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Caroline Barron Author

Ripiro Beach

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Photo Essay: Capturing Tradition: Christmas Mince Pies with Mum

December 14, 2017 by Caroline Barron Author Leave a Comment

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Learning from the best. Love you, Mum xxx

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: Christmas, cooking with Mum, family tradition, old recipe book

When You’ve Been Away From Writing So Long It Feels Impossible To Return

November 27, 2017 by Caroline Barron Author 4 Comments

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I had a recent stint of five weeks, knee-deep in a work contract, where I didn’t have (or make) time to work on my book.

And here’s what I discovered: the longer I stayed away, the harder it became to return. It started to feel impossible; that I’d never again be able to open the document and feel as though inside it. That feeling paired with a sense of loss, a heartache for the work. I wanted to write but no longer trusted I still “had it”, or knew what I was trying to say.

This occurred around the same time I was considering giving up cello lessons (I’m a complete beginner—I’ve been learning for 9 months and playing from Suzuki Cello Volume 2). My wonderful teacher sat me down, opened the first page of Volume 1 to the most simple of pieces. She told me to allow myself to return to the physicality of the experience.

‘Feel the cello between your knees,’ she said. ‘Feel the bow hair tugging against the strings. Breathe.’

Slowly, gently, I’ve reaquainted myself with my instrument and have returned to daily practice. It’s taking time to build confidence and technique again, so I’m still working on the simple pieces, finding enjoyment in the process.

The same day of the cello lesson I returned to my desk and, for the first time in five weeks, opened the manuscript. I stared at the words on the first page, then scrolled down and then up the entire document, black words on white pages flashing past. I swallowed, closed my eyes for a second. I couldn’t even remember where I was up to! Breathe, I reminded myself, just breathe.

So, instead of trying to write, I printed off a few chapters, took them to the couch and started reading, getting to know the work again, making pencil marks as I went. Now, a week later, I’m able to write, enjoying the sensation of fingers on keys; feeling my way back to the book, rediscovering what it is I am trying to say.

 

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: NZ writers, writers block, writing craft

Flash Fiction: A Machete, a Plastic Bag and Mum’s Gumboots

September 7, 2017 by Caroline Barron Author Leave a Comment

When my dear friend Lisa and I were out walking early one morning, the sun peeping over the horizon across the water over by the sugar factory, she told me a story from her childhood, about how it felt being a first generation Chinese New Zealander. Her story became this story, which was long-listed for the 2017 NZ National Flash Fiction Day competition. So, this one’s for you Lisa.  A warm congratulations to all the winners, and thank you to Flash Frontier, where this story first appeared. 

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Lisa Joe, Baylys Beach, 2017

A Machete, a Plastic Bag and Mum’s Gumboots

by Caroline Barron

For years, the click and yawn of an opening car boot filled me with dread. As kids, when we drove over the Pae-koks to Foxton in Dad’s Telstar – brand new, white, with a maroon racing stripe and burgundy velour upholstery – and Mum saw a creek flanked by pillows of green, or an autumnal field blooming with white puffs, she’d shout, ‘Pull over! Pull over!’ in her Chinese-Kiwi accent. Dad always did, relishing the gravel skid before yanking the boot latch.

We loved to help Mum who, out there, marched the roadside in her gumboots, a different Mum to the apron-wearing one tending the bamboo steamer at home. This Mum wielded a machete with super-heroine ease, lopping off bunches of watercress and tugging dusky-gilled mushrooms from dank soil, pressing them into plastic bags my sister and I held open. Back at the car she’d wrap the watercress in The Evening Post to later boil for soup. The mushrooms she’d sauté with garlic and bacon and serve on rice.

After I turned eight, I refused to help. She’d yell for Dad to pull over. I’d groan and fold my arms. It might have been okay in Guangzhou, but here Kiwis didn’t scavenge for food on the roadside.

*

Yesterday, I walked across the school field holding my daughter’s hand. She pointed at the line of shade hugging the fence.

“Mum, come!”

My high heels sucked in and out of the soggy ground. I glanced around. It will only take a minute, I thought. She crouched down, gathering her skirt beneath her knees – a family of white mushrooms dotted the grass – and lifted a spongy edge to peer beneath.

“Brown gills!” she said. “We can eat these ones.”

I reached into my handbag for the plastic bag I always carried, and held it open.

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: Caroline Barron, Chinese New Zealanders, Flash Fiction NZ, Flash Frontiers, Lisa Joe

Writers Group: Show Us Your Angsty Teenage Poetry

June 1, 2017 by Caroline Barron Author Leave a Comment

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A Dr Martens ad for Pavement mag  featuring sulky teenaged me, sometime in the early 90s.

We are all roaring with laughter—not a polite chuckle in sight. I mean tears streaming, snorting, thigh slapping, high pitched, cross your legs before you have an accident laughter. Hell, it feels good. Emma, Kirstin and Kiri started this Writers Group in Point Chevalier four years ago, Anna joined later, I joined three months ago, and Mary’s new tonight. So, perhaps that’s the joy of laughing so hard—it joins us together, affirms that we have things in common, that we like each other. I love these girls already.

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True friends don’t judge your teenage poems. They laugh.

The reason for our laughter? We’d agreed to bring along a poem from our teenage years.

Earlier that evening I’d scrambled around the attic looking for the black ring binder that contained laboriously typed pages and pages and pages of poetry written between 1994 and 1996, when I was aged 17 to 20, studying journalism at AUT. The poems abruptly stopped in March 1996 when my father died, my pen stunned into silence for years after. I’d thought for a time that the poetry in that black folder might win competitions, make me famous, or at least find me my very own Ted Hughes. [Read more…] about Writers Group: Show Us Your Angsty Teenage Poetry

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: 90s models NZ, Caroline Barron, Emma Vere Jones, Kiri LIghtfoot, Kirstin Marcon, Maysie Bestall-Cohen, Nova Models, Pavement magazine, Sylvia Plath, teenage poetry, writers group nz

Ocean Bay: A literary take on travel writing

May 25, 2017 by Caroline Barron Author 2 Comments

“Ocean Bay” appeared in the New Zealand Society of Authors magazine, NZ Author, Autumn issue, 2017. With thanks to Nadine Rubin Nathan.

The story placed second in the AA Directions Magazine Award for the Best New Travel Writer category of the Cathay Pacific Travel Media Awards 2016. Judge, Steve Braunias, made me blush with his rather lovely comments: ‘Second place was “Ocean Bay.” The writer describes retracing an ancestor’s footsteps in Port Underwood, in Marlborough. It plays with past and present, and brings them together in this very unusual and also very beautiful depiction of place. Again, what a superb piece of writing.’Page 1Page 2Page 3Page 4

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: Caroline Barron, Cathay Pacific Travel Media Awards 2016, NZ travel writing, Ocean Bay, Steve Braunias, The Girl Who Stole Stockings

North & South: March 2017: The Heart of the Matter with Poet Selina Tusitala-Marsh

May 25, 2017 by Caroline Barron Author Leave a Comment

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Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: Caroline Barron, NZ poetry, Pasifika poet, Selina Tusitala Marsh, The Heart of the Matter

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Lost in Time (published in Love in the Time of COVID) by Caroline Barron

Ingenio interview plus NZ Author memoir-craft story

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Today’s the day! Ten and a half wonderful years Today’s the day! Ten and a half wonderful years here in Point Chev, off to Ōrakei Road for new adventures. Thank you Point Chev friends and neighbours for all the fun times, and for support in the hard times. It’s both hard to say goodbye to the seaside home and community  we brought up our babies up in, and exciting to move to the next stage and home = feeling nostalgic + full of adrenaline. Will post again on the other side...
Photo credit @jo.debeer 💕
We’re moving so I’ve decide to sell my stunnin We’re moving so I’ve decide to sell my stunning collection of mid-century T G Green Jersey Blue, designed by Judith Onions in 1968. Years of collecting here and all in perfect condition! It’s on Trade Me, titled ‘Rare collection of T G Green Jersey Blue’. 
#tggreen #tggreenjerseyblue
Such a wonderful programme, @aklwritersfest 💕📚 I’m chairing three fantastic reading events, attending two workshops (Mary Karr and Marilyn Robinson) and attending a pile of other general events. Super excited about Kazuo Ishiguro. Anyone else going to workshops? What else is piquing your interest?
One good read and one excellent read so far this m One good read and one excellent read so far this month: The Only Story by Julian Barnes (old guy looks back over poignant first love; such good first person writing, but The Sense of an Ending wins hands down 4/5). And, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (vivid characters, for fans of Atwood, 5/5). Go forth and read! Or listen, as I did on @audible with Little Fires.
“...but Celestial isn’t something you can stea “...but Celestial isn’t something you can steal like a wallet or even a bright idea...”
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Happy International Women’s Day, fellow readers, writers, friends and family. 💕💪🏽 PS: A solid 4/5 stars for An American Marriage, making me think deeply about loyalty, love and betrayal. No one was right, except all three of them. PPS: Thanks @annawoodsauthor for the recommendation. Tissues indeed!
“How had she found a way to leave Mallard when h “How had she found a way to leave Mallard when her mother only knew how to stay?”
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4.5 / 5 stars. An excellent novel about twins who grew up in a small, southern black community in the 50s. Running away together at 16, one decides to live as a black woman and the other as white—with tragic repercussions across generations. 
#thevanishinghalf #britbennett
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