Better off Read

Una and I spoke on the day her amazing book The Chthonic Cycle (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2024) was released into book shops. I have been incredibly moved by Una's book. It has shifted my mind and my world. It offers such an exciting opportunity to explore a new perspective of our current moment. Action: Hikoi mō Te Tiriti As I type this the Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti is moving over the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Member in the hīkoi are walking from all over Aotearoa to Parliament in opposition to the Government’s assault on tangata whenua and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The Hīkoi is organised by Toitū Te Tiriti. Toitū Te Tiriti is tupuna inspired, tiriti led, mana motuhake driven and mokopuna focused. Our intent is to demonstrate the beginning of a unified Aotearoa response to the Government’s assault on tangata whenua and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Click this link to find out what you can do to support Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti You can support Better off Read financially at Buy Better off Read a Coffee

It was so great to talk with Claudia. I am a huge fan of Claudia's book Biter published by Auckland University Press. It is an amazing, amazing poetry collection that I can't recommend enough. Claudia and I chatted about Biter but also her other work including her music and new band Goodbye Starlet. You'll hear us talk about Claudia's amazing Ōtautahi Christchurch Lit Scene Zine. Click this link for this incredible guide to all the literary events happening in Ōtautahi this month. Thank you for listening Action: Implement all recommendations from the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry There is a new petition on Action Station calling for the Government to implement all recommendations from the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry. Survivors of abuse in State and Faith-based care, and their supporters call on the Lead Coordination Minister for the Government's Response to the Royal Commission's Report into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions, to implement all of the 138 Recommendations of Whanaketia Through pain and trauma, from darkness to light and the 95 Holistic Recommendations of the Inquiry's Interim Report, He Purapura Ora, he Māra Tipu from Redress to Puretumu Torowhānui. Click this link to sign this petition You can support Better off Read financially at Buy Better off Read a Coffee

My novel I'm Working on a Building has been out of print for a long time. In November it is being reissued in a really stuning B-Format edition by Te Herenga Waka University Press For this episode I've recorded a short reading from the first chapter. It feels quite emotional being in Ōtautahi for the re-release of this book. The book centres around a structural engineer and includes a fictional earthquake in Te Whanganui-A-Tara. I will always remember the day Lawrence Patchett, Lynn Jenner and I stood around a radio listening to the devastating events unfolding in Ōtautahi following the massive earthquake on September 4, 2010. It chills me now that we didn't realise how much worse was in store on February 22, 2011 at 12.51 pm.

It was so great to chat with Kerry Donovan Brown. Kerry and I have been friends for a long time and I always love talking to them. In this conversation we talk quite a bit about work - the work of writing and the other work Kerry has been doing. Kerry's first novel Lamplighter is an amazing read. You can get a copy at the Te Herenga Waka University Press website You may notice a slight change in acoustics for the last two questions of this conversation. For years people have been telling me to get a bigger SD card and I have not. When Kerry and I were recording at Tūranga my SD card ran out of room. I'm really grateful to Kerry for coming up to the office at Te Whare te Wānanga o Waitaha which is where we took the photo at the top of this post. Thanks for listening. Action: Nothing about us without us Since this government came into power the assault on the rights of disabled people and their support networks has been continuous and cruel. I wanted to highlight a couple of ways to stay informed about what is happening if you are pre-disabled and also maybe find community if you are disabled or whanau of disabled people. Awhi Ngā Mātua - a community for parents of disabled, neurodivergent and medically fragile tamariki. They have a substack you can subscribe to here The D*List is the home of disability culture in Aotearoa. Their website is an online culture magazine that creates space for disabled people to tell our own stories through features, columns and news reporting. Here is the website for The D*List You can support Better off Read financially at Buy Better off Read a Coffee

I have been a fan of Shilo Kino's writing since reading her award winning book The Pōrangi Boy (Huia, 2020) a few years ago. What I love about The Pōrangi Boy is the way it really successfully finds a fictional form to explore the troubling things that are happening around and to us. I’m never sure if fiction can do anything. I still think we need to take direct political action in other areas - and Shilo is active in this work as well - but I think there is something quite radical and productive about experimenting with real-life scenarios in worlds that we have complete control over. I think this imaginative act can open doors that seem - in the day-to-day hard stuff of life - closed and impossible. I think Shilo’s deft craft makes this possible - I could probably talk for another few hours about the genius of the structure of the novel and the imaginative possibilities it makes space for. So, yeah, I was very excited when a copy of Shilo's new novel All that We Own Know (Moa Press, 2024), I really like keeping in that struck out word in the title, arrived at my house. It is a stunning book. Shilo is an incredible writer and she's created a book that is at once readible and challenging. The energy of the book is profound and the way it moves with force against some of the toughest things facing Aotearoa at the moment makes it one of my favourite books of the year. I'm really grateful to Shilo for taking the time to chat with me for this episode. Where we talk about All the We Own Know, writing and the communities and politics we write in. Thanks for listening. Action: Māori Wards The racist and undemocratic Māori Ward Bill passed its third reading last night. Action Station have information about this law, its implications and action you can take on their website - here is a link. Action Station have also have a petition to Keep Our Māori Wards which you can sign and share at this link You can support Better off Read financially at Buy Better off Read a Coffee

I always find talking to Rose really inspiring. Rose's writing is so good and I love hearing about Rose's practice. In this episode Rose uses Miranda July's new book All Fours as a starting point for this conversation about writing, the novel and how our day jobs can help us. Rose's magnificent first book is All Who Live on Islands (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2019) Thanks for listening. Just a reminder that Art for Palestine 2 is on 4-7 July at The Heads, 24 Canterbury Street, Lyttleton. You can support Better off Read financially at Buy Better off Read a Coffee How to listen to Better off Read Better off Read is available on Spotify and most podcasting apps. Better off Read is also available on PodBean  An RSS code is available here

Today is Budget Day in Aotearoa. I wanted to replay this episode because James talks so well about money and art. Specifically getting paid for art. In this podcast James talks about his performance at the Verb After Hours event, imperialism and paying artists. The first thing you'll hear is his performance the Verb After-Hours event: Beyond a Joke which took place on Thursday, 3 November 2022 at Meow. Thank you Verb Festival. You can support Better off Read financially at Buy Better off Read a Coffee How to listen to Better off Read Better off Read is available on Spotify and most podcasting apps. Better off Read is also available on PodBean  An RSS code is available here

In this episode I talk with romesh dissanayake. romesh's amazing novel when I open the shop (Te Herenga Waka University Press) was launched about a month ago. I was really grateful that romesh and I were able to have a chat. I asked romesh to bring along an object as a way into a conversation about his book and this stage of its publication. romesh suggested Água Viva by Clarice Lispector. It was such a great conversation. Here are some links about some of the things we talk about: Trying to Keep it Sacred: A conversation with Olive Nuttall & romesh dissanayake in Starling Louise Wallace – On poetic form in romesh dissanayake’s novel When I open the shop in The Poetry Shelf You can support Better off Read financially at Buy Better off Read a Coffee   Better off Read is available on Spotify and most podcasting apps. Better off Read is also available on PodBean  An RSS code is available here Here is a link to the Better off Read website: https://better-read.com/    

In this episode I talk with Sylvan Spring about their incredible book Killer Rack. https://teherengawakapress.co.nz/killer-rack/ In this episode we talk about a few things, so here are some links: Sylvan spoke with kitten author Olive Nuttall in what is probably the best thing you'll read this year - thank you to The SpinOff: ‘So gay, thank you for noticing!’: Olive Nuttall and Sylvan Spring in conversation' In the week leading up to our conversation Wellington-based singer-songwriter Vera Ellen and Georgia Gets By (Georgia Nott) announced they were pulling out of SXSW in protest at the festival's partnerships with tech companies RTX (formerly Raytheon), Collins Aerospace, and BAE Systems, which have been linked to manufacturing and supplying weapons to the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). You can read more here You can also support both these artists through Bandcamp: Vera Ellen https://veraellen.bandcamp.com/ Georgia Gets By https://georgiagetsby.bandcamp.com We also talk about the terrible acts of censorship happening at State Library Victoria. You can read more about that at this link Last night RNZ published this amazing essay by Henrietta Bollinger and I wanted to put a link to it here: Why we cannot let the disability support changes happen Thanks again for listening to the podcast.  

In the most recent episodes I've been talking to people about where they are up to in their creative projects. I've asked these people to bring along an object they are 'using' for this stage of the project.  This episode was recorded at Randall Cottage while Rachel O'Neill was resident there. You can read more about Rachel at their website: https://rachel-oneill.com/ I have set up a Buy Me a Coffee for Better off Read. If you are able and willing you can make a donation here to help support the podcast:  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/betteroffread  

Last Thursday, Whiti Hereaka was kind enough to come into Wellington Access Radio and have a chat with me on the occasion of the end of the year. I love talking to Whiti and I always learn heaps from her. Whiti has amazing recommendations. I thought I’d list them below along with the songs Whiti chose, which I can’t play in the podcast for copyright reasons. Whiti has a great Instagram Songs chosen by Whiti: Short and Roung by The Bug Club Passionflower, Paperbacks and Woodlice by The Bug Club Read the Room (feat. Laetitia Sadier) by Pearl & the Oysters Books Whiti talks about: You Should Have Left by Daniel Kehlmann Movies Whiti talks about: Godzilla Minus One (2023) The Boy and the Heron (2023) Saltburn (2023) TV Whiti Talks about: After the Party (2023) Deadloch (2023) Homecoming (2018) Pushing Daisies (2007)  

Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be sharing some short chats I’m having with some of my favourite people. These are recorded at Wellington Access Radio and first appear on the Friday Drive show which I host with Amy Delahunty. In this, the first of these chats, I talk to Kerry Donovan Brown.  I asked Kerry about what they have been up to this year, what they have enjoyed and how they are feeling about 2024. In this recording, Kerry talks about two songs. Due to copyright I can’t play these in the episode and I was thinking of taking out the reference to them but they are such great recommendations I thought I’d keep Kerry’s descriptions in the recording and include a link to the music here: https://youtu.be/EDKcbW0XDk0 https://youtu.be/cmDeCKY9XFU  

On 28 October 2023, City Gallery Wellington hosted an event to celebrate the opening of Angela Lane’s amazing exhibition Phosphene As part of this event Joan Fleming and Aaron Lister wrote and read responses to these works.  Joan wrote a beautiful description of their work: I read a short, strange essay about awe and the beauty experience with its inevitable fringe of disgust, and about withness and terror and the sun. Aaron Lister read something about Mary Shelley, the year without summer, and Frankenstein as the first climate change novel. In this episode Joan and Aaron generously recorded these essays at Massey University. I hope you enjoy these readings.

I’m incredibly grateful to Jared Davidson and Verb Festival for letting me podcast this amazing event. Jared’s book Blood & Dirt: Prison Labour & the Making of New Zealand (Bridget Williams Books, 2023) is an outstanding work of scholarship and creativity. I am a huge fan of this book and I feel very grateful to Jared who trusted me with this conversation. At the end of this talk, we took questions from the audience. Unfortunately, my recording didn’t pick these up very clearly, so I’ve recorded and inserted summaries of the questions in my own words. I hope that is okay with the people who asked them. I was so excited by how many questions were asked - the event felt like a conversation and it was really great. Thanks also to the amazing team at Verb. Every year they build this incredible ‘city’ made up of communities who are interested in ideas, writing and reading. It is an amazing thing to be involved with and I love it so much.

As I mentioned in my last post, I am at a really strange moment - without a project, unsure if there will be another one - and in this series, I am speaking to people at various stages of a project to talk process. I’m interested in talking to people about what activities they’re doing and what is useful. In this episode I get to talk to one of my best friends and someone who inspires me a lot Whiti Hereaka. We talk about Whiti’s latest project. I’m asking everyone to offer an object that is somehow helping them at this stage of their work. Whiti suggested we use the art works created by a central character in her novel. These works are imagined at the moment, but Whiti is an amazing artist and it wouldn’t surprise me if these don’t come to life in some way. Whiti sent two photos and said I could use both. I love the way these photos could be ego and alter-ego. Both images were taken the amazing Tabitha Arthur.  I’m so incredibly grateful to Whiti, for this conversation sure but also for all the time and support she’s given me over the years and for all the work she’s done which has produced such amazing work. Where I’m up to. I’ve had a really nice week, book-wise. Yesterday Rebecca Priestly and I got to talk to some folk who are doing MA’s up at IIML. It was really exciting to hear about Rebecca’s new book End Times which launches next week. You can read more about End Times at this link Also yesterday I got to speak at the launch of Emma Ling Sidnam’s amazing novel Backwaters. It was a really great night with lots of my favourite people in the room. I had a great chat with I. S. Belle whose work, and practice I really love. Here’s a link to learn more about I. S. Belle’s work Here’s a link to Backwaters by Emma Ling Sidnam When I ask people on this podcast what sustains them, they often say community and I really felt that last night. It is really nice to see celebrate other people’s success. I found it really motivating and talking to everyone about their projects was also really great. I still haven’t written anything. I keep saying this but what I mean is I haven’t written any fiction. I’m actually writing an essay for HEAT about writing violence and I’m writing a list of books for someone. So I am writing - and I’m writing this. I am thinking about the novel. And I wrote an application for some time to work on the novel, so that was a really nice way to think about it and also go over what I have written to send a writing sample. I’m rewatching VEEP which is blowing my mind. It’s all come true!!!!!

This is a photo of me not writing in my End Greyhound Racing New Zealand T-shirt. You should totally check out this amazing compilation album which raises awareness and support to end greyhound racing - here’s a link I have been not writing for months now. It is the first time in a long time I have felt like I am ‘not writing’. I am totally surrendered to the fact that I may not write again but also, I really wanted to talk to some writers about writing, some artists about art-ing. A bit selfishly to try and see if I could explore a bit more deeply my relationship with the practice of writing - I kind of want to make any re-entry meaningful. I don’t want to waste this stasis. But also cause the state I’m in at the moment - where writing seems like something impossible and foreign - seems like an interesting one to talk to people about their projects. So here is the new series. At first I thought it would be a neat series of talking to people at the start of a project, others who are in the middle and others who are at the end of a project. I’ve now recorded an episode and I realise these neat phases don’t reflect the actual process of writing. I am hoping this series will be quite fluid - maybe as my relationship to writing changes the structure of the series will change. At the moment, I’m asking guests to bring an object they are ‘using’ at this phase of their work. Then we’ll have a chat about what this phase looks like. So yes, this is just to let you know this series, with no name, which may change, starts next week with an amazing conversation with Whiti Hereaka. Thanks again for all your support.

For this episode I wanted to share a story that I’ve revisited recently after a question that Jane Arthur asked me at a recent event at Good Books. Jane asked: Even before reading Audition, I’d clocked that your inspiration for it was basically ‘prison abolition’ and you’ve talked openly about this in interviews and in the book’s acknowledgements.  I am so freaking interested in this, personally, as it is increasingly hard for me to separate out work and values and living and politics and creative work as I go about things.  Correct me if I’m wrong (please!!), but it seems to me that you haven’t been quite so blatant about your own values in your work before, or at least in the framing of your work. What has changed? Are you simply braver now? Why is (your) art political (mwahaha)? This question sent me back to this story ‘Zero Hours’ which was published in Overland in 2015. I thought of this story mainly because it signals a shift in my writing toward the didactic. For years I had been interested in ambiguity. In leaving space for politics to sit there but not overtly. I was obsessed with the idea that fiction was a mirror and if I made my fiction as accuarte as possible people would see society in a new way and it would prompt change. I remember being incredibly angry at the time I wrote this story. John Key’s government had been elected, overwhelmingly, a year before and I remember the morning after the election walking down my street and not really recognising the city I lived in. The election had been so decisive that I was in a very small majority. I owe a lot to Giovanni Tiso and Jolisa Gracewood who were editing a New Zealand issue of Overland and had asked me to submist a story. I am also incredibly grateful to Overland journal which provides a space for radical literature. These things all came together, my anger and the opportunity to write some for a journal that celabrated the radical and I remember thinking, The time for ambiguity is over. And I remember one very clear question replacing this, How didactic can I get and still be be writing fiction? It's starnge reading the story now. It's so pre-Trump. Pre-COVID. Roseanne Barr appears as a largely uncomplicated character. I thought about re-writing the story to take her out but I kind of like how hindsight re-writes this part of the story without me doing anything. What's not funny is how little has changed. Workers are still fucked over. There are still political parties calling for self responsibility. It’s slightly heart-wrenching revisiting this story, written during a right-wing government, a few days after the desolution of the left wing party with one of the largest majorities of my lifetime and waking up to the fact none of the promise of transformational change thatg majority held was realised. It’s a good reminder that politics is what we do in our communities away from law and government but also that its a privilege to say, Government doesn’t matter, when it matters most to the most vulnerable. So yeah, I offer this story because I was thinking about it and thanks largely to Jane Arthur.

This is a recording of an event that took place on a very rainy and cold Sunday afternoon at one of my favourite places, Book Hound book shop, with one of my favourite people, Annaleese Jochems It was such a wonderful afternoon with excellent people. It was really nice to meet some folk from People Against Prisons Aotearoa who I hadn’t meet before. Thanks again for everyone who came and thanks to Annaleese for such a great chat and such great snacks and for letting us meet in the wonderful Book Hound. I’m giving away a copy of Audition so if you’d like a copy just leave a comment here or DM me on Instagram Also, just wanted to announce that Tara Black is the winner of the Murdoch Stephens books. Woohoo. Thanks Tara and everyone else who entered. Stuff and Things The second season of Below Deck Down Under has started and the SpinOff have published this amazing interview with my work hero and life-coach Aesha Scott I’m very excited to be speaking with Dougal O’Neill and Tīhema Baker on the 7th August. Tīhema’s book is amazing. Other Worlds Pip Adam's Audition features three giants: Alba, Stanley and Drew, who are squashed into a spaceship hurtling through space, and must talk to keep the spaceship moving. Tīhema Baker's Turncoat is set on a distant future Earth, colonised by aliens, where Daniel –a young, idealistic Human–is determined to make a difference for his people. These works of speculative fiction are exciting, inventive and compassionate in their exploration of systems of power. Dougal McNeill will talk to Pip and Tīhema about these other worlds in fiction, and the mirror they hold up to our world today. Also, if you are in Ōtautahi in August, the WORD Festival has lots of very cool events. I’ll be there facilitating a workshop and having a chat.

In this episode I talk to Murdoch Stephens about his writing and in particular about the new Renters United edition of his novel Rat King Land Lord. Murdoch has just returned form a tour around Aotearoa launching this beautiful publication and speaking with Renters United about their plans to improve renters’ rights. We talk a lot about Murdoch’s worth to double the refugee quota. This week, after our chat Murdoch was part of the group who presented a petition to MPs calling for a new sub-category in the Refugee Quota solely for refugees from the rainbow community. You can read more at this link I have a bundle to give away of: the Renters United edition of Rat King Land Lord, the original edition of Rat King Land Lord and a copy of Murdoch’s new book Down from Upland. To enter the draw leave a comment on Substack or Instagram. I’ll draw it on Sunday 9 July. You can read more about Lawrence & Gibson and order books here

Joy Holley’s collection of short fiction Dream Girl published by Te Herenga Waka University Press is an amazing read. I loved talking to Joy about it. Joy chose as a starting point to talk about laughter and writing the 2022 film Bodies Bodies Bodies. This American black comedy horror film directed by Halina Reijn, in her English-language debut, with a screenplay by Sarah DeLappe from a story by Kristen Roupenian. It stars Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Myha'la Herrold, Chase Sui Wonders, Rachel Sennott, Lee Pace, and Pete Davidson. I really liked how this conversation concentrated a lot on joy and pleasure which is perhaps something that has been missing from these conversations about comedy. I also loved talking about the way Joy is reimagining some elements of horror and the surreal. I have a signed copy of Dream Girl to give away. Simply leave a comment here on Instagram or reply to the story on Twitter by June 11 and I’ll do a draw and send it to the winner. I think this conversation was quite influenced by an amazing book I’m reading by Nuar Alsadir called Animal Joy: A Book of Laughter and Resuscitation. This book is literally changing my life. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s ostensibly about a psychoanalyst who goes to clown school and investigates humour in an incredibly inciteful way. The book is also making me feel a bit stupid, so many of the things I say that I think are profound are all described here as the stock and trade of psychoanalysis.