Show Notes
On June 10, my book Audition comes out in the United States with Coffee House Press and Canada with Strange Light
To celebrate this, and with massive support from Laura Graveline at Coffee House Press, I've recorded three special episodes of Better off Read which feature three of my favourite writers published by Coffee House Press.
In this first special episode I get to talk to Danielle Dutton whose astounding Praire, Dresses, Art Other was published by Coffee House Press in 2024. I love Danielle's work so much. There is this astounding hum to it that chimes with all the things I love - formal experimentation, language made new, visceral and emotive rendering of land and art. Danielle is always doing something interesting and she is one of my favourite people in the world to talk to. I was really grateful to get to talk to her here.
Danielle brought an amazing sculptural work by Eileen Agar as a starting point for this discussion about Danielle's work and writing in general. The work is Marine Object by Eileen Agar and you can see it by clicking this link to the Tate website
The next podcast will be out this time next week.
Action: KILL THE BILL! The closing date for submissions on Regulatory Standards Bill is 1.00pm, Monday, 23 June 2025
The point of the RSB is to try to make all future governments follow a rigid set of ideological “principles” handpicked by David Seymour when they are making laws.
These principles would:
Exclude Te Tiriti o Waitangi entirely.
Require the government to pay corporations if new rules impact their property, even if those rules are to stop pollution, protect nature, or prevent harm to people and communities.
Prioritise private property and “individual freedom” over environmental protection, public safety, and indigenous rights.
You can make a submission here
You can support Better off Read financially at Buy Better off Read a Coffee
Music in Better off Read was made by Brent McIntyre.
More from Better off Read
On the 5th of September this year, i was lucky enough to be in an event at Word Festival called I Wish I Wrote That with an incredibly talented line-up of writers including Jon Toogood. Jon had an event before ours and i watched him perform 'Home Again' on acoustic guitar from the Green Room. Even backstage and through a screen i found myself moved to tears - it's an incredible piece of songwriting that just seems to hit me more and more profoundly. About five minutes into Jon's book signing i needed to go to the foyer and it was wild. One thing became really clear - people love Jon and Jon's book and Shihad. During our event, Jon read a really beautiful piece about Aldous Harding's song 'Treasure'. One of the really great things about Jon's memoir Home Again is the way he writes about music, not just the music he makes but the music he loves.
Helen and i have been friends for a long time. Over the years her work has been incredibly inspiring to me. When i say 'Helen's work' i mean her writing, her activism, her visual art, her journaling, her essays, her thinking, her teaching, her friendship, her family-ship, her gardening and all the other amazing things she does. i also admire the way it is quite hard to separate these 'works' out from each other. If there is such a thing as an artist's life i think Helen is a really great example of that. When we met a few weeks ago, Helen brought along her journal as the object to act as a starting place for this conversation.
September is such an exciting month because it sees the launch of The Valley of Unlikely Acquaintances an amazing novel written by Terri Te Tau and published by Spoor Books
i loved talking to Molly Crighton over Zoom earlier this month about her new novel The Body and the Blood out with Hachette New Zealand
i'm really grateful to Tīhema Baker for speaking with me about his new novel One Day a Taniwha (Hachette) i was a massive fan of Tīhema's last novel Turncoat and i've enjoyed hearing Tīhema talk over the last few years. i was lucky enough to read Tīhema's book last year and i loved it. i reread it for this podcast and i still love it. Maybe even more. It's an incredibly compelling story set in several planes of experience - centrally the waking and sleeping lives. It's an incredibly intelligent and beautiful novel. Through this deft craft i think it makes possible new ways of thinking about fatherhood, work, mental health and how these are effected by colonisation and colonialism. In our discussion i touch on how fresh and cutting edge Tīhema's depiction of fatherhood is. i just can't recommend it enough. This podcast was recorded over Zoom.