Paula Morris, author of Queen of Beauty, Hibiscus Coast and, most recently, Trendy But Casual, generously answered AMY BROWN’s questionnaire, via email from New Orleans. She returns to New Zealand in May as a guest of the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.


Do you see yourself as a New Zealand author?

I’m a New Zealander, so that makes me a New Zealand writer – right?

Is there too much expectation for New Zealand writers to keep New Zealand in their writing?

Some academics or critics may want to guard the borders of our national literature, but I don’t know if New Zealand readers care that much: we’re used to reading books set in other countries. Nobody would demand that Peter Jackson only film New Zealand stories, or accuse him of being cynical or unpatriotic for choosing to adapt The Lovely Bones, for example. Writers should have the same artistic freedom.

Do you think globalisation is diluting or sharpening New Zealand’s literary culture?

Isn’t globalisation about call centres moving to India, or manufacturing moving to China? Will New Zealand writers be forced to re-locate to save money? Many New Zealand writers have travelled or spent long stretches of time overseas already – Katherine Mansfield is the most famous example, but by no means the only one – and yet New Zealand literature lives on. I wrote Hibiscus Coast, which is largely set in Auckland, when I was living in Iowa City and New Orleans, so I don’t think a writer’s physical location contains or confines them. Some writers prefer to stay put and let their imaginations roam; other writers like to wander. Our literary culture, like literary cultures everywhere, can support both approaches.

Did you have any qualms about setting Trendy But Casual in New York and having a New Yorker narrating?

No and no. Actually, Jane Shore, the protagonist isn’t a New Yorker – she’s from King of Prussia, Pennsylvania! Hardly anyone in the novel is from New York City itself.

I lived and worked in New York for seven years, so I had plenty of time for fact-finding missions. And I had a lot of American readers for the manuscript along the way, helping me make sure the idiom was right.

If you were accused of “selling out” to an international market with Trendy But Casual, what would you say?

I’m not sure how I could be accused of that, exactly. The novel has been published in one market only so far, and that’s New Zealand. In fact, it may never be published in another country. I would love it if all my books were translated into dozens of languages and published everywhere around the world, but if they’re not – that’s OK. I’ll keep writing the books I want to write, and hoping that Penguin New Zealand will want to publish them, and that New Zealand readers will enjoy them. The guy in New York who made my engagement ring said: I’m a jeweller, not a salesman! And I’m a writer, not a salesman. I used to sell other people’s records, but selling isn’t my job anymore.

As a creative writing teacher at Tulane University and a graduate of the Manhire master class, how would defend claims that creative writing workshops commodify literature?

A workshop is a place where writers listen to other people discuss their work. That’s it.

At Tulane, I work with undergraduates, many of whom are writing poems and stories for the first time. We’re discussing imagery or point of view or dramatic structure. We’re reading published work to see how other writers do these things. We’re not trying to create products that can be sold. Sometimes my students submit work to our undergraduate literary journal, which is entirely run by students, but very few are thinking about publication yet.

The criticism to which you’re referring, I think – of Bill Manhire’s MA programme at Victoria – is about the way that class is perceived, in some quarters, as a fast track to fame and riches. It’s been described as a “conveyor belt” that takes a young writer through the following: publication of short pieces in the journal Sport; publication of a book with VUP; and contracts with overseas publishers. I studied at Victoria in 2001 and wrote a draft of my first novel, Queen of Beauty, while I was there. (That’s why I applied: I needed time away from the demands and expense of New York to work on the novel.) I guess I fell onto a different conveyor belt, because my work’s never appeared in Sport, Penguin is my publisher, and – six years and three novels later – I’m not yet rolling in foreign riches.

Once I was called a “product” of the “Manhire School.” It’s kind of insulting. I turned thirty-six the year I spent at Victoria. I was eager to start work on Queen of Beauty. Before I arrived, I’d published short stories in the US as well as New Zealand, and I’d already written some parts of Trendy But Casual. I wasn’t some lump of clay waiting to be moulded. I just needed some time and focus, and an encouraging voice like Bill’s telling me to keep going.

At the end of my time at Victoria, I was awarded the Schaeffer Fellowship to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. I’m very grateful for the opportunity of another two years to concentrate on my writing. At Iowa, I wrote large parts of Hibiscus Coast and Trendy But Casual, as well as my short story “Rangatira,” which is included in the upcoming anthology Get On the Bus! Best Recent Maori Fiction, edited by Witi Ihimaera. Here in the US, some people call me a “product” of the “Iowa School,” even though Queen of Beauty was accepted for publication before I attended Iowa, etc etc.

You know, the place I did the most creative writing classes was at the YMCA’s Writer’s Voice arts centre on the Upper West Side in New York. Nobody ever calls me a product of that! Several of us who met there started our own group, getting together monthly in someone’s apartment to drink wine and discuss each other’s work. Of the original core group of five, three of us have published books. We created our own conveyor belt!

I’ve read that Touchdown Productions have optioned Hibiscus Coast; can you see Trendy Buy Casual being made into a film?

Toa Fraser is writing and directing the film version of Hibiscus Coast, which I’m very happy about. My brother is already doing fantasy casting for Trendy But Casual, deciding which celebrity could play which character!

Is Trendy But Casual a parody of chick-lit, or just an exceptionally smart example of the genre?

I wrote it as a parody, but people can read it however they like.

With Queen of Beauty you covered the territory of family, Hibiscus Coast has been described as a literary thriller, and Trendy Buy Casual is a “comedy of bad manners” – which genre do you plan to tackle next?

I have lots of projects on the go. I’ve been working on a collection of short stories for some time. I’m also editing an anthology of short stories for Penguin. Scholastic here in the US has just contracted me to write a YA (young adult) novel set in post-Katrina New Orleans, based on a lengthy synopsis I wrote last year when I was back in New Zealand. I’ve been working on some other secret projects too, and doing research for an historical novel inspired by “Rangatira.” Just writing all this down makes me feel tired.

Although it’s a beautiful spring in New Orleans and winter here, is there anything you’re particularly looking forward to when you return to New Zealand for the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival?

I will try really hard not to stuff myself with Afghan biscuits and kumara chips when I’m home, but success in this endeavour is unlikely. I’m looking forward to watching episodes of Bro’ Town over and over on the plane. I’m looking forward to seeing people, though I’ve been back to New Zealand four times in the last eighteen months: everyone’s getting sick of me.

See also:
» Trendy But Casual



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