An Angel @ My Blog
News and views from Janet Frame's literary estate
Saturday, February 26, 2022
"War comes whatever you sing" ~ Janet Frame
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
60th Anniversary of FACES IN THE WATER by Janet Frame
Faces in the Water by Janet Frame was first published in September 1961.
Sixty years later, it is as well appreciated and as relevant as ever.
FACES IN THE WATER was published in the UK (WH Allen) the USA (George Braziller) and New Zealand (Pegasus Press)
Current editions of Faces in the Water are available from Virago Modern Classics and Penguin Books. Ebooks also available in most territories.
Saturday, September 11, 2021
Remembering Erica van Acker, WTC 9/11
Wednesday, September 8, 2021
From the Archives: Burns Fellowship Reunion 2018
TODAY IN HISTORY: The Robert Burns Fellowship 60th Reunion
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO IN DUNEDIN 2018
Tributes to Absent Fellows
At the 2018 Burns reunion I appeared on Janet Frame's behalf at an event honouring the deceased Fellows. It was a pleasure and privilege to appear with the other friends and family members who took part in this moving tribute. Each of the representatives of absent fellows gave a short speech and read an example of the author's work. I read Janet Frame's short story 'Between my Father and the King.'Saturday, August 28, 2021
Siobhan Harvey receives 2021 Janet Frame Literary Trust Award
JANET FRAME LITERARY TRUST ANNOUNCEMENT
Saturday 28 August 2021
2021 Janet Frame Literary Trust Award for Poetry goes to Siobhan Harvey
Gift for Auckland Poet on Janet Frame’s Birthday
The Janet Frame Literary Trust is delighted to announce the recipient
of the 2021 Janet Frame Literary Trust Award for Poetry. Auckland
poet Siobhan Harvey will receive $5,000 from a fund set up by Janet
Frame for the purpose of encouraging New Zealand authors “of poetry
and imaginative prose”. The biennial award is timed to commemorate
Janet Frame’s birth date on the 28th of August. Janet Frame was
famously saved from an imminent lobotomy when a doctor noticed that
she had won a literary prize. She received many grants and prizes over
her long career and wanted to give back to her fellow writers.
Siobhan Harvey is originally from England and made New Zealand her
home 20 years ago. She is the author of eight books of poetry and non-fiction.
Her latest volume of poetry and creative non-fiction, ‘Ghosts’ (Otago
University Press 2021), explores themes of migration, homelessness and
family trauma. The UK Poetry Archive describes her poetry as “that of
a quester – a voyager — meditating on separation and discovery, on
time lost and time regained, on the tug of distant familial
connections, and the new global connectivity which means never being
out-of-touch.” Harvey is a lecturer in creative writing at the
Auckland University of Technology and her work is published widely in
New Zealand and international journals and anthologies.
Siobhan Harvey said that she was humbled “to be honoured in a legacy
left by New Zealand's foremost author” as well as finding herself the
recipient of an award given previously to writers whose work she
admires, such as Peter Olds, Tusiata Avia, David Eggleton, Catherine
Chidgey and Alison Wong.
“In this fraught time of a global pandemic and in an era in which the
financial earnings of writers in New Zealand are below the minimum
wage, this bequest allows me to fund writing time I would not have
been able to afford otherwise.”
Authorised by Pamela Gordon, Chair, Janet Frame Literary Trust
More Info on Siobhan Harvey:
https://poetryarchive.org/poet/siobhan-harvey/
https://www.anzliterature.com/member/siobhan-harvey/
Wednesday, July 14, 2021
Planting a tree at Janet Frame House
Sunday, July 11, 2021
'Meeting a Character': a short story by Janet Frame
A short story by Janet Frame
First published in JANET FRAME IN HER OWN WORDS (Penguin Books, 2011)
I was drinking coffee in a place in downtown Whanganui when I was approached by a middle-aged man who insisted that we knew each other. He sat opposite me without even a polite, May I sit here? and when I denied knowing him he smiled,
‘Of course you do. Remember Maniototo?’
He was referring to a novel I’d written. I wondered if perhaps he had written to me about the book and perhaps I had mislaid the letter and not answered it.
‘I’m not very good at answering letters, I’m afraid.’
‘You don’t remember, then?’
He said his name.
I repeated it. Certainly it was familiar. Then I remembered,
‘You mean you’re . . .’
‘Of course. I don’t know why novelists imagine that as soon as they finish with a character and the book is written and published, that character vanishes or dies. It was fashionable, once, to quote “In dreams begin responsibilities”.’
‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘Everyone quoted that vogue phrase. But what do you expect me to do now you’re in Whanganui?’
‘Nothing at all. It was by chance I saw you. But aren’t you curious to find out what I’ve been doing since you last thought and wrote about me?’
‘Of course I’m curious.’
‘Then let me satisfy your curiosity,’ he said, ‘in a way that I know would suit you.’
I looked questioningly at him.
‘Yes. I observed and knew you, also, and I’ve known that you’ve been longing to write one of those stories where the author meets a narrator who then takes over, and day by day (in a long train journey, or over a season of several days as guest in a house — I admit that in the modern age there are fewer opportunities for prolonged narration — perhaps even during a walk of the Milford Track or a Christmas holiday by the beach — O well, however it may arise), the story is told, the mystery solved, whereupon the author and the narrator part company and most likely neither sees the other again until, just by chance, a similar incident of meeting is repeated, where once again the author, curious to know of events since the last meeting, conducive to storytelling, listens once again — in a train, around a fire, on the sundeck of an evening overlooking the beach — perhaps that is the setting you would choose? There’s no escaping a story, you know . . .’
I agreed. The time was between Christmas and New Year, with Victoria Street a waste of tinsel and unbought Christmas gifts gathering dust and insect spray in the shop windows. I had no train journey in mind, nor had I planned to walk the Milford Track, nor was I cut off by storms, nor had I a bach by the sea where I could sit on the sundeck of an evening, looking out over the bay, and listening to the narrator.
‘Perhaps you’d like to come to my place for the weekend?’ I suggested. ‘I’ve a spare room. And perhaps one evening we can go to the pavilion on the beach at Castlecliff and sit watching the sea while you continue the story? It’s the nearest I have to that train journey across the Steppes or even across the Central Australian Desert or even the fourteen-hour journey between Auckland and Wellington.’
He accepted my invitation. He did know as well as I did, how I had dreamed of writing the kind of story he described, the story with the classic treatment and theme, the set piece, like a dance or movement of music.
There was one difficulty, however. Although I did recall his name, I had no idea of his character and actions. I therefore gave him my address, suggesting that he arrive about half-past five that evening (Friday), and everything would be ready for his stay. I then finished my coffee and hurried to the bus-stop in Ridgway Street just in time to catch a Castlecliff bus on the Alma Road or A route, and half an hour later I was home where my first action was to find a copy of Maniototo and look it up — so that later when he knocked on the door I at least knew something about him.