The Six Pack: Winning Writing from New Zealand Book Month

by Briar Grace-Smith (Contributor), Philippa Swan (Contributor), Phoebe Wright (Contributor)

This is the first "Six Pack - Winning Writing from NZ Book Month" and it was published in 2006. There are short stories by Briar Grace-Smith, Philippa Swan, Phoebe Wright, Kingi McKinnon and Henry Feltham, and a poem by Brian Turner.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

165 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2006

Reviews

[Linley]

I'm trying to find a story for the English Dept that has a NZ writer and will complement 'The Kite Runner'. No great hardship to read this set although some show how new the writer is to writing.

It can't be easy to put together an anthology, even from hundreds of entries. Commendations to the judges, editor and the writers for achieving this book.

[Madib]

Te Manawa and Chasing Fireflies are the best of the bunch

[Philippa]

Review published in the New Zealand Herald 14 October 2006
"Six of the best"

The Six Pack
Winning Writing from New Zealand Book Month
(New Zealand Book Month and Whitireia Publishing, $6)

Reviewed by Philippa Jamieson

Six writers for six dollars. It’s a good deal all right. The Six Pack has been published as part of the inaugural New Zealand Book Month (18 September – 15 October). The writers whose work appears in this sampler were chosen from hundreds of entries in a nationwide competition, and each of the winners has received $5000.
It’s an ambitious project: 30,000 copies have been printed, but with the asking price in magazine range it’s already top of the bestseller list. The back cover exhorts readers to ‘Imbibe one story a night or go on a bender and down all six in one sitting.’ I quaffed five in one go and saved the sixth in case of morning cravings.
The judging panel selected these pieces without knowing the identity of the authors. What they’ve chosen represents a diversity of New Zealanders, and a variety of styles from new and established writers. The overall feel is of freshness and lingering images, and with just six stories it’s easy to polish off.
Kingi McKinnon writes in a deceptively simple yet sensitive way about how an illness becomes a family tragedy. Sadly, he died just a week before New Zealand Book Month began, but it’s good to be able to celebrate his work in this collection.
The youngest contributor is fifteen-year-old Phoebe Smith. Her story is astonishingly sophisticated for one so young: a wise, evocative and ethereal mélange of belief, lies, memory and family history.
Briar Grace-Smith explores what happens to a woman’s identity and spirit after she’s had a heart transplant. The wairua in this story shines through like shot silk, with magical images seamlessly interwoven with the mundane.
‘It was on the same day Becky’s husband announced he was moving into their Skyline garage that Becky decided to become a life coach.’ So begins a tongue-in-cheek story by Philippa Swan about what we want out of life, and how to achieve contentment. The main character spends a lot of time convincing others (and herself) about how happy she is, when really she’s a frustrated mother suffering from suburban neurosis.
Amidst the short stories are 20 poems by Brian Turner, which anchor the collection in the waka of Te Wai Pounamu, in the heartland of Central Otago. Turner’s poetry reminds some of us townies what it is to be part of the land, to be out there in the weather. ‘For now there’s a wild gale / blowing out of the northwest, / the oak’s all heavy breathing, / and the red-berried rowan’s / as alarming as stigmata.’ On clouds: ‘Theirs is the greatest / cathedral of all, stratus and cirrus lined up / like pews, nimbus like priests glowering in the nave, cumulus towering white as angels above the altar.’
The readers' choice – voted for by the public – was a weird, slightly spooky story by Henry Feltham, about a couple of French brothers in Shanghai, one of whom thinks people want to eat him. It feels like part of a larger work – a novel perhaps.
Crack open The Six Pack. It’s got to be good for you.

[Gary Wolf]

Eh.

I read this because my son found it in a used bookshop on his hiking trip to NZ. I liked the first story quite a lot, but it sort of drifted downhill after that. No offense to the New Zealand literary scene or anything, but … eh.

[Emily]

I picked up this book because it was one of four English books available in the store.
I was pleasantly surprised! Some of the collection I really liked a great deal. The stories were moving and interesting.

[Sarah]

Of the six short stories in here, four I thought were really good, and two I disliked. Not a bad ratio, and certainly not bad considering the short story isn't a form I'm particularly fond of as a general rule. Well worth the read.