Poohsticks, Eyeore and Doris Day
I used some of the illustrations from ‘The House on Pooh Corner’ as a basis for this comic. Did you know that the original illustrations to A.A.Milne’s stories was Ernest H. Shepard? He’s quite a scratchy messy illustrator when you examine his line work carefully. He came to resent ‘that silly old bear’ who overshadowed all the rest of his work.
The reviews are coming in for THE FALL OF LIGHT. One in Canvas, the other in the ODT. I told myself that I wouldn’t read any reviews, but yesterday morning I was beside myself with anxiousness and looked at the NZ Herald site before I’d eaten breakfast. There’s also an interview of me running in The Listener, which you can read in full during the week starting Monday. So far the reviews are good (touch wood!) but neither of the reviewers have paid much attention to how the pictures and words intersect. Then again, you’re pretty limited with what you can say with 300 words. I’m not sure how I’m going to endure all this waiting. I think I want to be put to sleep and then woken up when it’s all over.
Oh, and here is the song I like to sing to myself when I feel like I have no control over the outcome of things. It’s strangely calming.
Publication day
Today is publication day, so if you live in New Zealand and you go to your bookshops, you can buy THE FALL OF LIGHT. And if they don’t have it on their shelves, you can ask them to go into their back room with their Stanley blades and look for boxes with my name on it. If you don’t live in New Zealand, or you prefer to shop online, you can order it here or else get an e-book.
The photo above is of Violet – she hid under my skirt as I signed books on Wednesday night. Here is a picture of me give a shambolic yet expressive speech, wearing my Fall of Light dress:
…and here is THE FALL OF LIGHT show band, who played Grave Architecture, A Message to you, Rudy, and Dirty Old Town.
You can find more photos of the launch on my facebook page.
And, to finish, here is a comic that Rachel Fenton wrote on observing my son looking at the art on the wall. You must read it! And you must look for her series of shoe-themed comics she’s been writing – they’re wonderful too.
Hanging the show
Today I went in to Snowwhite gallery to hang my show. I realised this was the first show I’d ever hung – the only other one I was involved was an installation of video and print work, and then I had my pro sister to collaborate with. Luckily Snowwhite is well-resourced, and there were two technicians on hand, one to lend me a laser level, the other to make the walls even whiter than ever. One of the technicians was also a sculptor, the other read the blurb on the back of my book and thought it sounded intriguing.
Here are the letters that will go on the wall outside the gallery, and below is the very regal linoleum. Snowwhite Gallery is in an old psychiatric unit, and I wonder if this floor has remained the same in its transition to a design and architecture school. I feel as though you can sense the history of the place. I kept on losing my box of pins and reel of blue cotton, and as I shuffled back and forth to find them I thought of the patients on thorazine.
Here is some of the work hanging. I hung about 60 pieces and then realised that I had positioned them too far apart, so I had to re-position them. The entire illustrative part of the book fit in the gallery, as if I’d designed it with Snowwhite in mind.
Today I also went and bought two kilos of rainbow olives, a giant wheel of brie and a hundred peppadew peppers to stuff with sour cream and feta. That’s to go with my bottles of wine and juice and sparkling water and napkins and toothpicks and the vat of hummus my mother is making – oh, be calm, my nerves! Anyway, the show opens tomorrow night, 4.30 to 6.30 at Snowwhite Gallery, Building 1, gate 1, Unitec, Carrington Road. I hope to see some of you there!
Sunday Star Times!
I am in the Sunday Star Times magazine today! I am the cover girl! This is very exciting and extremely embarrassing. I’ve photographed the magazine on the bookshelf that I’m standing in front of for a bit of meta-something (I’m sure there’s a word for this. I just can’t think what it is. It’s the fame – it’s addled my brain. Which of course is an excellent excuse to link to a Smiths song)
Momo
Lately I have been longing for a spell of un-busyness. This year has just been crazy full-on, with me juggling a number of jobs and parenting demands, and getting ready for the launch of my book. I just want a chance to do simple things – to buy myself a pair of moss green tights, to browse in a bookshop, without the fear of missing a deadline. I’m hoping that after my novel is out, after my residency begins, I will have some mooching, contemplative time. But I’ve probably forgotten how to not be busy. Some weekends, when I’m hanging out with the kids and we have nothing planned I get really ansty. We must do something, I say, and I force all the children into the car, whingeing and moaning, and we drive to a park or a beach. ‘It’s too cold,’ they complain. ‘Why do we have to go on adventures?’ They still know how to be un-busy, how to just muck around without a plan or a to-do list.
Did any of you read Momo by Michael Ende?
And, speaking of my book launch, which I must continuously remind you of, I hope I’ll see some Aucklanders there! It’s on Wednesday 3 July between 4.30 and 6.30 at Snowwhite Gallery, Building 1, Unitec, Carrington Road, Mt Albert.
Dip pens
I didn’t learn to write with dip pens – we wrote with pencils until we got to Standard 4 (year 6) and then we could swap to biros. But when I lived in Germany for 18 months at the age of 7 we had to write with fountain pens. Because I was a left hander mine had to be ordered specially and it took a few weeks to come. Rather than being red like the rest of the pens, it was blue. I have this memory that once, when walking home from school, I dropped it in the creek as I crossed the bridge. But that might be a false memory. I do remember loving writing with my fountain pen and its radiant blue ink. Surely I wouldn’t have thrown it away.
Here is a link to a giant photo of Quentin Blake and all the things he uses to draw with. He looks like he’s using a regular pen in this photo.
Time shifts
This is my comic from May’s Metro magazine. It was about the Writers’ Festival – my brief is to be quite current about local events. I wrote it just before I read Scarlett Thomas’s book ‘The End of Mr Y’, which was quite intoxicating and brainy, full of quantum physics and travel into weird realms. I am always impressed by people who can write fantastical fiction. I usually find myself writing in a realist vein (although there were a few magi-realist stories slipped into my first collection.) I can draw surreal, fantastical stuff – my hand slips out of reality more easily than the language part of my brain does.
What also strikes me about this comic is that my colour palette is far brighter than this month’s comic’s. I’ve been reading a lot of Luke Pearson in the last month and I decided I wanted to colour like him. Any thoughts? Bright or muted? Or maybe you prefer black and white.
New Metro comic!
This month, the editor kindly let me write a comic about my novel in an act of shameless self-promotion. If you want to know how it ends (of course there’s some angsting involved) you’ll have to find a copy. It’s on the newsstands in Auckland — it’ll probably be a few days before it heads down country. The other option is that you wait for a couple of months and I will post it here!
Book launch
I am having an exhibition and book launch to celebrate the arrival of my book! It’s going to be at Snowwhite Gallery, Unitec, on Wednesday, 3 July, between 4.30 and 6.30. The formal part of the proceedings will happen at 6 – before then it’s just going to be drinking wine and eating nibbles and hopefully people buying my books and some of the original artwork.
Here is the invitation:
And here is the little scribbley map that I made to help you find it:
But you’d probably be better off with a google map.
I hope some of you can make it! I’ll be selling books at a special launch price. You can RSVP on this facebook page.
Arrgh, it’s really happening! (I’m just going to go hide out in my wardrobe.)
LET ME BE FRANK 
