Caroline Barron Author
Ripiro Beach
In a strange colliding of worlds I interviewed my teacher at the time, Paula Morris, for The Heart of the Matter. Paula is as funny and candid in an interview as she is in class. If you haven’t read her masterpiece, Rangatira (2011), the summer break is the perfect time to rectify that!
More lovewordsmusic Paula Morris book reviews:
Forbidden Cities (2008)
On Coming Home (2015)
In a month long two-way email interview with award winning Melbourne author Alec Patric, I uncover writing craft inspiration and a mutual love of beautifully crafted guitars. Patric is the author of Black Rock White City (2015), acclaimed novella Bruno Kramzer (2013), Las Vegas for Vegans (2012) and The Rattler & Other Stories (2011).
Caroline Barron: Tomorrow is Saturday, the beginning of the school holidays. We’re heading off as a family to Lake Rotoiti, which is in the middle of the North Island. Maori legend has it that a young warrior was hunting for delicacies for his pregnant wife when his dog ran off chasing a Kiwi through the forest. When the dog returned a few hours later, wet and sicking up half-digested fish, the warrior realised there must be a lake nearby and searched the forest until he found Lake Rotoiti (and Lake Rotorua). So, tomorrow, I have no work commitments and it’s looking like the perfect day.
Saturday, no work commitments; how does the perfect day look?
[Read more…] about The Heart of the Matter: In Conversation with Alec Patric
My definition of writerly heaven? A dozen of us in a room with Booker Prize-winning author, Ben Okri. His 10 Truths About Writing changed my world. Maybe they’ll change yours too?
Hurrah! A profile page on the University of Auckland website (thanks Jonathan Burgess):
http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/our-students-and-graduates/postgraduate-students-3/caroline-barron.html
I am now half-way through my Master in Creative Writing at the University of Auckland. The goal: finish the novel by mid-November. 85,000 words. I’m 30,000 in and it feels like I’m just hitting my stride; after a year or more of research and thinking about Evelyn and Morgan, my two protagonists, I know exactly who they are and can hear their thoughts in my mind as I write. It’s like everything before has been pressure on the ocean, and now the wave is finally visible from the shore. The sand under my feet feels good and during the five weeks between semesters, I’m grabbing my surfboard, baby.