It's been a delightful two weeks at Eramboo Artist Environment in Sydney Australia's Terrey Hills. I've written the final short story for my collection, Pet, and I've re-drafted a couple more. I put the finishing touches on the stories I co-wrote with Dunedin school children as part of the Little Landers programme earlier this year, and I've also done some work on a Port Chalmers project I'm involved with. So, it's been a pretty productive two weeks!

It's also been nice to have the chance to do some reading. I've read two and a bit books, Billy Bird by Emma Neale (a beautiful, inventively-written novel about a marriage in crisis - excellent), Evie's War by Anna McKenzie (a meticulously-researched young adult WWII novel - also excellent) and I've made a start on The Omnivore's Dilemma (absolutely horrifying, but also excellent). 

I would highly recommend Eramboo to any writers or artists looking for a beautiful, affordable and inspiring  environment in which to develop creative work. We've had the use of a studio bedroom with a little desk in it, and also the use of 'the teaching space' - a long, sunny room with desks, a couch and a well-stocked bookcase. There's also a gallery space, which I've been able to use as a Pilates space in the mornings. There are wallabies in the garden, along with an incredible collection of birds including kookaburra, cockatoos, magpies and our favourite, the cheeky butcherbird. If you're lucky, the friendly brush turkey might also function as your alarm clock by scrabbling around on the porch with its dinosaur claws. 

Several artists have permanent studio spaces here, and everyone we've met has been welcoming and kind. 

The township of Mona Vale is a relatively short drive away, and features an art supply shop, a great library (where you can do printing) and an excellent bookshop. Mona Vale beach is worth a visit, as is the glorious Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. It's also fairly accessible to central Sydney, and we spent a weekend in the city soaking up the art galleries and an opera. 

A culture shock warning for fellow kiwis - I've never before stayed at a place where I couldn't just go for a stroll when I needed to stretch my legs. Eramboo is on a fairly busy network of roads with no footpaths, and we couldn't find any walks nearby. Having to get in a car to go for a walk was an adjustment - and the best walking spot we found was the National Park, which has a $12 entry fee. (Totally worth it, but not very sustainable for repeat visits.) Be sure to hire a car, otherwise you might find yourself going a bit stir-crazy.

However, we've still managed to see beautiful sights, have cultural experiences and do plenty of our own creative work - and we leave this beautiful environment feeling thoroughly inspired. 

Thank you, Eramboo! 

I've popped over the ditch to experience the Sydney winter for a couple of weeks (it's not dissimilar to the Dunedin summer!). I'm staying at Eramboo Artist Environment, which is a wonderful facility in Terrey Hills, near Sydney's northern beaches. I can't get over the incredible variety of birds here - and the incredible variety of creepy crawlies! Apparently the artists share this space with a goanna and a python, along with a magnificent kookaburra, a friendly butcherbird, several intrepid bush turkeys and the ever-present cockatoos. 

Find out more about Eramboo Artist Environment. 

While I'm here I'm completing what will (hopefully) be the final short story for my collection, Pet. I'll also polish up a couple of older stories, and do a couple of other writing tasks too. 

About Pet
Opening with award-winning story Emotional Support Animal (Sunday Star-Times), Pet is a collection of literary short stories. Each story peels a different layer of meaning from the word ‘pet’, and the collection addresses themes of captivity, animal attraction and pack mentality. The tone of the collection is contemporary and darkly humorous. The stories are not afraid to peer beneath the stone pillars of culture and confront what is wriggling beneath. Stories from Pet have been, or will be, published in Takahē, Fresh Ink, The Sunday Star-Times, Mindfood Magazine, Headland, Bonsai and Pot Roast. Kathryn is the ‘momager’ of one of New Zealand’s most famous pets, Bruce the Cat, about whom she wrote the children’s book Bruce Finds A Home. 

I had a really special morning on Saturday reading Bruce Finds A Home to the kids at Blueskin Bay Library. We heard another reading about a lost cat needing to find its home, and some lovely volunteers from Dunedin Cat Rescue came along and talked to kids too. Then the kids coloured in some Bruce colouring sheets. They did a great job of colouring in the sky, with beautiful Dunedin sunrises making quite an appearance, along with a wonderful Matariki star cluster. 

I bought a fundraising catnip toy for our cat Jager (Bruce's 'big sister', and also a rescue cat) and she's was absolutely delighted with it. 

I was honoured to be asked to read at Ōtepoti's National Flash Fiction Day today, where a group of local writers celebrated the shortest day by reading some extremely short fiction - the winners of the Flash Fiction and MIcro Madness competitions. 

I read the Micro Madness piece Donor, by Tim Saunders from Palmerston North. I chose to read Tim's piece because there were shades of human / animal connection, a hint of death and a sense of history and future all contained in 46 words. 
You can read all of the top Micro Madness stories here. 

The Micro Madness winner, Susan Wardell, read her winning story Tī kōuka to us.

I also had the opportunity to read Over the Fields from Ballyturin House, 1921, by Rose Collins from Canterbury. Rose won second prize in the flash fiction competition for her mysterious and haunting story about an IRA ambush in Ireland. Tim Saunders came third, and I really enjoyed his dark yet humorous story, T is for Tiger. 
​The full list of winners can be found here. 

It was a real treat hearing so many stories written, and read by, so many different writers. 

A huge thank you to the wonderful Iona Winter for organising the event. Thank you also to Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature, Otago University Press, Dunedin Libraries, the University Book Shop, and everyone else who contributed to the day. I'm already looking forward to next year's event!

This year the New Zealand Society of Authors AGM was held in beautiful Dunedin. I attended the afternoon sessions at the library - here are my rough notes. 

To podcast or YouTube – getting your voice out there: Vanda Symon

• You can use podcasts and videos to read excerpts from your work
• A podcast or video also enables you to record your voice for posterity
• A lot of people are creating video book trailers 

Thanks, but no thanks – why agents turn people down: Chris Else

• Agents work on commission
• Present yourself professionally to the agents you approach
• Don't be cute - be professional
• The agent will want to know the title, genre, length, audience, and about the plot / characters / subject / tone / setting
• They will also want to know about your experience, credits, location and occupation
• Avoid puffery and 'the hard sell'
• John Cranna added that High Spot Literary Agency might be worth approaching 

Getting the good word on copyright: Paula Browning

• Check the IP clauses in your employment agreements
• If someone commissions you, they retain the copyright - not you
• The copyright term for writers is life plus fifty years

Te Reo in your writing – a when to, how to guide: Iona Winter

• Ask yourself why you want to use Te Reo and if it's relevant to your story
• Get used to speaking some everyday words in Te Reo. There are so many free resources out there
• Start with place names, flora, fauna ... be curious
• Te Reo can anchor your writing here in Aotearoa
• When using Māori characters, do really good research and get Māori alongside you from the start
• Chris Else added that specificity draws readers in - it's what readers like 

What a weekend! I was fortunate to attend three Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival events (I would have liked to have gone to thirty!) and I've had a wonderful time catching up with friends, meeting people and learning new things. 

Gala Showcase: Distracted
The writers seemed a little distracted from the theme of distraction, but the evening was a wonderful opportunity to learn more about Akala, John Boyne, Marcus Zusak, Clementine Ford, Tina Makereti and Chris Tse, and to be entertained by MC Michele A'Court. None of the writers really addressed 'guarding creative space amid today's digital noise', but instead spoke on their own passions and obsessions, which was just as interesting. 

Point of view: workshop with Paula Morris
In this workshop we learnt how to choose and use a point of view to dramatic advantage. Here are some rough notes:

• Whatever form you use (poetry, short stories, novels) - you have to know the constraints and work within them. Likewise, point of view is a constraint 
• If you switch point of view during a story, make sure you're doing it for a good dramatic reason
• What is your point of view character's state of mind? In their description of the world around them, what words can you use to convey this state of mind?
• Reading suggestions: Bleak House, Remains of the Day, Bright Lights Big City, and the stories of Junot Diaz, Alice Munro and Lori Moore
• Writing is not simply self-expression - it is made. 

Short, Shorter, Shortest
With Paula Morris, Iona Winter and Michael Harlow. Chaired by Maxine Alterio. 
This was a delightful event. Below, some no doubt very poorly-summarised notes:
Michael:

• Prose is trying to get somewhere - poetry is like dancing
• Poetry is full of quick surprises, discovery
• Writers ransack the memory and recover what's forgotten
• Janet Frame said she read all of her sentences aloud
• There's a truth to the imagination
• We are never in complete control of our material
• You write to discover what you don't know 
• Reading and writing are complementary activities 
• If you get stuck worrying about ideas you'll miss out on all the music (the music is in the words / language)
• Sometimes when I get stuck I take the last line of a poem and put it up the top. It makes you realise what's important 

Iona:

• You can hide a lot of things in a piece of flash fiction. There's always some kind of hook 
• A memory will sometimes reference something that's happening in the present 

Paula:

• Lori Moore said that writing a short story is like having a short, passionate affair. A novel is like a marriage
• ​If you are writing short stories you should buy (or borrow from the library) collections of short stories

Reading recommendations: Debra Eisenberg, Ellen Gilchrist, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, William Trevor, Junot Diaz, Tessa Hadley, Charlotte Grimshaw, Alice Tawhai, Patricia Grace, Joy Cowley (The Silk), Frankie McMillan, Vincent O'Sullivan. 

I have already read Iona's wonderful book 'Then the Wind Came'. I picked up a copy of Paula's 'False River' at the festival, and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into it. 

​A huge thank you to the festival team for organising such a wonderful series of events for Dunedin writers and readers. 

I received a shout-out from Landfall literary journal in their review of Bonsai: Best small stories from Aotearoa New Zealand, which I have a story in. 

"Colloquial and casually brutal dialogue is deployed to devastating effect by Kathryn van Beek in ‘Women’s studies’. Working as a cleaner in ‘Femme Fatale’ to finance her university studies, van Beek’s protagonist vacuums as unobtrusively as possible around the workers and clients. In the process she witnesses scenes that are sometimes shocking in their strangeness."

You can read the full review here. 

I woke up early this morning and ran down to the dairy to pick up my copy (okay, copies) of the Sunday Star-Times with my short story in it!

It was a wonderful surprise to see that the story has been illustrated with a custom artwork by designer Neil Bond. I'm hoping to print and frame a copy!
​
You can read Emotional Support Animal online here.
You can check out Neil's website here.

I was the 2018 recipient of the Creative Hub / Earthskin Retreat writer’s residency. Here’s how I made the residency work for me … and why you should definitely consider applying.  

I stomped along Back Beach Road next to my husband, mud flying like spittle as I vented my spleen. 
‘Residencies are so stupid!’ I complained. ‘Six months in a cold house somewhere with a tiny stipend? That only suits people who are independently wealthy or already broke. What are people with jobs supposed to do? Quit?’
‘Mmmm,’ said my husband, who had heard this rant before. ‘What should we do for dinner tonight?’

Not long afterwards, an email from The Creative Hub arrived in my inbox. 
‘New Hub residency in Muriwai beauty spot,’ said the subject-line. 
‘Another stupid residency,’ I thought. But I clicked anyway. 
‘The residency will take place for the month of September 2018, and is open to anyone who has completed a Creative Hub writing course,’ the email said. 
‘A month?’ I thought. ‘A month! That might just be do-able!’
And so, I applied. I figured my chances of being accepted were low ... to low to worry about working out the logistics.

A while later, I received another email from The Creative Hub. 
‘This email is to congratulate you on being the successful applicant for the 2018 September Earthskin / Creative Hub Muriwai Residency,’ it said. 
‘OMG!’ I replied, in my finest prose.  

Time to work out those logistics! 

Q: How do I get the time?
A: Hustle. 

A month is a wonderful, practical period of time for a residency – long enough to get stuck into a project, but short enough that if you have a job or other commitments, you can probably work the residency around them. 

In my case, I would normally have been able to take annual leave, but I had already booked my first-ever trip to Europe, and I wasn’t about to cancel that. Luckily my boss let me cobble together an arrangement whereby I took some annual leave, wrangled some study leave, and also worked remotely for a couple of hours each afternoon. (Working remotely was actually a useful tether to the outside world.)

I’m based in Dunedin, but someone with family commitments who lived in Auckland might be able to use the space more like an office – staying there during the week and returning home during the weekends. If you think you might require extra flexibility, why not drop the Creative Hub an email and ask some questions before making your application. What’s the worst that could happen?

Q: What do I do with the time?
A: Spend it wisely. 

I made a time management plan before I arrived. My weekday routine was to get up at seven, do some pilates, have breakfast, and then write until at least midday with as much coffee as I wanted, but absolutely no internet. Then I had lunch, did my office work, and spent the rest of the afternoon reading, hanging out with the resident chicken, and going for a walk through the forest and down to the beach. After dinner I revised drafts, wrote blog posts and worked on illustrations for the next Bruce the Cat book. 

Weekends were a bit looser. I spent one weekend at the National Writers Forum, one weekend hosting a writing retreat for my Creative Hub cohort, and one holding a ‘show and tell’ at Earthskin Retreat and catching up with friends. 

Over the past couple of years I’ve read a lot about the routines of other writers, and most seem to write productively for three to five hours per day. Going into the residency, that was useful information to know – otherwise I might have flagellated myself trying to write all hours of the day and night. Having time up my sleeve for thinking, reading and revising was more useful than spending every waking hour at my keyboard. 

Q: What is Earthskin Retreat in Muriwai like? 
A: Glorious. 

Earthskin Retreat is a two-storey house nestled in amongst native bush. On a sunny day it’s toasty warm, and on a gloomy day there’s a fireplace to keep things cheerful. (Pro tip: bring slippers!) 

Muriwai itself is an inspiring spot. Living at Earthskin is like living in an aviary. (Pro tip: bring your camera!) The beach and the café are a short walk from Earthskin, and there’s also a dairy and takeaway shop just down the road.  

Q: What should I work on?
A: Something you’ve thought about before you get there. 

In 2015 I undertook a two-week, self-funded residency at The NZ Pacific Studio, and while it was a great experience, I didn’t come away with a lot of decent work. I think that’s because I didn’t have a clear idea about what I wanted to achieve when I went into it. 

This time around, I had just completed a funding application for a collection of short stories. The application was ultimately unsuccessful, but the work I put into it set me up to make the most of the residency. By the time I got to Muriwai I already had an overarching project (the collection of short stories), a title with multiple facets of meaning (Pet), and outlines for several stories. The first story I wrote just poured out.   

Q: What will the outcomes of the residency be?
A: Whatever you decide they’ll be … plus a bit more. 

I made a list of things I wanted to achieve during the residency. I knew I would end up deviating from the plan, but I also knew that having a rough map would help me stay on task. The list was:

• Complete first drafts of two short stories
• Complete four blog posts about the residency
• Complete four Bruce the Cat drawings 
• Attend the National Writers Forum and the Bonsai book launch
• Create and send a ‘Kathryn van Beek’ newsletter to my email subscribers
• Do pilates almost every day
• Go for a walk almost every day

In the end, I only completed one Bruce the Cat drawing. On the up-side, I wrote far more than two short story drafts. The first story I wrote, Emotional Support Animal, went on to come third in the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition. (The first and second place winners, Fiona Sussman and Eileen Merriman, are also Creative Hub graduates!) I wrote a piece of flash fiction that I'm really proud of, and I've just put the finishing touches on two other short stories I started on the residency. I also have a couple of other rough drafts ready to pull out and polish up. (And I wrote a couple of a real turds that ended up in the Earthskin Retreat fireplace. What a satisfying way to dispose of bad writing!)

Beyond those tangible outcomes, I also had much more time to think than I do in my daily life. All that walking and thinking has enriched my writing and deepened my short story ideas. And of course, being selected to undertake the residency was a real boost to my confidence, and a big stride along my writing journey. 

Q: Should I apply?
A: Yes!

I skipped along Back Beach Road next to my husband, wildflower petals swirling in the warm air around us like confetti. 
‘I’ve been thinking about this Sunday Star-Times thing,’ I said. ‘It really all stems from The Creative Hub. Doing the course, and staying connected with such a great cohort of people, and then getting the residency.’
‘Mmmm,’ said my husband, who had heard about nothing but the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition for days.  ‘What should we do for dinner?’



More details

How to apply
The Creative Hub / Earthskin Retreat residency is open to anyone who has completed a Creative Hub writing course. Applications close on 20 February 2019. Email enquiries@thecreativehub.net.nz for details. 

Earthskin Retreat
Visit the Earthskin Retreat website to learn more about the facilities. 

The Creative Hub
Visit The Creative Hub website to learn more about the writing courses that are offered both in-person and online.