- When I was a kid, #pretendpanel, not so much. I thought it was adults being boring. There was also a large element of being told it wasn't my place to participate. But as I became an adult myself, I began to understand the implications of those boring adults things on everything in my life. 1/4
- Today is Waitangi Day here in Aotearoa, #pretendpanel, and it gets me thinking about the role of politics in the stories we tell. February 6th: Do you enjoy writing or reading political plotlines? #WritingCommunity #Writers #Authors #WritingPrompts
- I couldn't have written the high-stress and edge-of-poverty life of Emcee in my middle-grade novel Peregrine Pax before I taught in a low-decile school and saw kids really living those lives. Whereas certain other authors, not naming any names... 2/4
- Those authors can write about children in poverty and/or psychologically abusive situations and it has zero impact on the characters' characterisation or motivations. I like to make sure that even my fiction for and about children is still quite grounded in real-world situations and psychology. 3/4
- And as for reading, I love a good political intrigue! But I also read a lot of non-fiction, especially about the situations in my own country. It inspires me a lot in my fiction, actually, though that might come out as an undercurrent more often than not. 4/4Feb 6, 2026 08:14
