Anzac weekend has always been a time for thinking about our country and during this one, in the quiet that has fallen during lockdown, we can contemplate a new kind of New Zealand. Read more from the lockdown letters here. Yesterday I put on a fire, the first one this autumn. Dragged a newspaper from the … Read more
Letters to Hone Tūwhare and his Travelling Band of Constant Companions, continued. Read more from the lockdown letters here. Dear Archie Baxter, Well brother, I suppose it’s here again. Anzac Day and all that. I’m not sure what conscientious objectors make of it to be honest. I can’t really stomach all the chest-thumping any more. Not … Read more
It’s the perfect time to write your own locked-room murder mystery – easy, right? Read more from the lockdown letters here. How do I feel? Sick of vacuuming that’s for sure. Sick of ignoring the voice that says, “you can’t see the dust anyway so why bother?” Since I went into self-isolation I’ve been teaching my … Read more
Morgan Godfery reveals some straightforward reflections while completing domestic chores, such as, well, socialism or barbarism? Read more from the lockdown letters here. I spent the last four weeks taking my darkest, densest books off the shelf, skirting around their edges, reading and re-reading their back covers. Should I open it from the front? Do I … Read more
For a few weeks we haven’t been able to escape each other or ourselves or our own terrible cooking. But at least the celery soup is a prison of my own making. Read more from the lockdown letters here. I’m not a good cook. “What’s for lunch?” my workmate Kirsten used to ask, as I emptied … Read more
The greatest leaders from history have made sacrifices in times of need. A look at who, now, is doing that for us. Read more from the lockdown letters here. I’ve been talking to my sister. We don’t ring or email often. She lives in Victoria, in the country with half a dozen superannuated horses, a … Read more
Letters to Hone Tūwhare and his Travelling Band of Constant Companions, continued. Read more from the lockdown letters here. Dear Adam Smith, Jesus, brother. You’re a long way from home. We don’t get many economists passing through here. But that’s no reason not to drop in of course. As it happens you might just be in … Read more
‘My patience, never a very strong part of my character, is being stretched a bit so thinking of something else is preferable to throwing all the cups on the floor.’ Read more from the lockdown letters here. A wild patience has taken me this far… Adrienne Rich I thought of that line this morning while I … Read more
Lockdown requires a sacrifice of some form or another from everyone, but the sacrifices never fall proportionately. Read more from the lockdown letters here. Four years ago, and yes, this is a shameless plug, and yes, I’m about to turn it into a loud self-vindication, I wrote: “To participate in politics is, for many young people, … Read more
On writing and not writing about bread. Read more from the lockdown letters here. I’m afraid that soon I’m going to write about bread. I can’t hold it much longer. This is a lockdown diary, I’m running out of thoughts, and the bread is coming – I feel it. Each of the fragments below can … Read more
When fiction and reality collide, asking ‘What if?’ takes on a new meaning. Read more from the lockdown letters here. Sometimes I find myself thinking, “What if?” It’s the default setting if your job is writing fiction, this insistent “What if?” Back in 2018 I began work on a novel. It was about a cruise … Read more
‘The surf sounded like Eden Park on the end of a try. The gulls were diving. Laughing. Giving us the finger.’ Read more from the lockdown letters here. Dear Jesus It’s good to see you. I suppose it’s been a hell of a weekend for you. Must bring back some pretty shitty memories. I … Read more
‘Illegal bulletins by Rona and Chips Bailey and cartoons by Max Bollinger continued in spite of police raids and were delivered by people to other people, all of whom knew if they were caught with a copy they’d go to jail.’ Read more from the lockdown letters here. After the fifth listen I went for a … Read more
In an ideal world the physical lives we build would speak to the past, but the truth is New Zealanders silence it, building their social and industrial histories literally on top of Māori. Read more Lockdown letters here. “The past is a foreign country,” goes the famous opening line from The Go-Between, but for tangata … Read more
‘It feels like there is an inner circle of walking that I can no longer break into, some pleasure I have become too stupid to feel. Maybe it’s the internet’s fault.’ Read more from the lockdown letters here. There is a lot of talk about going out for a walk. If you are a writer, … Read more
Responding to sudden, shocking change requires a double lens. Read more from the Lockdown letters here. My granddaughter has been making a newspaper. The Daily Chirp. It’s very small, as befits a newspaper designed for birds, but it contains news (a worrying rise in Tweet-19), “Adds” for birdseed medicine (Fight the Tweet-19 virus!), and a … Read more
‘It is sobering watching what a country can do if it wants to. Having been told for so long that nothing is possible. These are strange times down the back of the bus, John.’ Read more Lockdown Letters here. Dear John Keats Funny that it’s had to come to this. But when I think of it … Read more
‘Yes, it’s endearing that the PM said that the Easter Bunny is an essential service but I wondered how many kids had a hope in hell of seeing three good meals a day let alone a chocolate egg.’ Read more Lockdown Letters here. Bob Dylan’s latest, Murder Most Foul, is an interesting and enticing listen. … Read more
‘Paint is peeling from the old truck workshop walls. Some days you can taste rust on the autumn wind, like swallowing iron and blood and pollen.’ Read more Lockdown Letters here IT’S GONE BELLY UP FOR THE WORLD. I bet the doomsday preppers are feeling smug right now, locking down in their DIY bunkers. The … Read more
‘When you reach for the exact same thing day after day, your grasp on everything else in the world loosens.’ Read more Lockdown Letters here At the end of 2001, my brother JP and I picked cherries and thinned apples at an orchard just outside Blenheim. It was hot and tiring work and it took … Read more
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, five of New Zealand’s best writers chronicle the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, Fiona Farrell. There’s a sign sticky-taped to the bakery window. Closed Until Further Notice. Stay Safe NZ and Be Kind. We will get through this! We all know where the words come from: Jacinda … Read more
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, writer and doctor Glenn Colquhoun, with the second of his Letters to Hone Tūwhare and his Travelling Band of Constant Companions. Hey Dad, I knew once I … Read more
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, Ōtaki author Renée. Yes, a few cyclists out and about. I remember my first bike bought from Farmers around 1942, five shillings a week, all up 19 … Read more
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, political commentator and essayist Morgan Godfery. IS IT DAY EIGHT? In the absence of a capitalist routine, one day bleeds into the other. In the before times … Read more
The outside is telling us, ‘I could do that again whenever I wanted. You think about that.’ Read more Lockdown letters here. ‘When I’m being a badger I live in a hole and eat earthworms,” the nature writer Charles Foster wrote. “When I’m being an otter I try to catch fish with my teeth.” When … Read more
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers chronicle Covid-19 alert level four. Today, Dunedin-based author Fiona Farrell. Tonight she’ll go into work. Eleven till 8am in General Medical. My younger daughter will strap on her helmet, kiss the kids who will be in bed but probably still awake, say goodbye … Read more
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, writer and doctor Glenn Colquhoun goes full epistolary, with a letter to Hone Tūwhare – and his Travelling Band of Constant Companions. Kia ora Hone, Well brother, … Read more
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, Ōtaki author Renée. I have a wild tomato flopping all over the path down the back of the veg garden. I picked a tomato from it this … Read more
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, political commentator and essayist Morgan Godfery. I’M TWEETING AT 2AM. The responsible part of my brain is sending sleep signals. Inconvenient yawns. The first. The second … Read more