tina Matthews
Walker Books Australia
ISBN 9781921720062
RRP $27.99
Target age 3+

Event review: the Rocky Outcrop Writers Tour for #nzbookmonth

March is NZ Book Month; discounts on books! Events across New Zealand! Lots of news about books! Hoorah!

Last night I headed across the parched plains of the mighty Wairarapa to the great Hedley’s Bookshop in Masterton for first stop of the Rocky Outcrop Writer’s Tour. Few of the audience wore socks; many of the women wore floral tops – it was Wairarapa summer at its best with the event following suit. Warm. Relaxed. Inviting. Genuine.

Pat White

“Absolute crackers,” is how local writer and MC Pat White introduced Ashleigh Young, Kirsten McDougall and Pip Adam.

“These three women would be in the leading taxi off the rank of young New Zealand writers.” It was a charm and genuine enthusiasm that buoyed us along one of the most enjoyable events I’ve been to.

Kirsten McDougall opened the show reading from her book The Invisible Rider. Neither a novel or a book of short stories, she described her work as ‘episodes’ in her character Phillip’s life. As she read Phillip’s encounter with dickhead Dad Pedro at their sons’ soccer game we all sat immersed. We were there on the sidelines, frustrated too, leaning in to hear what would happen next… the rip of laughter from the women in the front row when Kirsten her character Phillip called Pedro a fuck-knuckle was an audible release of tension for us all.

“Every so often a character in a book acts as if you might have if you had of been quick enough to think of it yourself,” said Pat.

Kirsten McDougall

Pip Adam read from her award-winning work Everything We Hoped For, a book of short stories with a heavy dose of real-life inspiration. Poet Helen Lehndorf has described Pip’s work as ‘a kind of post-post modern fiction – nothing meta, no irony, no narrative arc, no insights or character transformations – the stories are flatline and searing and real’.

Pip herself mentioned someone had once asked her dead-pan whether she was a psychopath – her stories are often grim, harsh and real and it’s difficult to imagine them being imagined.

During question time Pip spoke of her process of writing and her childhood; where television and gossip loomed large, which meant her world was often one of pretend and make-believe (what the neighbours are up to, the stories on the television) and daydreams (what would it be like to be David Bowie’s niece?)

As a mother she often composed the stories and character developments in Everything We Hoped For first in her head because the time she could actually sit and write was so condensed with a young child. The way she spoke about her process was compelling; I wanted to immediately read her book again.

Pip Adam

Ashleigh Young read from what Pat called, “Just one of the best books of poetry put out by a New Zealander in years.” Her work, Magnificent Moon, is her first book and was published by Victoria University Press last year.

Quantam Leaps, The Rest is Easy and a new sonnet were on the bill last night. However, I could sit and listen to Ashleigh read for a lot longer than she did, which is the mark of a good event – it seemed short and wonderful and I wanted more.

A couple of people I know have fan-girl level worship thoughts about the work of Ashleigh Young and it was easy to see why. Pat summed it up like this, “As another poet I think ‘oh bugger I wanted to do that.’”

Ashleigh Young

Lucky for you, Hedley’s was the first stop on a tour around the provinces so Palmerston North, Napier, Whanganui and Paekakariki you’re in luck!

Seek this event out – I loved it. The writing was the best there is, Pat’s hosting was pitch perfect and combined with David Hedley’s rampant enthusiasm for books and reading it was a jolly good night out.

Written by Emma McCleary, Web Editor for Booksellers NZ.

Best New Zealand children’s books seek social media masters

We’re seeking keen social media users with an interest in children’s books to partner with us in promoting the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards.

If you have an audience interested in reading, kids or kids books then we want to hear from you. Perhaps you have a well-read blog? Maybe you’re the king of Twitter? Or you have more Facebook friends than a small town has residents?

You’ll need to tell us about your blog, how many people read it and how you want to promote the book awards. In exchange for influence we can help you access books, authors, illustrators and the awards ceremony.

Apply to join our New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards social media team.

We’re specifically looking to promote the awards between the announcement of the finalists and the announcement of the winners. See our important dates.

We’re looking for creative ideas that help us share our love for New Zealand’s best kid’s books. You do what you do best and we’ll help you create great content and experiences for your readers, fans and followers.

Questions? Email Emma our web editor at info@booksellers.co.nz

Applications close Friday, 15 March 2013.

Vote! Help us decide our summer read for 2012

After the unmitigated disaster that was our winter read of 2012 (I think only one person read Middlemarch), we’re opting for something short and cheerful for our summer read. We want you to help us decide…

Vote for your favourite below and we’ll announce which book we’ll be reading over summer on Thursday, 13 December. To make it easy there’s only two choices.

A cute story about Digital NZ and the image on our homepage

In my job my greatest hope is to spark people’s interest in books, reading, buying books and talking about them. Here’s a cute story about why it pays to get reading. ..

This week I decided we needed a new feature image on the homepage. I often use Digital New Zealand so did a quick search on ‘reading’ (with the modify/commercial use filters to cover all bases) and came up with the image that’s now on our homepage of a man reading in bed.

Hamish Wright from Wright’s Bookshop in Cambridge emailed me this afternoon to give me the back story on our image. Here’s what he said,

“The “Man reading in bed” that is on the Booksellers website front page is George “Putty” Marston who was on Shackleton’s trip to the South Pole in 1907. Putty was an Art Teacher and was the resident artist on the trip. He turned 26 whilst in the South Pole. They actually produced a book about the trip and Putty designed and illustrated it. It was called Aurora Australis. They produced about 100 of which there are 70 that can be accounted for today.

“They had boxes of books with them on the trip. Dickens, Shakespeare, Browning were amongst the reading material available. Not sure what he was reading [in the photo] but I am sure it was “worthy”…

“With thanks to Neville Peat’s new book Shackleton’s Whiskey where that photo is reproduced and the material came from. I read the book and loved it!”

by Emma McCleary, web editor at Booksellers NZ

 

Books to break your heart

We all know that every year – and probably any day now – book lists begin to appear. Christmas is book list central; ideas for Mum, Dad, the cat, the babysitter, that friend you don’t really like anymore but still feel compelled to buy for…

A while back on Twitter someone posted one of those “100 books you should have read if you’ve got any part of a brain” lists. So I decided (along with some online friends) to create our own lists. With titles that we liked. (We mainly decided this because we hadn’t read many books on THE LIST).

My plan is make the final lists available in the lead-up to Christmas as a more conceptually tangential guide to buying books*.  Add your own contributions to this and all the lists.

Here’s our books to break your heart list … 

• The Last of the Just, Andre Schwarz-Bart
• A Grief Observed, CS Lewis
• The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
• Unless, Carol Shields
• How I Live Now, Meg Rosoff
• Goodbye to All That, Robert Graves
• The Border Trilogy, Cormac McCarthy
• Oscar and Lucinda, Peter Carey
• Paula, Isabel Allende

*We recommend that if you want a really good recommendation that is suitable to the person you want to buy for then you get in-store and talk to bookshop staff.

by Emma McCleary, web editor at Booksellers NZ