Posts by Jacqui Dunn
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to Jolisa,
Oh you're right, Jolisa. Slip of the mind there. Fleur Adcock it is!
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to Rob Stowell,
That would be a great pity. The last of Sue's writing I read was in a rather gorgeous book called "Cherries on the/a Plate", with a picture of two pretty little girls looking a bit put out about getting their photo took. Turned out it was a picture of Fleur Beale and sister Marilyn Duckworth. Sue McCauley's piece was about her sister (the whole book was about sisters) who was killed in a road crash. I was angry on her behalf when I read that.
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to Islander,
It is an uneven work – but by & large should be much more widely recognised, not least because because of the wonderful vein of creative fantasy intermingled with stark facts that runs through all his stories.
Yes, Royce, Royce, etc.... - that was another one I read, and laughed at. And also felt ghastly about. The fish!
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to Jackie Clark,
Sue McCauley
+1
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to Hilary Stace,
I remember being very excited when Janet Frame's novel The Carpathians came out, and being so bitterly disappointed. I found it unreadable. To me, it was as if no-one had dared to suggest that some of it needed editing. Compared to her earlier work, it was heavy and dull. Haven't read Towards Another Summer, but if it's written in 1960s, it could well be wonderful.
A successor to her? I'd nominate Pat Grace, although I guess you're wanting more of the "home and away" theme.
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Up Front: Where You From?, in reply to Tamsin6,
while staying at my grandparent’s crib.
Love that term. Up north it’s a “bach”. And the way people from Invercargill say the name - Invercarrrgill.
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
As someone who has learned English as a second (or even third) language
Oops. Something amiss here. I wrote a few lines, previewed, but my stuff didn’t appear. And still doesn’t.
ETA: But now has. As one of those anal retentive who rarely posts without reviewing, correcting, rewriting, etc, not being able to see what I proposed to post was uncomfortable.
My question to Martin was: Do you have an accent? Is it a New Zealand accent, or faintly "other"? And do you (referring to thread "Where you from?" which I'm not going to even try to link to) understand what New Zealanders are saying all the time? -
No sooner had I shut down the computer when I realized that "The Heart's Wild Surf" by Stephanie Johnson was soooo readable and lovely. "Sing to Me Dreamer" - one of Shonagh Koea's fantasies, carried me away. Fiona Farrell was another writer whose short stories I would grab and devour. I really liked "Tasman's Lay" by Peter Hawes.
However, (hangs head in shame) there are a great many classics (not only, but also NZ) I've failed to read, probably because it was expected that I would. A resistance to doing anything I should. Childish.
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I used to read a lot of NZ writing as part of my job. Short stories, non-fiction books and fiction. "One of Ben's" by Maurice Shadbolt would have been one of the last NZ books I read and was immersed in - the story of the Shadbolt boys, convicted of petty offenses and transported - it was moving and horrifying and very well written. Pat Grace is one of my favourites. Maurice Gee too. Favourite short story writer - Owen Marshall. I like Charlotte Grimshaw's writing, and her dad's.
Over the years, I would be sent new publications to see if they'd be good audio books. For the most part, they failed to engage me. They were a chore to read. I imagined it was because I was a bit jaded. Maybe though, in the light of what you say, Jolisa, I was a bit hard on myself. There were a couple which I thought were quite good, but for the life of me, at this point in time on a Saturday night after a couple of wines, I can't remember what their titles were, or who wrote them.
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Up Front: Where You From?, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Well, you’d never guess where I am from. And I like it that way.
You certainly don't have an accent when you write :), so am I wrong in thinking you don't have an accent when you speak? And that's why we'd never guess?