What I’ve been reading: “The World I Found” by Latika Vasil and “Famdamily” by the Meow Gurrrls

My novel Emergency Weather has got off to a great start and there is more: (“Talking Up a Storm: The Making of Emergency Weather” this coming Wednesday, 12.30-1.30, Unity Books Wellington), but it’s time to talk about two books I’ve been reading and very much enjoying.

Fiction: The World I Found, by Latika Vasil

The World I Found is available from Latika Vasil’s website & via NZ BookHub.

The World I Found is a really good read. It’s a Young Adult novel seen through the eyes of 15-year-old Quinn, who is reluctantly dragged off to Campbell Island by her Mum, who is heading there as part of a scientific expedition. While Quinn is on the island, a worldwide pandemic breaks out, which means life is very different when she returns to Aotearoa and has to make her own choices in a radically changed world while attempting to find those of her family and friends who’ve survived, and deal with her attraction to a boy who can’t be relied on.

Latika Vasil does a great job of showing the world through Quinn’s eyes. She’s brave, resourceful, but also impetuous and at times beset by doubt. She’s a very realistic protagonist – I enjoyed seeing the world through her eyes. If you enjoy YA fiction as so many of us do, or if you’re a high school teacher looking for a well-written book that touches on important issues and tells a strong story through the eyes of a relatable protagonist, The World I Found is for you.

Poetry: Famdamily – Meowing Part 2, a poetry anthology by the Meow Gurrrls

Available in Unity or Good Books, by emailing meowgurrrls@gmail.com or via NZ BookHub

I went to the launch of this new anthology from The Meow Gurrrls, six Wellington-region poets whose work I’ve previously read, admired and sometimes reviewed: Janis Freegard, Kirsten Le Harivel, Mary Jane Duffy, Mary Macpherson, Abra Sandi King and Sudha Rao.

The launch was lots of fun, and so is this anthology of poems on the general theme of family.

With illustrations by Mary-Jane Duffy and photos of the six poets as children, this little book is an attractive package, but the real star is the poetry. I like all the poems, but some particular favourites include “Bikinis plural” by Mary-Jane Duffy, “Our need” by Mary Macpherson, “Fire Mom” by Abra Sandi King, “Les Frères” by Janis Freegard, “Letter to Arun” by Sudha Rao and “After-school mothers” by Kirsten Le Harivel.

Famdamily reminds me quite a bit of Millionaire’s Shortbread, one of my favourite Wellington poetry anthologies – and that’s a definite recommendation!

Wellington decides 2022: Who deserves your vote in the local body elections?

Wellington is a city facing serious issues. Despite – or because of? – having a centre-right Mayor who’s been consistently outvoted by more progressive Councillors during the past three years, Wellington has made some important decisions to move towards a lower-emissions city that isn’t built on the cult of the car. But water, waste and sea level rise, plus the vital need to turn emissions reductions plans into action, mean there are huge issues to be addressed in the next term.

That’s why I’m thinking carefully about how to cast my votes for Mayor, Council and Regional Council. I haven’t finally decided how I’m going to vote, but here’s where I look for information and what I’m thinking.

Sources of information for voters

Here are some survey results and candidate analyses worth checking out:

Vote Climate (nationwide)
Generation Zero (nationwide)
Policy.nz (nationwide)
Living Streets Aotearoa Wellington candidates survey
Island Bay Healthy Streets candidate rankings

Personally, I vote mainly on climate policy, transport policy, environmental policy, and when it comes to sitting Councillors, whether they have shown the ability to get good outcomes in areas I care about. I always encourage people to pay attention to the Regional Council, not just the City Council, because the Regional Council plays a crucial role in Wellington’s transport system and many areas of environmental matters.

When it comes to existing or former Councillors who are standing again, a big factor for me is what they have actually achieved as Councillors, not just what they say they will do.

The elections I’ll be voting in are Mayor, Pukehīnau/Lambton Ward of Wellington City Council, and Poneke/Wellington Constituency of Greater Wellington Regional Council.

Mayor of Wellington

According to the only scientific poll I’ve seen, Paul Eagle (Labour-endorsed) entered the campaign very narrowly ahead of Tory Whanau (Greens-endorsed), with sitting Mayor Andy Foster not too far behind. These are three candidates the media has focused on.

I will be ranking Tory Whanau first of these three, followed by Andy Foster well ahead of Paul Eagle. Here’s why:

Tory Whanau has come across best on the campaign trail and appears to have the ability to bring a pro-climate action, pro-low carbon transport majority together on Council. My major reservation is her lack of experience in local body politics, but she has considerable experience at national level.

Andy Foster has been a mixed bag as Mayor. He got off to a very rocky start but has improved. He still tends to change sides at the last minute on major decisions, but has mostly supported climate action, low-carbon transport solutions, and the adoption of measures that embody Te Tiriti in local Government – or at least, stood aside and let them happen.

Paul Eagle is a former Councillor who is the current Labour MP for Rongotai. Despite his relative seniority, he has never been a Minister or chaired a Select Committee. The Labour Party want to replace him in Rongotai, and hit upon the solution of endorsing him as a Mayoral candidate. If he wins, this should trigger a by-election and allow Labour to select a more preferred candidate in Rongotai, such as Fleur Fitzsimons.

Paul, who as a Councillor was a known and at times vitriolic opponent of cycleways and other low-carbon transport options, has repaid Labour’s endorsement by running his own slate of centre-right candidates against Labour’s candidates, and refusing to support Labour candidates until put under duress. Instead, he has aligned himself with Diane Calvert, the leader of the right-wing faction on the existing Council.

I fear that the election of Paul Eagle as Mayor will result in Wellington going backwards on climate action, and lead to a hopelessly divided Council. I hope I am wrong about that, and if elected, I would urge him not to undo the good work of the previous term, and not to let his past positions on transport define him.

Of the candidates less talked up by the media, Ellen Blake has a great track record on walking and many other community issues, and a deep knowledge of how Council processes work.

Pukehīnau/Lambton Ward of Wellington City Council

In my local ward (from which three Councillors are elected), five candidates have impressed me. Sitting Councillors Iona Pannett and Tamatha Paul disagree strongly on housing policy, but nevertheless have worked both together and individually to get many important climate, transport, environment and Te Tiriti policies across the line. I’m backing both of them. Ellen Blake would make an excellent Councillor and her experience would be of benefit there.

Afnan al-Rubayee impressed me both when she came to my doorstep and at the Mt Victoria candidates’ meeting, though like all Labour candidates she faces the dilemma of whether she has to follow Paul Eagle’s lead if he is elected Mayor. I didn’t know anything about Jonathan Markwick prior to this campaign, but I liked him based on his presence at the MVRA meeting.

Pōneke/Wellington constituency of Wellington Regional Council

Your Regional Council vote is vital on transport & environment – it’s the Regional Council that is responsible for Wellington’s buses and trains. Five Regional Councillors are elected from this ward and I think seven candidates deserves careful consideration. Thomas Nash and Roger Blakeley have done excellent work throughout the previous term and are my top choices. Daran Ponter has done a good job overall. Yadana Saw impressed me at the candidates’ meeting, as did Chris Montgomerie – and there is a real dearth of women on the Regional Council. Thomas Bryan would be excellent to have on Council due to his personal experience of and knowledge of disability issues, and under the Dad jokes (which seemed to be a hit with the younger crowd at the MVRA meeting!) Chris Calvi-Freeman also knows his onions when it comes to transport.

A note on using your STV vote

I recommend ranking every candidate, with candidates you really don’t want elected ranked last.

As The Spinoff says in its guide: “Ranking someone last, and ranking every other candidate above them, is the best way to ensure a candidate you are really opposed to isn’t elected.”

No Other Place To Stand: An Anthology Of Climate Change Poetry From Aotearoa New Zealand

Pile of copies of poetry anthology "No Other Place to Stand" ion table, with trees shown through window in background

I’m very pleased that my poem “Not for me the sunlit uplands,” first published in New Sea Land, is included in this new anthology. I’m looking forward to the Wellington launch on 14 July – check out the details below:

Auckland University Press invites you to the launch of NO OTHER PLACE TO STAND: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CLIMATE CHANGE POETRY FROM AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND.

Join editors Jordan Hamel, Rebecca Hawkes, Erik Kennedy and Essa Ranapiri – as well as plenty of special guests – to the celebration and launch party of this brilliant new anthology.

6pm, Thursday 14 July
Meow
9 Edward Street
Wellington
All welcome!

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/389905359776491

Editors’ note: We’re also planning a Te Waipounamu launch for the anthology with Word Christchurch later in the year. 

Book Review: “The Death of Music Journalism” by Simon Sweetman

Front cover of The Death of Music Journalism, a poetry collection by Simon Sweetman

Before I say anything else, I loved the cover of this new poetry collection by well-known music journalist – and performer, and blogger, and poet – Simon Sweetman. The cover of The Death of Music Journalism is both highly informative and ever-so-slightly surreal, which really appeals to me.

I’m not sure whether he’d take this a compliment, but I think of Simon Sweetman as an old-school music journalist, the kind who could conceivably have stepped out of the pages of Rolling Stone magazine, a local and latter-day Robert Christgau or Lester Bangs. I think of him writing passionately in favour of bands and albums I like (Bowie!), and equally passionately against other bands and albums I like.

So I had a little trepidation prior to opening this volume – oh my god is he going to have another go at St Vincent?, but my fears were quickly laid to rest. These poems are still passionate about music and life, but they’re also reflective, funny, discursive, and really, really well written. They’re about Simon’s relationship with music – favourite songs, favourite bands, favourite musicians – but also how music has reflected and influenced his relationship with his family, as in “Father and Son”, which isn’t just, or even mainly, about the Cat Stevens song.

You don’t have to know your paradiddles from your palm muting to enjoy this book. Music is the kicking-off point for many of these poems, but they’re mostly about people. If you know who Steve Gadd is or have an opinion about Mark Knopfler’s guitar solos, then that might add a little frisson to your response, but such knowledge is far from essential. The Death of Music Journalism is a sprawling, generous, entertaining and moving collection of poems, and I recommend it.

Book Review: “Five O’Clock Shadows” by Richard Langston



Front cover of Five O'Clock Shawdows, a poetry collection by Richard Langston

I’ve heard Richard Langston read a number of times over the years, and always enjoyed his work, but at the Southern Writers at Te Awe Brandon Library event in October 2020 I was particularly struck by how much I enjoyed the poems from his new collection Five O’Clock Shadows, published by The Cuba Press. So I was keen to read them as well as hear them – and Five O’Clock Shadows, Richard’s sixth collection, doesn’t disappoint.

Richard enjoys a lot of stuff I also enjoy: Dunedin, Wellington, cricket, music. A collection that includes a poem about Brendon McCullum’s 302 vs India at the Basin Reserve, and a poem about how marvellous Dunedin is, has already gone a long way towards securing my loyalty. But it’s some of the poems I’m not pre-wired to enjoy that most stand out for me here – such as “Bsharri, Lebanon” and “Sons”. This is a fine, humanistic collection.

(For the avoidance of doubt: I do not in any way identify with the subject matter of the poem “Snoring”. Not at all.)




Southern Writers at Te Awe Brandon Library – 20 Oct 2020

From the Wellington City Library blog:


Image shows books by poets taking part in the Southern Writers event
______________________________
20 October 2020
Te Awe Library – 29 Brandon Street
12.30pm to 2pm
______________________________


Join the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/2763822373868512/

This event inaugurates the Te Awe event space, with six fine poets and prose writers giving a very special lunch time reading. All hail from Dunedin or Southland.

They are:

Kay McKenzie Cooke, Richard Langston, Tim Jones, Nick Ascroft, Madison Hamill and Jenny Powell, with Mary McCallum reading some of the late Elizabeth Brooke-Carr’s work.

So why not take this rare opportunity, grab your lunchtime sandwiches or buy one from the Te Awe café, and enliven your lunch listening to some of New Zealand’s finest poets reading from their works. Enjoy.

Hop across to the Wellington City Library blog for further details of the poets and their latest books!

Images of authors taking part in the Southern Writers events

Bougainville Library Project Book Fair This Weekend

There’s a book fair being held this weekend in Wellington to raise funds for a library in Bougainville on behalf of the Bougainville Library Project.

The book fair runs from 10am-4pm on Sat 6 November and Sun 7 November at the Portrait Gallery, Shed 11 , Wellington Waterfront.

The Bougainville Library Project also has a Facebook page.

This book fair sounds like a win all the way round for book lovers and for Bougainville, so I hope that, if you’re in Wellington, you’ll be able to make it along.

Writing Past Each Other? Literary Translation and Community

I was sent information about this conference by the organisers, who asked me to pass it on to people who may be interested – and what better place to do that than this blog? In particular, the organisers are keen to publicise the call for papers, which closes on 31 March.

As someone with an interest in the translation of poetry, I am especially interested in the sessions they are planning on poetry and translation, which are being organised by poet Chris Price:

As a special feature of the conference, we are also organising translation workshop sessions with noted New Zealand poets (participants should pre-register; details to come). There will also be an evening reading session.

Here is the full announcement. For other details, e.g. how to register, please check out the conference web site.

Writing Past Each Other? Literary Translation and Community International Conference in Literary Translation

Victoria University of Wellington
11-13 December 2010

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:
Lawrence Venuti
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Announcement and Call for Papers

Metge and Kinloch (Talking Past Each Other: Problems in Cross-Cultural Communication, 1978), explore the ways in which those from diverse backgrounds misread important cultural differences in everyday life.

At this conference we hope to explore how literary translation promotes awareness and appreciation of such differences, while simultaneously creating a sense of community across local and international boundaries, or how a lack of such exchange can contribute to the isolation of literary cultures: how is globalisation affecting international literary exchange? how might translation contribute more to literary communities?

While papers on how these issues are articulated in the Asia-Pacific region are especially welcome, we also encourage paper proposals on a wide range of topics related to practical and theoretical aspects of literary translation and covering cross-cultural linguistic interaction from across the globe. Panel proposals (3 to 4 speakers) are especially welcome. Conference papers are to be delivered in English, but may relate to any of the world’s languages.

As a special feature of the conference, we are also organising translation workshop sessions with noted New Zealand poets (participants should pre-register; details to come). There will also be an evening reading session.

Please send abstracts (title of paper, name of presenter, 250 word outline and a short (50 word) bio-bibliographical note) by 31st March 2010 to NZCLT (at) vuw.ac.nz. We plan to publish selected papers from the conference in a refereed volume. Conference attendees wishing to have their papers published should submit them by 31st January 2011 for consideration.

Seminar: Electric Vehicles and Electric Transport in New Zealand: 2010 and Beyond

The Annual General Meeting of the Sustainable Energy Forum (SEF) on 6 November will mark the end of my three-year term as Convenor of SEF. While I’ve enjoyed the role, I’m looking forward to being able to spend more time working directly on the issues, and less time organising things.

But the final thing I have to organise is the seminar below. SEF held a similar seminar in 2007, and the 2009 seminar will look at how far things have moved in the world of electric transport since then, and whether those moves are welcome.

You don’t have to be an expert, or a fan of electric vehicles, to attend. Pretty much everyone has an opinion on transport. If you do, or if you’d just like to learn more, please come along.

Sustainable Energy Forum Seminar

Electric Vehicles and Electric Transport in New Zealand: 2010 and Beyond

When:
Friday 6 November, 12.30-2pm

Where: Large Gallery, Turnbull House, 11 Bowen St, Wellington

Admission: By koha

Can we switch our transport system from burning fossil fuels to using electricity? If so, how quickly will it happen, and how much difference will it make to New Zealand’s oil dependence and to greenhouse gas emissions from transport?

The Sustainable Energy Forum (SEF) is holding a seminar in Wellington on Friday 6 November to talk about these issues. Speakers will discuss developments in electric vehicle technology, the opportunities and difficulties in marketing electric vehicles, and the effect that widespread use of electric transport is likely to have on New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions.

There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion.

If you’re interested in transport, vehicle technology, green jobs, oil depletion, or climate change, you’ll find something of interest in this SEF Seminar.

Presentations

Tim Jones: Using Electricity for Transport: An Overview
Seminar chair Tim Jones will make a brief introductory presentation outlining the range of electric transport options now available.

Doug Clover: Recent Developments in Electric Vehicle Technology
Researcher Doug Clover will look at recent trends in the performance and cost of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and current and emerging developments in electric vehicle battery technology.

Hayden Scott-Dye: Understanding Electric Vehicles in New Zealand
Hayden Scott-Dye of Meridian Energy will present an overview of the Mitsubishi iMiEV evaluation and some of its key results, the benefits of adopting and accelerating the deployment of electric vehicles in NZ, and some of the key challenges going forward.

Steve Goldthorpe: Greenhouse Consequences of Electric Vehicles in New Zealand – An Assessment Framework

Energy analyst Steve Goldthorpe will set out the assumptions required to assess the impact on the CO2 emissions per person kilometer of personal travel associated with an individual’s switch from a conventional vehicle to an electric vehicle, and explore the sensitivities of key parameters.

Updates will be posted at http://www.sef.org.nz/conferences.html#2009

Fifty Yards from Middle Earth

A flashback to 2000, and the filming of The Lord of the Rings in Wellington …

I first beheld Arwen Undómiel at the test cricket. It wasn’t quite the depths of Mordor, but the weather in March 2000 would have done justice to the dead marshes at Sauron’s gates. A thin cold air was blowing across the Basin Reserve, the main cricket ground in Wellington, New Zealand, the city where Peter Jackson was busy filming the three books that make up The Lord of the Rings.

It was New Zealand versus Australia in the test, and New Zealand was in trouble. I took my seat at the northern end, well rugged up and prepared for disappointment, and settled back to watch the play. After a few minutes, I noticed a steady stream of young girls making their way to a cloaked figure seated a few rows below me and asking her for autographs. “Do you know who that is?” I asked the man sitting nearest to me. “We’ve been wondering the same thing ourselves,” he replied. “We think it might be Anna Paquin.”

But I wasn’t convinced. Anna Paquin, Wellington-born star of The Piano, X-Men etc., was living in the US if my mental showbiz map was up to date. “I think it might be Liv Tyler,” I whispered back. For once, I was right. Accompanied by her British boyfriend, and Bernard Hill who plays Theoden, the woman who would give up her immortality to marry Aragorn was spending an afternoon at the cricket.

She picked a good day for it, too, despite the weather: after the usual clatter of New Zealand wickets, Chris Cairns, he of the flowing locks and mighty thews, smote the Australian bowling hither and yon on his way to a rapid century. It made no difference to the result, but even in bitter defeat the memories were glorious.

By the time I left the ground, Arwen Evenstar and her party had already departed, leaving behind only empty chip pottles, Coke cans, and blessed memories of Elvenhome.

I live five minutes’ walk from the Basin Reserve, so I probably have more opportunities to watch cricket than Liv Tyler does. More to the point, it’s a 50-yard walk from our house in Ellice St to the Wellington Town Belt, where several scenes in The Lord of the Rings were filmed.

The Town Belt is a narrow but quite convincing strip of forest clinging to either side of the long ridge that slopes down from Mt Victoria to the north, and runs all the way to the southern coast at Island Bay. Some of the forest is regenerating New Zealand bush, some is introduced pine forest planted in the mid-20th century. It is gloomy beneath the pines, and when the wind blows the treetops whisper together of ancient wrongs. Something has made tracks, but they start and stop unexpectedly, and it takes a steady head and a stout heart to follow their many twists and turns without becoming hopelessly lost.

Even better, there’s a quarry above the top of Ellice St. Not a Blake’s 7-style gravel pit, but a real hard rock quarry, abandoned about the same time the trees were planted, with towering walls clad here in twisted bramble, there in flowering creeper, and trees overhanging the top and sides. What with the forest, the quarry, and some judicious post-production, you could film a movie up there, and Peter Jackson was faced with filming three movies back to back.

Jackson, the Wellington film director who first came to fame with the low budget (NZ $30,000) splatter-comedy film Bad Taste, was the director chosen by New Line Cinema to take on the daunting task of directing a film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. Unlike Ralph Bakshi’s disappointing 1978 version, which used rotoscoping over live actors to produce a crude form of animation, the Peter Jackson production combines live action with the state-of-the-art effects developed over the years by Jackson and his cohorts at Weta Workshop.

And, with the whole of the country to choose from, filming started in the forest near our quarry and ended a year later, in December 2000, in the quarry itself. In between, sets were built and filming done all over New Zealand — inland Canterbury for Edoras, the rolling hills of the Waikato for Hobbiton, the North Island volcanic plateau for Mordor, another quarry in Lower Hutt for Helm’s Deep.

In contrast to the saturation coverage given to the announcement of the project and the arrival of its stars in Wellington, the actual filming was characterised by a secrecy bordering on paranoia. My son Gareth and I realised that filming had started when we went for a walk to the top of the ridge above the quarry and discovered that tracks normally reserved for walkers had been scoured by ATVs (all-terrain vehicles — take a motorbike and give it four wheels, and you’ve got the general idea). Three portaloos had been installed next to Alexandra Road, which runs along the ridgeline through the Town Belt. The game was afoot.

The Evening Post newspaper gave us the official word that filming had started a few days later, but by then we’d also seen the horse-droppings, and were not surprised to learn that a small party of hobbits had been fleeing Black Riders through the twisted foliage, take after take after take. Peter Jackson likes to get things right.

In the next twelve months, Lord of the Rings was everywhere. Stars buying houses for the duration of the shoot pushed up house prices in the eastern suburbs to ridiculous levels. Sir Ian McKellen, who plays Gandalf, was a judge for Mr Gay Wellington. A couple of the hobbits were refused entry to a nightclub because they were underage. The original Aragorn was sacked and a replacement, the multi-talented Mr Viggo Mortensen, was announced. The Evening Post was banned from the film’s set for being too curious and began to collaborate with various unofficial LoTR websites to ferret out unauthorised information.

For a couple of days in mid-shoot, the floor of the Ellice St. quarry was dotted with dead branches and clumps of tussock grass, and used for some second-unit shots. If you watch The Fellowship of the Ring, you’ll get a glimpse of the Black Riders crossing the Ellice St quarry floor as they advance on Weathertop.

Just before filming was scheduled to finish we got a notice in our mailbox to say that Jackson’s Three Foot Six Limited film company would be filming in the quarry for three days in late December 2000, and that our cooperation as affected residents would be appreciated. Based on others’ experiences, I didn’t think this would lead to great viewing opportunities. Gareth was attending morning kindergarten, and on the Monday, apart from asking a truck to move so I could get the car out, filming had little impact on us. On the Tuesday, when we got home from the kindy, Gareth said he wanted to go and look at the movie being made. “I’m sure they won’t let us see anything,” I said, but we walked to the top of the street anyway.

To be met by a guard. I was all ready to turn away when he said “Would you and the little boy like to see the filming?” We said we would, and he led us up to the quarry floor. A trench had been cut in it, and the riders of Rohan were riding their horses down the trench, around a tent, and then back up onto the quarry floor. They did it once. They did it again. We watched them do it several times, then we went home, happy and surprised.

On Wednesday, the last scheduled day of filming, it rained all day. Thursday dawned fine, and Gareth and I decided that we’d walk home together from his kindy — a half-hour walk up the far side of the ridge and down the Mt Victoria side, past the quarry, to our house. Quite a walk for a four-year-old, but he has strong legs.

Walking over to the kindy to get him, I saw activity at the quarry, but assumed it was preparations to dismantle the set. Forty-five minutes later, however, as Gareth and I descended homewards past the quarry, it was plain that filming was continuing. Still, we needed to get home, and I didn’t intend to take the long way round. I said as much to the first security guard we saw, and he assured me we wouldn’t have to. “Just walk quietly, please.” So we did, and stopped when the action started, and saw a bearded gentleman — I won’t be sure who till I see The Return of the King — stare straight at us and say “Six thousand spears — it’s not enough.” “It’ll do fine,” I wanted to tell him, but I kept my mouth shut.

That was almost it. They did pack up the next day, and dismantled the artificial forest they’d made under the quarry walls, and eventually filled in the trench and reseeded the grass so that the quarry floor could resume its former role as a dog exercise area and occasional venue for family cricket games. Filming was over, and the stars went home. Neither my wife Kay nor I were invited to the premiere of The Fellowship of the Ring, but we’ve each seen it twice. Gareth’s a bit young to see it on the big screen. He’ll have to wait till the video comes out.

Gareth and I still walk in the Town Belt. The droppings has been trampled underfoot by now, and the paths have mostly resumed their former shape, but there are still one or two places where the scouring of the land is obvious. One day, I expect, we’ll see a glint of gold. Bending down, we’ll find a little ring, the least of rings, lying forsaken by the path. We’ll drive out to Seatoun and drop it off at Peter Jackson’s studios, if the guard will let us through the gate.

An earlier version of this article was printed as “‘Twas in the Depths of Mordor” in the fanzine Head, edited by Christina Lake and Douglas Bell. In its present form, it first appeared on the (now defunct) Silveroak Books website.