It is a particularly windy but sunny morning in Spring. I enter the venue 15 minutes before schedule and as the time draws near, there is a crescendo of exciting voices, no doubt waiting expectantly for the main guests to arrive; writers Shariff Burke, Laura Borrowdale, and Ingrid Horrocks (with Kate de Goldi presiding).
I sit wondering how many people in the audience came for tips to write their own stories, and how many are just as curious as I am to have a “glimpse” of how short stories come to life and the kind of work that goes into crafting some of these through the experiences of these talented authors.
The guests are here. The "venerable" Kate de Goldi (as she is introduced by someone else) presents the authors and comes straight to the question I have been pondering: What is the idea of a short story? She reads a couple of “definitions” she has found, including: “a love affair” (marriage being the novel) and “a quick kiss in the night.” Which suggests to me these stories are something intoxicating and perhaps provocative. Then we come to what our three authors think about this:
Shariff:They are a serious business, not to be looked down upon just because they are not as long as novels; the experience comparable with wine tasting.
Ingrid: For her, the stories are all connected, giving you some recurring glimpses here and there, a collection of intense moments. She tells us Alice Munro has been an inspiration for her.
Laura: It has taken her 15 years to write all her stories, and they are only 3000 words, because this is the amount of plot that she can conceptualize in her mind, as a teacher, a mother, a woman. This is all she can do with the amount of time she has and her need to publish regularly. I can’t help but admire her dedication to writing.
Then we move on to talk about the authors' collections.
Ingrid: Her book has been 6 years in the making, it is her first book, and it revolves around the lives of 9 women. It is a collection of “glimpses” of a family saga.
Shariff: He started because he had some questions and he figured that to answer them, he needed to place different people in different situations, the connections being the theme. Shariff shares that through writing these stories he got to experience small changes in his own perspective.
Laura: Kate comments that her stories are very well crafted and contain a mix of themes that are domestic, dystopian, realistic, at times funny and at other speak of deep unease. Which frankly sounds awesome. She then reads a small part of one of her stories. Listening to her I found that I completely agreed with Kate on Laura’s assessment of her writing. Her stories are all about women and their bodies, their relationships and power structures. Kate comments that by writing her stories as “matter of fact” it gives a sense of horror to them. Laura then “defends” her stories saying that they are just stories that mirror reality and when you look at what is happening now, these seem to her just next logical steps. They way she describes them makes me think of Neflix’s Black Mirror Series.
Kate then turns to Ingrid and Shariff:
Ingrid: Her stories also address power structures. She works on settings and then relates them to women. She then talks about one of her stories where she started the story with two girls but realised the story she wanted to tell couldn’t be told from these girls, so she had to introduce a time jump. Clever.
Shariff: His stories are surreal and sometimes funny, but also based on reality and the effect systems have on people. Kate then tells us that there is a rat in one of Shariff’s stories –one of the greatest rats in history (Kate shared she has a minor obsession with rats in literature)- and she asks how this rat came to be. He tells us that he wanted to write a story about climate change that would entertain, and this rat provided a sympathetic character with some rhetorical comments. He wants to create spaces where you can see conflict happening between different views and explore how would that look like.
Laura then tells us about a story that involves an “art monster parent”, which talks about the difficulty of parenting. She likes thinking about metaphors and exploring how making them literal would look like, as a story of complexity and moral choices. This particular story uses the idea of putting part of your soul in a piece of art and what happens when you “run out of soul”.
It is now Shariff’s turn to read an excerpt of his book. It is a first-person string of consciousness, and we really understand what this character is going through. He’s trying to find his place in the family, being mixed raced, but also it is about his masculinity struggle as he seeks affirmation from the males in his life. But at the end the character will be fulfilled, because Sheriff believes that the end of a story needs to be hopeful, showing you the possibilities.
Kate then says there is a story in Shariff’s book of a civil servant pretending to be a New World worker, and it reminded her of how she sometimes pretends to be a librarian. I can definitely see that.
Ingrid tells us that sometimes, you start the writing process with something simple, almost cartoonish, and then as you write, your interesting characters become increasingly complex. For the (part of the) story she reads to us she was inspired by an intriguing photograph that prompted her to question how would this work? What happened? Who is this person and did she get here?
Finally, Kate asks Laura about a story that involves a “ghost mother”. This came to her when she realised sometimes during her lessons she would “hear the voice of her mother coming through [my] mouth”. The existence of a ghost-mother in this story does not imply the mother is actually dead. It turns out she lives in Temuka. The story is about parenting your children and at the same time taking care of your own parents. Kate believes it was a genius idea to send the mother to Temuka, and then Laura tells us: “my mother hates all of these stories”. One can only imagine the reason.
Then we came to the questions some of the audience had. Here are a couple of ones I found interesting.
What methods do they use while writing, how do they decide what to exclude?
She desperately tries to find what to add instead.
Ingrid: She is limited by time. She writes a lot of details and index cards of what is happening in the story.
Shariff: He defines the central part of the story and asks, is this relevant to it? And everything you introduce must be resolved – then Ingrid adds: or interestingly unresolved.
How do you start your stories?
Ingrid: Starts with a picture, an interesting setting, and a moment. Then a character, but the characters can change depending on the story she wants to tell.
Laura: Starts with a metaphor, makes it literal, and then finds a voice in my head.
Shariff: Starts with an image and asks: what type of character would do that? Action suggests character, Kate adds.
The morning talk finishes, and I feel excited to read all these stories, and may be even inspired to try my own. I really enjoyed the easy flow of the chat and was entranced by the readings the authors gave. So much so, that I completely forgot to take some photographs which is why there is only a photograph of them at their book signing.
My deepest apologies and gratitude to all of you that have read through my lengthy account. Perhaps I should have used more of what I learnt today?
Mayra,
Library Assistant, Upper Riccarton Library
WORD Christchurch Festival 2026
- Follow our WORD coverage
- Get a copy of the WORD programme at libraries or check it out online
- Visit our WORD Christchurch 2026 page
- WORD Christchurch's website
Add a comment to: “A quick kiss in the night”: The art of the short story – WORD Christchurch 2026