A brief word with four (more) non-fiction writers hoping for an Ockham award

Ahead of the 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, Kete meets the shortlisted contenders for each of the four categories. This week, Bridget Hackshaw, Lucy Mackintosh, Qiane Matata-Sipu and Claire Regnault - finalists for the Booksellers Illustrated Fiction Awar - share discoveries, books they wish they'd written and what they're reading now.

The Architect and the Artists: Hackshaw, McCahon, Dibble by Bridget Hackshaw 

Could you describe your book for us in ten words?  Shining light on the collaborative works of Hackshaw, McCahon and Dibble.

Tell us about a discovery you made in the course of writing this book that surprised you. I discovered that the painter Garth Tapper and my father designed coloured windows when McCahon was no longer able to work for my father. Tapper had close connections with people associated with the body of work explored in the book. He worked with McCahon at Elam, painted a portrait of McCahon, was Paul Dibble’s cousin and was a good friend of my father’s client Jiggs Poole and also his long-time builder Peter Wood. He made a window at the Poole house, one at St Mary’s Church in Papakura in a place that McCahon had been planning to place a window, and one at Peter and Mary Wood’s house. There is another one in a barn near Raglan and there may be others. My father designed windows for the architecture writer Peter Shaw, John and Peggy Gillman, for his own house at Tarawera Terrace in St Heliers and perhaps more that I don’t yet know about. As with his window designs, I hadn’t appreciated my father’s deep interest in timber furniture. He designed and produced furniture for many of the houses and churches he designed.

What book do you wish that you had written?  One of my favourite books is La Tourette by Thomas Seear-Budd, which is a collection of extraordinary images of le Corbusier’s monastery in Lyon, France. Seear-Budd is a Wellington-based photographer and architect. There are no people in the images but as Pip Cheshire writes in the foreword, “... it is the conjuring up of a life within that makes these images so special.” @thomasseearbudd

What other shortlisted book (in any category) do you most want to read? I have just bought Greta and Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly.

What are you reading right now? I’m reading Ann Noble’s glorious Ockham NZ Book Awards 2022 longlisted book Conversatio: In the Company of Bees. The photography is astonishing and inventive and her research and text is riveting, exploring the world of bees, the threats to them from climate change and the role of the artist. The book’s production makes it a work of art in itself.

Shifting Grounds: Deep Histories of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland by Lucy Mackintosh 

Could you describe your book for us in ten words? It follows the deep, layered histories embedded in Auckland’s landscapes.

Tell us about a discovery you made in the course of writing this book that surprised you. This is a tough one – there are so many! The book delves deeply into particular moments in certain places, so it was the rich texture and complexity of people’s lives that really struck me. One of the people I really enjoyed writing about was Te Rangitāhua Ngāmuka, later known as Ēpiha Pūtini, who was an influential figure in early colonial Auckland but has been overlooked in histories of the city. When I started researching him, I found a really rich record of his life; letters he had written, a poem about him by his wife, an interview he had done with a missionary, a depiction of him on a lithograph of the Remuera Feast in 1844 and many descriptions of him by other people. It was very satisfying piecing together the life and influence of this remarkable man and inserting his voice and perspectives into Auckland’s history.

What book do you wish that you had written?There are many books that I admire greatly (The Overstory is a recent one) but none that I wish I’d written as the good ones could only have come from that author’s particular mix of interests, motivations and sensibility. None of them feel quite like me.

What other shortlisted book (in any category) do you most want to read? I’ve already read several – The Mirror Book, Nuku and Voices from the New Zealand Wars – each of them fantastic. Next on the list will be The Sea Walks into a Wall, followed by Kurangaituku but I’m planning on getting through all the shortlisted books by the end of the year.

What are you reading right now? Non-fiction by day – currently Richard Shaw’s The Forgotten Coast and Claudia Orange’s new edition of The Treaty of Waitangi-Te Tiriti o Waitangi: An Illustrated History. Strictly fiction by night – currently Cloud Cuckoo Land.

NUKU: Stories of 100 Indigenous Women by Qiane Matata-Sipu

Could you describe your book for us in ten words?  NUKU is a powerful and important narrative about Indigenous wāhine today. 

Tell us about a discovery you made in the course of writing this book that surprised you. I was constantly surprised, inspired and in awe of every wāhine I met through the journey of creating NUKU. The wāhine featured are incredible and have changed my life. We are so privileged to have access to their lived experiences, mātauranga and their strong and important views of the world. The greatest lesson I discovered through the journey is that nothing is impossible. 

What book do you wish that you had written?  There are a number of children’s books that are absolute favourites, no matter how old I get. They are books that have left me with powerful memories of the voices of those who read them to me, and the time and place I was introduced to them and, of course, the stories and lessons they share. That long-lasting impact makes me wish I had written some of them myself, which only motivates me to start thinking and acting on the next series of books I have in me to write. 

What other shortlisted book (in any category) do you most want to read? Kurangaituku by Whiti Hereaka.

What are you reading right now? I have just started reading Braiding Sweetgrass (Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teaching of plants) by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Dressed: Fashionable Dress in Aotearoa New Zealand 1840 to 1910 by Claire Regnault 

Could you describe your book for us in ten words? Well upholstered, with plenty of substance.

Tell us about a discovery you made in the course of writing this book that surprised you. That the director of Te Papa’s antecedent, the Colonial Museum, was involved in the international promotion of ‘feather furs’ made from Aotearoa’s indigenous birds.

What book do you wish that you had written? The Pocket: A Hidden History of Women’s Lives, 1660—1900 – an incredible study of the complexities of women’s lives explored through the things they carried in their ‘capricious tie-on pockets’ by Barbara Burman and Ariane Fennetaux.

What other shortlisted book (in any category) do you most want to read? Lucy Mackintosh’s Shifting Grounds: Deep histories of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.

What are you reading right now? Following an Agatha Christie marathon, two new books by friends – Frances Samuel’s delightful collection of poetry Museum and Douglas Lloyd Jenkins’ novel, Shelter.