WRITING CLASSES

When I was in my thirties, together with my husband and two sons, I emigrated to New Zealand. After I had settled into my new country, I began asking myself what it was I really wanted to do. They had told us at New Zealand House that this was a country of opportunity, after all. The answer was, 'I want to write', so I enrolled to do a three month 'Writing for the Media' course, followed by one on Creative Writing at what was then The Christchurch Polytechnic.

The first thing I wrote was a humorous article on office work (you write best what you know best, my teacher had told me), which I mailed to a rather dull magazine. To my surprise, they accepted it, asked me if I'd write a series and, at the same time, paid me, I followed this startling success with a couple of 'Thought for the Day' type pieces which I read on National Radio. What was this thing called 'rejection'? All one had to do was to write something half decent and it was published! Thereafter I wrote prodigiously for three years without any success and could probably have decorated our house with the rejection slips I received.

It took many years before I felt ready to write the novel I'd promised myself I'd write years earlier. As it was the first two or three were destined for the bin and 'He Called Me Son' and 'The Best in Blountmere Street' took me thirteen years to write!