Bodgie in the Library 2
Book launch speech Titirangi Library 6 September as part of the Going West Festival My first bodgie sighting was at St Peters College as a third former in the first term of 1955. I was in the long and jostling queue in the quad for the morning tea cream [...]
Bodgie in the Library 1
Book Launch Speech Glen Eden Library 4 September as part of the Going West Festival On a Bodgie Bike is set in 1955 Glen Eden and completes a trilogy I wrote about a stolen monstrance in response to my father urging me to write about the family hometown of [...]
Nazis in New Zealand
At the Paraparaumu Library ‘Murder in the Library’ event last 30 April I was talking about Nazis in my crime story The Plot to Kill Peter Fraser when I heard a loud, sceptical, derisive snort of disbelief from somewhere to the back left of the packed house. Clearly the male [...]
Tree Recycling
Graham Cooper died over 40 years ago but not a day goes by when I do not practise what he preached. I hug a tree, as recommended to Bismarck by his doctor in a book Graham gave me called The Secret Life of Plants. These days the hugged tree is [...]
In Praise of Praise Be
TVNZ have announced the axing of Praise Be. I hope they might reconsider in the light of the new Labour-led government announcing a shift back to support of public broadcasting. TVNZ have shifted away from that, preferring so-called reality shows and sports programmes and dissing their only weekly half-hour of [...]
Auckland, My Auckland
Researching my next book set in 1955 Auckland, I am rereading my two Auckland novels with characters and content relevant. Firstly The Monstrance set in 1959, and my 2004 take on contemporary Auckland, In Xtremis. It is not easy this rereading, you can see the clunky bits lurid as neon [...]