Well, not really, but Kelly Ana Morey, on the other hand, is coming to talk to my class tomorrow.
Excited? Why, yes!
Daft Punk is playing at my house, my house
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The Author Elsewhere
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- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 New Zealand License.
- all content © Megan Clayton, 2003-11
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Posterous
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I saw an interview with Kelly Ana Morey on that TV programme about books (The Book Show?). She came across as a little bit loopy, but in exactly the right way. She seems like she’d be a great speaker.
Excellent. Bring the loopy, I say, and I will do my best to reciprocate.
Hmmm – I saw her speak on Friday, and she didn’t seem at all loopy (although I did see her on TV, I think on her home turf, and she struck me not so much loopy as just a little bit out of it, in the way that is typical in Northland). On Friday, she could have been my auntie!
I was really delighted with the way, when speaking to my students, she illuminated the different regions of NZ as she talked about them (much as she does in her writing). In particular, her defence of Kaitaia was lovely.
Can you share what she said about Kaitaia – it is not far from where I grew up.
Yes–she was talking about loving it as a place, perhaps because of, rather than in spite of, its imperfections (which struck me as close to how I feel about living here). As a brown town with many of her extended family members, it seemed like one of several ways in which she could locate herself in the world, which was something she also talked about (in terms of writing, for example, about middle class professional Maori, as opposed to those hypothetical narratives in which everyone stays on the pa and we all feel good about multiculturalism). She obviously had love for the place: everyone knows everyone, by her account.
She also said that Kaitaia has New Zealand’s ugliest town clock, to which I surprised myself by asking if she’d been to Ashburton, which breaks my policy of never disrespecting Ashburton or Timaru.
Interesting: when I was growing up, Kaitaia seemed flash, compared to the closest town of any size to where we were living (Kaikohe, an even browner town than Kaitaia). If Kaitaia is where her roots are, then I am pretty sure my family had connections with hers.
But as with people, it is the imperfections that lead to love.
“… it is the imperfections that lead to love”.
Exactly. This is one of the reasons I think I’ve so enjoyed returning to my old neighbourhood to live.
Your family is impressively far-flung: from Kaikohe to Otautau!
That was my parents at work – they decided to uproot us all and take us from southland to the far north. I’m the only one who has moved back down south – the rest are in various parts of the North Island.
That’s an impressive relocation, both physically and culturally–even further distant in the latter case than say moving to one of the big Australian cities, I reckon.
ahahaha! Loopy!? Love it. A journalist recently called me “crass” but I prefer vulgar. I am such an auntie too though this is true. Oh complicated me. Anyway, yeah Kaitaia … I have such a passion for that place and am definitely going to do another book set up there. I imagine it being a bit like Tim Winton’s The Turning which I loved. Anyway … yay for you guys talking about me … I do endevour to perform at all times. Hinemoana reckons I’m a writer/actress. Sigh!!!! Is there any fate worse.
xx
K
I think one of the advantages of being an Eccentric Lady Writer type is that one will never been lumped into the category of Young Female Writer, against whose pernicious influence certain academics of our acquaintance have been known to rail. Writer/actress is less of a fate to endure than rapper/actress, yes?, or maybe model/actress …