Who are the most powerful figures in the new generation of New Zealand literature? The most innovative, the most awarded, the most industrious? A panel of young experts exchanged their views over Snapchat and things like that until they agreed on the top 10. Originally posted October 31, 2016 1 Hera Lindsay Bird But not … Read more
A brief note of festive gratitude as we plunge into hibernation (mostly) for a fortnight. The final Friday beer gong of the year has reverberated through Spinoff headquarters, and we are just about out of here. From tomorrow, our “Summer reissue” series begins, in which we showcase some of the best Spinoff writing of the … Read more
Wellington author Linda Burgess gaily set out to write a book about churches with her husband, former All Black Bob Burgess. Would their marriage survive? ‘Oh how lovely,’ people said. Even people who knew us. ‘How lovely, to do a book together.’ We’ve done it twice now. In 2007 Random House published my book on … Read more
An essay by Patrick Evans to mark his new novel The Back of His Head, which imagines that “a complete and utter prick” has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. ‘No entry to all vehicles, writer at work’ – the sign in the Jerusalem street the writer known to the West as SY Agnon lived … Read more
The Spinoff’s editor, Duncan Greive, co-authored Dan Carter: My Story with the All Blacks’ first five. Here he shares his memories of the tumultuous year the pair spent working on the book. The lowest I ever heard him was late in February. We spoke via Skype, as we often did through that portion of the year, … Read more
A pantheon of New Zealand politics watchers were asked to cast their minds over 2015, select their champs and their flops, their ups and their downs, and the issue or story to look out for in 2016. Today, Part Four: The Big Issue for 2016. We asked our glittering academy to gaze into their crystal … Read more
In September Lydia Ko won her first major. Duncan Greive spoke to Guy Wilson, her Auckland-based coach from the age of five until she went pro at 16, about the significance of her achievements. Guy Wilson first met Lydia Ko when she was just five years old. She walked into the pro shop of the … Read more
After the final of X Factor NZ, Joseph Harper creates an interactive game that promises to be more challenging, fun and have higher production values than the competition itself. It’s been a long season of losing judges, murderers and clear winners as X Factor NZ slowly disintegrated week to week. But finally – here’s something … Read more
In 2013, the New Zealand’s woman’s rafting team won their fifth world title on the rivers of the Bay of Plenty. Two years later, Don Rowe joins them for an early-morning training session ahead of the 2015 World Champs in Indonesia. The dark jade waters of the Kaituna River flow 50km from inland Bay of … Read more
David Seymour rode to the rescue of publicans and pub-loving rugby fans a couple of months back when he introduced a bill enabling licensed premises to open for World Cup screenings in the early, very early and very, very early morning. Toby Manhire catches up with the one-man ACT caucus over breakfast, beer and All … Read more
Actress, presenter and cricket tragic Sonia Gray on the stealthy way the Blackcaps have adopted reverse sledging and “respect-shaming” as tactics. Today the cricketing world will look to the Adelaide Oval, waiting to see how the pink kookaburra holds up in the world’s first day/night test match – a task that it appears to have failed … Read more
Beating Playstation’s notoriously difficult Super Meat Boy was one of the biggest achievements of Liam Maguren’s young life. So why didn’t anyone care? In 2010 a nasty lil’ bastard of a platformer called Super Meat Boy was released. Made, impressively, by only two dudes, the addictive indie game quickly gained a reputation for its incredibly … Read more
One of the true legends of rugby died in November. Scotty Stevenson reflected on the passing of the one and only Jonah Lomu. The most unstoppable man in the history of rugby was finally stopped today. He was just 40. Jonah Tali Lomu died unexpectedly in Auckland this morning after returning from the Rugby World … Read more
The death of blockbuster novelist Jackie Collins reminds Steve Braunias of the awkward time he visited her at her home in Beverly Hills. Jackie Collins was one of the worst writers of the 20th century, every sentence a cliché, every book a dull thud, but she sold somewhere around 140 million copies of her godawful … Read more
On a Sunday afternoon in November, Holly Holm shocked the world when she knocked out the undefeated, undisputed UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey. Don Rowe was in Melbourne to watch the fight – here he discusses both the bout and the subsequent social media storm. On Tuesday morning Ronda Rousey left Melbourne Airport hidden behind … Read more
Duncan Greive interviews Steve Braunias on the occasion of his new book, The Scene of the Crime. Steve Braunias is my favourite New Zealand writer. Maybe that makes me an imbecile, I don’t know. I haven’t read hardly any of our fiction, because I barely read fiction. There might be better people out there in other … Read more
One World One world, Thinking with one mind, Thinking with no mind, Other than what they are told. Preach to me, Sell me new and old; Indoctrinate me, That I will do what I am told. Trace my every dollar, Trace my every step; Trace my every sentence, No privacy is left. … Read more
Nicky Hager tells The Spinoff about his case in the High Court, Dirty Politics a year on, and his next book – “one of the most important projects that I could imagine”. Nicky Hager has been back in headlines lately after court documents revealed, among other things, that Westpac had provided his transaction statements to … Read more
Scotty Stevenson filed this match report from the Sky Sport studio in the moments following the All Blacks’ 34-17 Rugby World Cup final win over the Wallabies at Twickenham. A game of rugby union was played in London today, during which the greatest first five eighth in the history of the game finally got his … Read more
Joseph Harper reviews a different game every week in a brand new column. First up: Neko Atsume. I started playing a new smartphone game this week. I’m probably the target market for these kind of things via vaguely addictive personality and enjoying the patronising simplicity of the kind of games that exist on this platform. I’ve … Read more
Greg Bruce, author of a masterful feature on Steve Williams, reviews the autobiography of a seething brat who is also undeniably the greatest caddy of all time. I wrote a feature about Steve Williams in Metro magazine early last year. It was a long process, begun in early 2013, when I sent him a handwritten letter, because … Read more
Mark Hunt fought his way from the streets of South Auckland to the top of the world stage in a career spanning almost 20 years. Don Rowe speaks to co-author Ben Mckelvey about writing a book with the Super Samoan. Are fighters born or made? In Mark Hunt’s case the answer appears to be both. Perhaps the hardest puncher to … Read more
Josh Drummond of Bigpipe, our new Gaming section sponsor, on the fiendishly addictive and deceptively simple soccer/driving mashup, Rocket League. It goes like this: I’m in my second week at my new job at Bigpipe. Our product team – just three of us – are working on probably our most important project, and at the … Read more
Joseph Moore has been trapped inside The Wellington Phoenix for his entire adult life. Before this season began he presented a compelling five point argument in an attempt to get others to join him. (NB: one of the points is ‘Friendship’). Pre-season is hell. It’s been a few months since the mighty Wellington Phoenix last … Read more
Has Paul McCartney ever said anything interesting? Sometimes? Now and then? A couple of times? Once? No. Rock’s most distinguished bore has always chuntered on, yapping and jawing, blathering and babbling, the words pouring out of him like water through a seive. Nothing ever holds. It’s a kind of disease, a neurological disorder. He needs … Read more
In the lead-up to this year’s Cricket World Cup, Calum Henderson revisited the 1992 World Cup through the garish lens of Sky’s incessant memorialising and found the coverage was as fine as the cricket. Was the 1992 Cricket World Cup really as good as everyone remembers it? Is it wrong to hold a flame for the … Read more
On Writing by Charles Bukowski On Writing is not an instruction manual. Nobody who knows anything about Bukowski’s boozy, belligerent shambles of a life would expect one. As he was fond of confessing, Bukowski did not like people. Even as a baby in the cradle, he reports in his largely autobiographical 1982 novel Ham on … Read more
Charlotte Grimshaw examines anonymous literary sensation Elena Ferrante, and the place of the ‘self’ in written work. I,I,I… Some time after the Christchurch earthquake, I visited the city. I hadn’t been there since before the disaster, and I was shocked by the devastation in the centre, and in particular by the number of multi-storey buildings that … Read more
Christmas Island made headlines in 2001 when the Norwegian ship MV Tampa attempted to land more than 400 asylum seekers on the Australian territory, an island nestled beneath Indonesia with a resident population of less than 2,000. For years before and after the island had been a target for so-called “boat people” travelling from Asia … Read more