It's now July, a grey and cold month in New Zealand, and I'm sitting here with the heater blowing hot air at me so I can write! I'm taking a week or two off writing - a chance to rest my brain before I launch into a new book (which I have written the initial 8,000 words of to work through the two voices and story ideas.)
It's been an explosive few weeks here since the NZPost Book awards were announced and the winning book has been dragged through the mud by those who feel YA fiction should be censored and should not talk in any way about sex, drugs or use bad language. I simply don't agree, and find it insulting to YA readers that they can't be left to make up their own minds what they consider 'suitable'. Some of the most confronting books of all time have turned out to the classics in the long view. So I applaud the judges of our homegrown awards for picking Ted Dawe's 'Into the River' - it's hard all right, but it's truthful and thought provoking and treats its readers as intelligent beings. Good on you all! That's what fiction should do - challenge, question and hold up mirrors to the issues that matter most.