Embarrassment
I am now suffering from post-publication embarrassment. It’s all very well showing your book to a select number of sympathetic readers, but when it goes out into the world, you no longer have control over who reads it. This is a wonderful thing – this is how we find out about lives different from our own – but this is also a bit awkward, especially when unsuspecting people can flick to straight that page where you thought it was a great idea to depict yourself losing your virginity. In a very discreet and tasteful way, of course. I was most nervous about my parents, but my mother was very accepting, and said although it was a bit weird for her to read about my experiences, she could see how they were vital to the narrative.
Anyway, here I am in the paper.
If you are in Christchurch this weekend, come along to South Library at 9am where I will be giving a free workshop.
And if you’re in Nelson on Monday, I will be at the Arts Festival, talking with Stella Chrysostomou.
LET ME BE FRANK 
Hi Sarah, I bought your book at the launch and I have read it twice already. I’m in total awe of your honesty!! but even more, I love the way you have captured all that angst of desperately wanting to be a writer / not feeling good enough / feeling rejected / wondering if you have suffered enough / watching other people’s successes / feeling inadequate / experiencing moments of mortification / having no time to write / questioning why you want to write / but still just wanting to write above everything. And I also love the way you’ve re-imagine KM’s life – I’m sure she would have recognised you as a kindred spirit. Thanks so much, it is a wonderful book!
Thank you! That’s so great to hear, and so nice that it resonated with you!
You’re embarrassed, but everyone else is just impressed and a bit envious. Well, I am anyway. It’s so beautiful and interesting! As for the sex stuff, that didn’t throw me at all, in fact it was all very familiar. The only bit seared into my memory with shock is the story the woman who come to dinner tells about the guy she knew whose ‘girlfriend’ was a dog and what he got up to at parties. That was really really weird – so weird I’m guessing she actually told you that, and it actually happened.
That was true, Emma! That’s why I remember it! And I showed it to Helen before I published it and she didn’t tell me I’d remembered it all wrong. And thank you xxx
You go girl! Nothing to be embarrassed about!😉It’s okay to talk about it nowadays.👌