Meet Rebekah Lipp, a finalist for The New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults
Rebekah Lipp is an author shortlisted for the Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award for te reo Māori in The New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. We speak to him about writing Aroha Te Whai Ora.
Did you always want to be an author?
It’s funny because I still don’t think of myself as an author. I never dreamed of being an author and never really knew what I was going to be when I was younger.
How did you go about becoming one?
I guess it came from being asked to write about things that I knew about. My first published book was called Finding Gratitude and this was because I had co-founded a business producing gratitude journals. I was approached by a publisher to write about gratitude. That was the start for me. Then I met Craig Phillips and pitched him an idea about writing a children’s book about anxiety and the rest is history.
Can you share some advice, a tip or hint that someone gave you that you’ve found helpful or inspiring?
I always say, ‘play to your strengths’ and that is what we do at Wildling Books. We cannot be good at everything and so finding what your strengths are and doing that, then getting others to pick up in the areas that you aren’t so good at is a winning combination. Having a good supportive team is so important. When I have found myself questioning if something was good enough, the Wildling Crew are always there with an honest answer and encouragement.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
The Aroha books that we have produced have come from my own battle with mental health issues and the knowledge that I gained after spending years in therapy in my twenties. I have a passion to share what I learned with children (and adults) so they might not end up battling for their life like I did. The simple things I learned are still not widely known and so I am all about bridging the gap between what professionals know and what parents and teachers want to know. Every message we get saying how much our books have helped inspires me to create more books to help children.
What was your favourite book as a child and why did you like it?
I remember my mum reading me a story about Louis Pasteur from a series of books called the Values Tales by Spencer Johnson M.D. This one was about believing in yourself, and I LOVED it! It showed not only Louis Pasteur’s determination, but I loved the way it talked about the army of good in your body and how the antibiotics helped make them strong to fight the baddies. This series of books shows how you can teach children such important life lessons through stories, which is what I hope we do through the books we produce at Wildling Books.
What kind of books do you like to read now and why?
I love a good self-help book and have just finished reading, Untamed by Glennon Doyle. I am always looking to expand on my growth as a person. I love to find out new ways to unlearn and relearn things that are important to me now, or things I wished I had learned when I was young. I also just finished reading, Our Bodies, Their Battlefield, by Christina Lamb and it was a heart-breaking read about what happens to women around the world during times of war. It is a must-read I believe for both men and women, to open up our eyes to what is still happening today and so we can look at how we can change this. I did have to put the book down several times and just process what I read for a few days. Books like that tend to inspire me though and already I am thinking of ways that I can somehow help.
What do you do when you’re not reading or writing?
I homeschool my three boys, which means I spend a lot of time with my beautiful family. I love to sit by the fire with them and listen to music or we play board games together. My husband and I are also renovating our home, so that is always lots of fun. Most of my time is spent working on the business and building our publishing company into the best it can be, which I totally love.
Buy Aroha Te Whai Ora published by Wildling Books
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