I first met Wellington poet Kerry Popplewell when we both did the Writing the Landscape creative writing course at Victoria University in 2003, and along with other members of that course we met from time to time to discuss our writing and what was going on in our lives. I admired Kerry’s poetry, her zest for tramping, her wisdom, and her great attitude to life. I’m very pleased I met her, and very sad to hear of her death.
It was a dark and stormy night – no, really, it was! – when my new poetry collection Dracula in the Colonies, together with Mandy Hager’s new “Chasing Ghosts” mystery Revenge and Rabbit Holes, were launched at Unity Books Wellington earlier this month.
Photo credit: James Fraser
Happily, that didn’t prevent a good crowd gathering to attend the launch, enjoy the lovely food put on by Unity Books, listen to the speeches, and buy some books.
Colin Marshall of the Whitireia Publishing Programme, who helped to put together the launch, also doubled as videographer – here are his videos of publisher Mary McCallum, my “launcher”, poet Harvey Molloy who said some lovely things about my work and my writing career, and myself speaking at the launch.
My new poetry collection Dracula in the Colonies is launching at Unity Books Wellington on Wednesday 1 October from 6-7.30pm. It’s a double book launch: my Dracula in the Colonies and Mandy Hager’s new novel Revenge and Rabbit Holes.
All are welcome – no need to RSVP. And if you invite your friend, friends, partner, partners, or large and lavishly remunerated workplace* along, even better!
*Possibly fictional.
Dracula in the Colonies has received a couple of very nice endorsements from poets whose work I admire:
Janis Freegard:“Tim Jones’ powerful new collection takes us from Grimsby to Antarctica, traversing family life, migration, politics, climate change and loss. This is honest, tender, funny and intelligent writing from a story-teller poet.”
Erik Kennedy: “Eminently readable but never comfortable … Dracula in the Colonies is full of characters you’ll love to hate from a poet whose work we know to love.”
Thank you, Erik and Janis!
All the details
The launch will be at Unity Books, 57 Willis St, Wellington, from 6-7.30pm on Wednesday 1 October 2025. There will be drinks, nibbles, and books for sale and signing.
You and your friends are warmly invited to a double book launch at Unity Books on Wednesday 1 October: my new poetry collection Dracula in the Colonies and Mandy Hager’s new novel Revenge and Rabbit Holes.
All are welcome – no need to RSVP!
The launch will be at Unity Books, 57 Willis St, Wellington, from 6-7.30pm on Wednesday 1 October 2025. There will be drinks, nibbles, and books for sale and signing.
Halfway to Everywhere is Vivienne Ullrich’s second poetry collection, and I’m impressed. The poems in Halfway to Everywhere show a lot of formal ability as a poet, and as the collection goes on, that formal elegance was increasingly matched with subject matter that engaged me emotionally.
Many of these poems take as their subject matter art, historical figures and fairy tales. Mary Queen of Scots, Little Red Riding Hood, Scheherazade, Jack of “Jack and the Beanstalk” fame and the artist Max Gimblett all put in an appearance, as the poet invites us to see the world from their points of view.
“Mary Queen of Scots” (p. 24) is a good example of these poems. It begins:
I die tomorrow. It is a simple thing and yet it clamps my belly. I pray for a clean stroke and dignity.
From “Rutu” (p. 18), a poem inspired by Rita Angus’ painting of the same name:
… how is it we gift this month with myths of rebirth, when an eye towards our cross of stars would signal time for harvest, time for tuning in to self.
I was very impressed by the quality of both the poetry, and the thought that had gone into the poetry, in Halfway to Everywhere. I did find that – perhaps because of the number of poems about artworks and historical figures – it took about half the collection before I started to engage with the poems emotionally – in other words, to connect with them as well as be impressed by them. But as I continued reading, I found poems that spoke to me more directly, like “Footprint” (p. 62):
I hear you. No doubt it is different in my skin. I am my peculiar set of molecules after all, and I have the benefit of context and the words I left out.
This skill in addressing multiply points of view comes to fruition on my favourite poem in the collection, “Little Red Riding Hood” (p. 48), a retelling in which the dramatis personae all get a turn as protagonist: the wolf, the huntsman, the grandmother, and the girl herself. This poem combines formal ability and sly wit in a way that works extremely well. An excerpt won’t do it justice – check out the whole poem!
Vivienne Ullrich is a talented, clever, thoughtful poet, and as I read through this collection, I found her poems and her poetry sneaking up on me. Halfway to Everywhere is a good place to be.
I heard Mandy Hager read the first chapter of Strays & Waifs on a climate fiction and poetry panel at Newtown Library. It was a gripping description of a house destroyed by flood as the person living there, the novel’s protagonist Bella, can only watch in horror.
We learn that Bella is a climate fiction author and former climate activist, and both these aspects play into the narrative, but this is a murder mystery with a supernatural component. The novel does not follow the path I was expecting, but once I had recalibrated my expectations I got fully on board with the new direction.
I called Bella the protagonist above, because we meet her first and gradually learn about her past as a climate activist and how what happened then has led to deep trauma that still affects her in the present. That, and an unwelcome reminder of her past who turns up in the present, is one of the ghosts present in the story, but far from the only one.
That brings us to Freyja, the other protagonist – I think she is central enough to this story that she crosses the porous line between important secondary character and protagonist. Freyja has some unusual abilities which Bella initially recoils from – as did I as a reader at first; but Mandy Hager shows with great skill how Bella comes to tolerate and then accept those abilities, which come in mighty handy as the pair become involved in bringing justice to the dead and rescue to the living.
I know people very like Bella, so I had no difficulty believing in her as a character; I don’t know many people like Freyja, but she is so well-drawn that I soon found myself believing in her as well.
Mandy Hager writes with tremendous immediacy. And this is no drawing-room mystery: there is action too, vividly described action in which the skills Bella learned as a committed direct activist come into play. As a reader, I felt myself slipping in mud, I felt branches slap my face as I ran through the bush with a bad actor in hot pursuit.
The identity and nature of the villain is all too plausible – all too depressingly plausible – but they’re not exactly subtle, and I would have welcomed a bit more misdirection in that regard. Though, looking at the world around us, villains now delight in boasting of their villainy – so maybe I’m the one clinging to outdated expectations?
There are some really satisying punch-the-air moments in this book, and if the biggest one for me is when Bella turns to the New Zealand Companies Register database to find vital information, equally satisfying moments are also there for people who are less interested in deep-dive research into corporate villains than I am!
Strays & Waifs does justice to its premise, to its main and secondary characters, and to the reader, and starts to pull on the dangling threads of Bella’s past in ways that make me excited for the possibility of further “Chasing Ghosts” mysteries. Very little stays hidden forever.
Autocrats and body doubles go together like Elon Musk and Nazi salutes. Stalin had body doubles, Saddam Hussein had body doubles, and I wouldn’t be surprised if, somewhere in America, a small fleet of actors are even now applying the orange spray tan and putting on the mannerisms, the cruelty, the tiny hands.
So it’s very likely Vladimir Putin has his own set of look-alikes. This excellent novella – maybe it’s more accurate to call it a collection of linked stories – takes that concept and runs with it. The thirty-one legs of Vladimir Putin won the annual 20/40 publishing prize, for works of fiction and nonfiction between 20K and 40K words, and that win was well deserved.
In 18 short chapters, plus a Prologue, the authors take us on a worldwide, whirlwind tour of men who have the good or ill fortune to resemble Vladimir Putin in appearance. They have been paid by Russian functionaries to stand by to stand in for the big boss. Some Putins are pleased with the deal, others are having doubts both practical and existential. From Valparaiso to The Hague, what with invading Ukraine and all, it’s hard out here for a Putin.
Each chapter is a snappy portrait of a man and a place. There are hints of an arc plot whirring away in the background, but it’s mostly implied rather than overt. It comes to the fore as the book nears its end, especially in the final two chapters, which revisit the Putins from the Prologue (Aussie Putin Dave McDermott) and Chapter 1 (English Putin Samuel Chatswood). A Putin’s life is not a happy one.
The quality of the prose and the specificity of the descriptions are among the pleasures of this book – but what I most enjoyed is the subtle shifts of tone within and between chapters, from menace to humour to those uncomfortable places in between.
Why thirty-one legs, you may ask? Buy the book to find out – and buy it for a short, punchy, amusing, thought-provoking read that, unlike taking on the role of a Vladimir Putin lookalike, you won’t regret.
But we’ve been somewhere similar before – John Key’s Government tried to fast-track a similar range of projects. I was involved in stopping one of those projects, a motorway flyover the Government intended to build at the Basin Reserve cricket ground in Wellington.
It’s been a while since I’ve written any flash fiction, so I’m especially pleased to have my short-short story A Long Ball published in the Circle | Porowhita issue (December 2024) of Flash Frontier. Check them out!
Submissions on the Government’s odious Treaty Principles Bill close at 11.59pm on Tuesday 7 January. The Government recognises that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a barrier to the resource expropriation they want to carry out – which is why Christopher Luxon has let ACT off the leash on this one.
If you, like me, think that this Bill is a betrayal of the fundamental basis on which our nation was established, please submit against the Bill. There are many excellent submission guides out there – Together for Te Tiriti has a good one. I know it’s the holidays (and I’m enjoying my break!), but this is too important to let slide.
I’m very happy to have been asked to join a distinguished lineup of writers in this fundraising event, which is being held at the Hataitai Centre (the former Hataitai Bowling Club). The lineup is:
Jenny Bornholdt Gregory O’Brien Dame Fiona Kidman Tim Jones Sarah Scott
I’ll be reading poetry, including some climate poetry from New Sea Land and some new poems.
Tickets are adults $20, students and seniors $15. A mezze platter is available for $20.
From the event website:
“Celebrate local writers of Hataitai with live music and a relaxed chat, followed by readings by local poets Jenny Bornholdt, Gregory O’Brien, Dame Fiona Kidman, Tim Jones and Sarah Scott.
Profits raised will go towards sustaining a budding community programme of local creative art and literary events and workshops right here in Hataitai.
Mezze platters with a selection of delicious pairings for your pair with your BYO drink of choice. Vegan options are available.”
I’m very happy to be taking part in this event, organised by Wellington City Libraries, with three other writers tackling the climate crisis in different ways in their work. Here is the Library’s panui for the event:
One of the most important issues currently facing the planet is how we react to climate change, both as individuals and as a global community. One aspect of this is how our creative and scientific communities convey the issue.
To that end, we have gathered together four esteemed authors and scientists, who have directly connected to the subject, for a very special panel discussion at Ngā Puna Waiora | Newtown Library.
Panelists Erick Brenstrum, Mandy Hager, Frances Mountier and Tim Jones
Our panel features:
Tim Jones:
Tim Jones was born in England, grew up in Southland and lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington. He was awarded the NZSA Peter & Dianne Beatson Fellowship in 2022. His recent books include poetry collection New Sea Land (Mākaro Press, 2016) and climate fiction novel Emergency Weather (The Cuba Press, 2023). His poem “All the Summer” is included in Koe: An Aotearoa Ecopoetry Anthology, edited by Janet Newman and Robert Sullivan (Otago University Press, 2024).
Mandy Hager:
Mandy Hager is a multi-award winning author. In 2019 she received the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal, for life-time achievement and a distinguished contribution to NZ’s literature for young people. Her latest book, Strays and Waifs, is the first in an adult thriller series set on the Kapiti Coast.
Erick Brenstrum:
Meteorologist Erick Brenstrum worked for the New Zealand Meteorological Service for 43 years as a forecaster and educator. He has written about weather and climate for a number of newspapers and magazines including a column in New Zealand Geographic for 27 years. He is the author of The New Zealand Weather Book and Thalassa, a book of poems. He has lectured on meteorology at Victoria University and been a regular contributor on Radio New Zealand’s Nights program.
Frances Mountier:
Frances Mountier (Tangata Tiriti) is a climate justice activist and writer living in Newtown with her partner and children. Her writing has appeared in Turbine Kapohau, Sport, Takahē, JAAM, Hue & Cry, and Renegade House. This year, she is the Loxley Award recipient, asking “Is it time for a Climate Justice Union for Aotearoa?” She is working on a series of personal essays exploring parenthood, the housing crisis, climate justice, and possibilities for organising.
