This WORD event was hosted by Kate De Goldi at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū on one very cold Sunday afternoon, the room quietened as Kate took to the floor with three wonderful authors: Una Cruickshank, Kate Camp and Tina Makereti.
Kate began by thanking the sponsors Creative New Zealand, Te Herenga Waka University Press and Rātā Foundation. She goes on to introduce each writer, first up is Tina, Kate describes Tina's essay work as moving and personal, her latest book is a collection of essays titled This Compulsion in Us.
Kate Camps is introduced, her writing style is described as yearning, sometimes with a sadness about it. She has with her today the collection of autobiographical essays, You Probably Think This Song is About You.
You Probably Think This Song Is About You
Una Cruickshank is then welcomed as the newest writer of the three, differing from the other two in that her essay writing is scientific, her work “The Chthonic Cycle”, is a lyrical collection of essays, and the winner non-fiction book of the year at the Ockham Book Awards 2025!
A rolling dialogue begins between Kate and the other authors, she shares her own reflections and understanding of their work and offers a question to continue the conversation, sometimes to all three authors, and other times to one. The atmosphere in the room feels gentle and relaxed. The conversation opens up with how the authors came to essay writing. Tina talks about how she was inspired by “mana wahine mahi” and how this led her to falling in love with the form. She also has memories of reading long for texts in local magazines as a teen, such as North & South.
Kate Camp tells us about a writer’s prompt she was given “to write about the person you thought you would be” remembering those aspirations and expectations through writing is a moment she remembers that connected her to essay writing. She talks about the style itself being very “conversational” like “speech on the page” which she resonates with creatively. Like Tina reading also played a role, but for Kate it was subscription to The New Yorker.
Una says she went from writing poetry to essay; she finds that writing longer texts about vast environmental subjects feels “therapeutic” as their enormity takes the focus off her.
Voice is the next subject; Kate De Goldi asks the writes how they each found their unique voices. Kate Camp explains she finds authenticity by trying not to let her thinking mind get in the way during those initial stages of getting words on paper. Then she allows her “editing brain” to come on board, but not too soon! She also mentions if she feels like she shouldn't write about whatever is coming forward, then often it's valuable. Kate De Goldi reflects this back as understanding that a mixture of personas come to play at different stages during the process.
Tina has a different approach and laughs that she wishes she could embody the same approach as Kate, possibly indicating her thinking mind is present more frequently in the early stages of writing/drafting. She says she asks herself questions like “who is going to read this and what impact will it have?”. Speaking of personas, Tina says she is slowly becoming more confident with hers as a writer.
Una's style is reflected topically in her penchant for researching cycles and inevitably uncovering that common link between past and the present within them. Parts of The Chthonic Cycle were written during the pandemic, being engaged in the writing process and creating something that read in a lyrical way was cathartic for the author, it helped her find solace and understanding during that time of crisis. Una reads us a witty and fascinating passage from her books essay on the world of coral polyps, coral reefs and cell regeneration. During the reading the vastness of the topic shows as Una manages to draw a conclusion.
Kate De Goldi points out Kate Camp's tendency to use material description to create atmosphere. Kate jokes that her mother would often say to her “God is in the details” and yes, she agrees that she is very driven by materialism to create atmosphere. She works at Te Papa which suits this part of her personality. She tells the story behind the cover of YYou Probably Think This Song Is About You, how it’s made using a bunch of “trashy toys of the past”, the way the toys had been catalogued with tiny labels transformed them into a kind of relic.
The conversation becomes specific to Tina's book This Compulsion In Us, and Kate asks why the author didn't come back from Canada? This makes me eager to read the book myself and I wonder where Kate’s curiosity comes from. Tina tells “it was very messy” and multiple factors came into play, her age and just how difficult making choices in our 20s can be, relationship factors, and a little bit of pride. As she prepared to read from her new book she gives the listeners some context, explaining how returning to Canada after 12 years resurfaced emotional memories. They arose through the senses, sights, smells – daily things like cleaning products, and how Canadians call a beanie a toke. She goes on to read a piece about really wanting a cup of tea! And these moments where she felt the layers “of historical tension” in her body.
Kate De Goldi asks Una how she came to know the theme of her book, The Chthonic Cycle, noticing it explores unique and often precious corners of life from coral to ambergris, prophets, and pearls, their evolution and how humans value and commodify them. Una says it was trough researching jet and its evolution from fossilised wood to precious gem, to petroleum, that she recognised a common theme in the essays.
Next is Kate, she says You Probably Think This Song Is About You is a book about memories. She loves memory as an idea, how memory can vary and have a changeable nature, those opposing truths of being both accurate and inaccurate. Kate mentions this is how Janet Frame worked too. Kate De Goldi asks how her family reacted to the book? Kate Camp says their response seemed positive, she tells her approach is to reveal her work once it’s done, unless it’s very sensitive. She reads us a poem about childhood, it's moving and charming and I notice her material description ignites my own different memories of a similar experience.
We end on endings as each author reads the final part of their book. Tina reflects on her final passage, from a time when she was writing even though she didn’t know how had given her a sense of herself, and an understanding of that “golden” part inside of her father, the part all of us have even those who are seemingly unlovable.
Kate’s final passage comes from her wondering that maybe in the past everything only happens once, even when it seems it happened many times. Those things we remember and say, “we always did that”. Maybe everything only happens once, was almost her books title as it was incredibly difficult to get the rights to use “you probably think this song is about you”, however they did come through at the last moment.
Una reads her last passage from the book essay on the Ghats of Varanasi, a picture of ash, foam and marigolds merging in the current of the Ganges. It’s the first chapter she wrote, and finally it found its place at the end of the book.
Katrina
Matatiki Hornby Centre
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