Sarah Johnson's Blog, page 2

Bookshelf envy

Last year I had shed envy (for Dawn McMillan’s writing hut overlooking the Thames coast). Now I have bookshelf envy.

I have just finished reading Annie Proulx’s memoir Bird Cloud, about the years she spent building what she hoped would be her ‘final home’ at the base of 400 foot cliffs next to the North Platte River in the midst of the Wyoming prairies.I had been looking forward to the read, as I enjoy nature writing that weaves together elements of the human and natural worlds, and I knew that Proulx had chosen the site for her home partially due to the abundance of wildlife she had spotted.The book did not disappoint, as it contains some fantastic descriptions of Wyoming birdlife, as viewed by Proulx as she tries to bring to life her housing dream. I found it an odd juxtaposition of elements though; at times, it was as if she had collected a handful of bright coloured pebbles, chosen because they interested her, then tossed them down to see how they would fall. The connections between the various stones was not always obvious (or perhaps even there).

As a result, some strands I skimmed over (the chunks of local Wyoming history for example), whereas others have remained to mind. Foremost among these is the bookshelves. Proulx says early on in the book that when thinking of her future house, a fundamental requirement was that there should be bookshelves for thousands of books. Imagine that!

In our very crowded, rather small house there are lots of children, lots of clutter, minimal space and thousands of books. Unfortunately there is nowhere adequate to put them. I have always considered books the ultimate furnishing. I think a wall full of books lends warmth and texture to a room. By comparison, minimalist houses where books are not displayed always feel bereft to me. But when you have too many books for the spaces where books can comfortably sit, it becomes a problem. It is, I imagine, a bit like having too many cats; every time you turn around you trip over one.

So I have bookshelf envy. And I was thrilled when I found these lovely photos of Proulx’s library on the website of the architect who designed the site.
 
  Source:
“It has taken me half a lifetime to understand that my habits and work do not tally with clean minimalism. By default, complexity and clutter are my style, and I move from projects and paper piles on one table to different projects and paper piles on other big tables. Books are open on every surface next to bins of papers to be filed. Boxes of old photographs, manuscript drafts, correspondence and receipts crowd shelves and floor. Incoming and outgoing mail piles up. This is not a svelte, minimalist look. One large room was what I thought I needed for the tables, file cabinets, map case, desks, shelves for books, office supplies, book accessioning station and bill-paying desk.’

Sounds divine doesn’t it?Here, by way of comparison, is one of the bookshelves in our living room. You can see the problem!  For a start, there's no longer anywhere to balance a cup of tea...

 

Storylines Notable Book Awards 2016

I'm grinning from ear to ear. The Bold Ship Phenomenal has been awarded a Storylines Notable Book Award for 2016.

I'm so chuffed to receive it, and so please to be in such good company. I've already read most of the books on the notable books list and have enjoyed them all. Now I'll have to read the rest.

Book and egg giveaway

What is it about egg-shaped chocolate that makes it taste so much better?

To celebrate the arrival of Easter eggs in the shops (one of my favourite times of year), I'm running a giveaway on my author Facebook page.

All you have to do is comment on the post with the name of a friend, and you could both win this pack. Giveaway closes 4 March.

Ms Blair recommends: The Bold Ship Phenomenal by Sarah Johnson

A nice review of my book by New Zealand book girl (Chrissi Blair) on her blog.



I've had a great time this morning trawling through the reviews on her site (I'm supposed to be working, but it's Valentine's Day). Lots of in-depth information there on kids' and young adults' books. My reading list has grown!

Here's the link... Thanks Ms Blair.

Ms Blair recommends: The Bold Ship Phenomenal by Sarah Johnson [Junior ...: The Bold Ship Phenomenal By Sarah Johnson Illustrations by Deborah Hinde Flat Bed Press, 2015 ISBN 9780473313142

Happy end of 2015

I think it's as important to celebrate the year that's just past (or if it hasn't been happy, to at least acknowledge it), as it is to look forward to the new one.

2015 has been fun (and hard work) for me, launching a fledgling publishing company - Flat Bed Press - and a new children's novel - The Bold Ship Phenomenal.

I also always enjoy the turn of the year, as a chance to look forward with anticipation to the next one and to plan. I love to consider and get excited about the writing projects I have scheduled.

2016 for me will be another novel in the junior fiction series I am working on at the moment. It will also, hopefully, be a polished draft of the novel for adults I have been working on seemingly for ever. There's also a picture book in the publishing pipeline.

To celebrate both end and beginning, I'm running a book giveaway on Goodreads for the first two weeks of the year. All you have to do to enter is click the button (on the Goodreads site). Then wait and see...a bit like waiting to see what the New Year will actually bring.



I hope yours has its fair share of adventure and joy!

Bold Ship Phenomenal listed as best Christmas buy

I'm chuffed that my book, The Bold Ship Phenomenal, was listed by The New Zealand Herald's Canvas magazine as one of the best books to buy for young readers this Christmas.


I'm doubly chuffed to be sandwiched between JK Rowling and the Thunderbirds. Hopefully some of their success will rub off. Bold Ships are go...

Enjoy a good scare? Author Sue Copsey tells us about her latest spooky story for kids...

I have just finished reading Sue Copsey's fabulous ghost story for kids - The Ghosts of Tarawera (Treehouse Books, 2015).

The Ghosts of Tarawera is book two in a planned series of New Zealand-based ghost stories for junior fiction and young adult readers (the first was The Ghost of Young Nick's Head (Pear Jam books, 2011)).

It's a wonderful, wonderful story, and a gripping read, which builds on and adds to the well-known ghostly appearances that preceded the Mount Tarawera eruption of 1886.

I've written a review of the book, which you can read on Goodreads (along with numerous four and five star reviews by other appreciative readers).

Sue kindly agreed to answer some questions about how she came to write the book, and what she has planned next - here's what she said. For more information, check out her website: www.suecopsey.com


Interview with Sue
The Ghosts of Tarawera draws on the famous New Zealand legend about the ghostly waka that appeared before the Mount Tarawera eruption. What was it that drew you to this story? 
I well remember the first time I read about this legend. I was editing a school textbook about the Taupo Volcanic Zone, and in amongst all this serious science there it was, as reported at the time (1886) by many tourists as well as local Maori. I was drawn to the story because there were so many witnesses:  two groups of Europeans in sightseeing boats, as well as villagers on the lake shore. The sightseers reported seeing an impressive war canoe – nothing spooky about it – but the Maori realised it was supernatural as there hadn’t been a waka of that type in the area in living memory. Local Maori also recognised it as an omen of disaster, and 11 days later were proved right when Mt Tarawera erupted. I reckon Lake Tarawera’s phantom waka, which legend says will reappear if the mountain reawakens, is far more credible than the Loch Ness monster, and look which is more famous. That’s just wrong!
Your story is very evocative of the landscapes around Lake Rotomahana and Rotorua. Did you spend much time there while you were writing the book?
I’ve been to this part of the North Island many times, so I had a good feel for it. I love the mix of forest, lakes, hills, Maori culture and weird and wonderful volcanic features. You can feel you’ve slipped back in time, to when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
But also, Google Earth was my friend. While I was writing the book I had it almost permanently open as I zoomed in and out of satellite images looking for how the children would get across and around Lake Rotomahana before and during the eruption. When I’d finished, I hauled the family down to a bach near Mt Tarawera, and revisited the Buried Village, went on a boat trip on Lake Rotomahana, and kayaked on Lake Tarawera, making sure it all felt right, especially the atmosphere – I wanted the reader to feel they were really there, and recognise it if they visited.
What was the hardest part of the story to write, and why?
Writing the story was easy, it more or less wrote itself! But I was worried about getting the science right. I love popular science but wasn’t very good at it at school. Show me a physics equation and I feel a bit faint. I wanted to include lots of interesting facts about volcanoes and Mt Tarawera (I call it ‘education by stealth’), and to be absolutely sure I got it right, I asked GNS Science, who monitor NZ’s volcanoes and earthquakes, to check the manuscript for me. And so began the best correspondence I’ve ever had with an expert. Cornel de Ronde, who led the team that explored the lake floor at Rotomahana, contacted me, saying he loved how I was weaving all this geology into my adventure story, as he’s passionate about science education in schools. He was quite accepting of a few, ahem, liberties I took with the geology of the area in order to keep Joe, Eddie, Anastasia and Beckie alive. ‘They’d certainly die in an eruption such as you describe,’ he said. ‘But this is a moot point – it is a story, after all.’
What spooky tales did you enjoy as a child?
I liked the ‘true’ ones. Every village in Britain, where I grew up, had its spooks, and I had a book that listed just about every haunted house in the country. Thinking back, I must have been a weird child to have on holiday. Wherever we travelled in England, my twin loves of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, and local folklore meant that I was always searching for secret passages and ghosts.
Have you ever seen a ghost?
Honestly, I don’t know – but something odd happened that makes me strongly suspect I have. It was my wedding night (seriously – no chortling please) and Michael and I were staying in a turret room in a Victorian hotel near my home town of Rugby. I was in bed and Michael was in the bathroom. In one wall was a small door which, without warning, flew open. A figure was silhouetted in the doorway, bright light behind. Then it slammed shut again. A bit like those sightseers with the phantom waka, I didn’t think this was anything supernatural, I just assumed someone had got lost in the hotel’s maze of corridors and ended up at our room by mistake. When Michael reappeared, I told him what had happened and asked him to move a table in front of the door. He did so, looking at me oddly – he thought I’d probably been half asleep (and yes, a few glasses of champagne had been imbibed).
Next morning we opened this little door to see a fire escape leading out onto the turret roof. So how could anyone have been out there, and why had there been a bright light behind them? Could this have been something spooky?
Feeling a bit silly, I asked the receptionist if the hotel had any ghostly residents, only to learn that there were several (most usually a coach and horses, a headless man, and a hand), and that people were constantly reporting strange occurences. Seems the hotel was, and still is, notorious for its ghosts – and we had no idea before that night.
This is your second novel about New Zealand ghosts. Is there another one on the horizon? And if so, can you give us a hint about the ghosts involved?
Yes indeed! Peeping over the horizon is The Ghosts of Moonlight Creek. I wanted to set my next ghost story in one of New Zealand’s old goldmining settlements, and discovered the wonderfully named Moonlight, near Queenstown. Anastasia’s movie director father is filming a fantasy movie down there and invites Joe, Eddie, Beckie and Anastasia to the movie set as a treat after their scare at Mt Tarawera. However, they soon discover filming is being held up by unexplained incidents, and the crew are beginning to call it a cursed film. I’m about a quarter of the way through and can’t wait to find out what happens!

Wooden Arms houses

Everywhere I go, I see Wooden Arms houses. Homes and buildings that have been used, inhabited, perhaps cherished, and now have been left behind. I love these places – the stain of story that they carry in the grain of their wooden walls, the hollow in the tread of their step, the sign that once heralded both destination and function, but now only signifies loss. Absence.  

I’m also becoming increasingly aware that they are passing. Ghosts of buildings, a feature of any road trip landscape, but fading, literally, before our eyes. Wood. Tin. The rain will disperse them all. These ones I snapped at Mangaweka recently. If you had the inclination you could buy four shops for a bargain price. I wish I had cause to uproot my family to Mangaweka. Think of the stories you would inherent. The ghosts that would creep from the corners at night, each with their history to tell. Priceless! 

   
 
This one is in a valley near where I live. I like to think the shuttered windows mean someone means to return to it someday. Or maybe they're still inside - one window is slightly ajar!

 

Room 8 is GREAT!

Look at this wonderful blog post by the kids in Room 8 at Pukete School. Thanks guys, I had such a nice time...


Room 8 is GREAT!: Author Visit! As a part of our Inquiry into books, ...: Author Visit! As a part of our Inquiry into books, we had a visit from a New Zealand author Sarah Johnson. We read her story Wooden Arm...

   Here's the picture collage they sent me afterwards. So cool! 

Golden giveaway for International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Weigh-heigh! Tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

To celebrate, I'm giving away a pirate flag and a bar of gold (Old Gold that is) with every book bought from my online store over the weekend. You can get to the store through the 'Sarah's Book Shop' button on my website.

 Remember to have rum on your cornflakes!