I'd like to say a big thank you to the numerous authors who answered my call and agreed to be featured here at
My Book Chatter over the next couple of months.
Help me give a big welcome to my first guest, Antony Millen...
My Book Chatter over the next couple of months.
Help me give a big welcome to my first guest, Antony Millen...
Antony Millen is a Canadian living and writing in New Zealand.
Originally from Pictou County, Nova Scotia, Canada, he moved to New Zealand with his wife and two children in 1997. He has lived in Taumarunui since then, working at St Patrick’s Catholic Primary School and, more recently, as the head of the English department at Taumarunui High School.
During his early years in New Zealand, he wrote sporadically, but with a dream to write novels as a major part of his life-style if not as a career. In 2013, he launched his first novel, Redeeming Brother Murrihy. Rather than satisfying his urge to write, releasing the book only made him hungrier to pursue his dream more enthusiastically. Te Kauhanga: A Tale of Space(s) is his second novel.
Antony is the winner of the 2014 Heartland short story competition (Fishing the Pungapunga). He also received a Highly Commended rating in the 2014 NZSA Central Districts short story competition for The Boy at Ohinetonga.
Antony Millen‘s profile with the New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA). He is asscoiated with the Waikato and Central Districts branches.
Click here to join Antony’s e-mail list and receive updates about books, reviews, events and blog posts.
I’ve just taken up mountain biking and am in the
process of selling a car so that I am forced to either walk or cycle to work.
My wife and I have two children who are well and truly adults now, so we have
picked up mountain biking to pursue some shared adventures.
How or why did
you choose the genre you write in?
I classify my novels as
Literary Fiction, and by that I mean that I explore some rather complex themes,
often with allusions to other literary works. At the same time, I write stories
that are direct and accessible. I have a background in studying literature so I
am participating in a conversation with the writers I admire. My novels and
recent short stories are set in rural New Zealand, an area in which I’ve lived
for the past 17 years since arriving from Canada.
Do you work
with an outline, or do you just write?
I don’t just write, but I
also don’t work strictly to an outline. In the years of thinking about Redeeming Brother Murrihy, I constructed
many outlines, including a timeline since the story covers a specific time
period during October 2004. However, once I started writing, I rarely referred to
the outline. With Te Kauhanga, I
wrote without an outline altogether. Instead, my most important reference was a
map I had drawn of the town. This proved essential in tracking my characters’
movements and was fitting as the story deals with maps, cartography and our
occupation of space.
Is anything in
your book based on a real life experience or is it purely all imagination?
Redeeming Brother Murrihy contains quite a bit of my real life experience and
specific places in Nova Scotia and New Zealand, including my town of
Taumarunui. I adhered to the adage, “Write what you know”, and incorporated
some of my life in the background of the story while diverging dramatically
from that into pure fiction. Te Kauhanga
is more purely imaginative, particularly with the characters. The town of Te
Kauhanga shares many similarities with Taumarunui and many other small New
Zealand towns.
What was your
favorite chapter (or part) to write and why?
There’s a scene near the middle of Te Kauhanga in which the three
storylines converge at a town council meeting. The meeting reveals the
differing viewpoints, political stratagem, and cultural complexities of the
town while also hosting characters from the storylines who otherwise don’t
often cross paths even though they do influence one another. In writing each of
my novels, I’ve written a scene somewhere in the middle where, after completing
it, I was able to sit back, satisfied that the plan was working, the story’s
threads were coming together and that it would all work out from that point on.
In Te Kauhanga, this scene did that
for me.
How did you
come up with the title?
One of the definitions I
discovered for Kauhanga was “open
space” or even better, “sacred passageway”. So, for me, the title means “The Sacred
Passageway”. These definitions are in keeping with the theme of the book. Te
Kauhanga also sounded like a good name for a town in the North Island, similar
to Te Kuiti, Te Awamutu or Te Puke.
What project
are you working on now?
I’ve just finished a round
of short stories which I entered into some national competitions. I was very
pleased to learn I’ve won this year’s Heartland short story competition and was
rated “Highly Commended” for the NZSA Central Districts competition. I have
written out plans for at least two novels, one of which is aimed at a young
adult audience. I now must decide which one to work on first and begin my
research process. This needs to be done over the next few weeks so that I can
begin writing it over the summer months.
Are there
certain characters you would like to go back to, or is there a theme or idea
you’d love to work with again?
Absolutely. In fact, for my short story The Homeless Men of Mahuika, I included
two characters from Te Kauhanga and I
am considering using another character from that novel for my Young Adult
project. I’m encouraged in this by the likes of J.D. Salinger, who wrote many
short stories about Holden Caulfield before writing Catcher in the Rye, and Bruce Springsteen, who uses entire lines in
multiple songs. John Steinbeck repeatedly returned to the Salinas Valley and
David Adams Richards, a top Canadian novelist, apparently sets all of his
novels along the Miramichi River. I’m starting to notice which themes are
repeated in my writing: home, family, cultural identity,
uncertainty, interconnectedness, spirituality, loss and redemption.
What has been
the toughest criticism given to you as an author? What has been the best
compliment?
I actually wish I would receive some tougher
criticism. My reviews have been very positive so far, but not as far-ranging as
I would like. I suppose hearing criticism about editing or choice of
point-of-view have stung a bit. For Redeeming
Brother Murrihy, the best compliment I received was from a past judge of a
national book award who recommended I submit it the following year as he felt
it may win. It didn’t, but the compliment has continued to encourage me. My
first review for Te Kauhanga was
written by an author from Pirongia who said she enjoyed it more than she’d
enjoyed a novel in a long time. The short story competition win is a high
compliment of course. There have been many and I treasure the feedback.
Who are your ‘must read’ authors and who would we find on your bookshelves/e-reader?
For this question, I’d like
to refer your readers to my blog post: “The Minimalist Reader: 10 Books That
Will Stay on My Shelf” (https://antonymillen.wordpress.com/2014/07/03/the-minimalist-reader-10-books-that-will-stay-on-my-shelf/) in which I write about my reduced book shelf and
the books and authors that I will also keep and revisit for inspiration and
guidance. A short list of authors for me would be: John Steinbeck, Bruce
Springsteen, Maurice Shadbolt, Harper Lee, William Shakespeare, James K Baxter
and David Adams Richards.
Fast Five
Favorite food… Pizza – from the Acropole, Pictou County, Nova Scotia
Favourite movie… Star Wars
Cat lover or Dog person… Neither really, but we have several cats. My wife loves cats.
Celebrity crush… I think I’m past the celebrity crush stage, but I do have an abnormal, yet healthy obsession with Bruce Springsteen and the Montreal Canadiens ice hockey team. I watch Canadiens games online and I’ve been to see Springsteen in concert three times since coming to New Zealand including a trip to Sydney, Australia just to see him play there.
If you weren’t a writer, you’d be… a reader.
Thanks so much for agreeing to be interviewed Antony <3
Fast Five
Favorite food… Pizza – from the Acropole, Pictou County, Nova Scotia
Favourite movie… Star Wars
Cat lover or Dog person… Neither really, but we have several cats. My wife loves cats.
Celebrity crush… I think I’m past the celebrity crush stage, but I do have an abnormal, yet healthy obsession with Bruce Springsteen and the Montreal Canadiens ice hockey team. I watch Canadiens games online and I’ve been to see Springsteen in concert three times since coming to New Zealand including a trip to Sydney, Australia just to see him play there.
If you weren’t a writer, you’d be… a reader.
Thanks so much for agreeing to be interviewed Antony <3
Conrad Murrihy’s mother is dying and she has one final wish: to see her eldest son Francis who has not contacted home in two years.
In a race to find him and return home to his mother, Conrad travels far from his native Nova Scotia, Canada and through the heart of rural North Island, New Zealand following leads to Taumarunui, Auckland, Whanganui, Ratana and, finally, on an epic journey up the Whanganui River.
Along the way, Conrad discovers his brother has been living multiple lives – as a Catholic brother, a spoken-word poet, a suspected criminal and a new kind of poropiti for iwi Maori.
Conrad’s search forces him to confront issues in his own life – issues of commitment, family loyalties, reconciliation with the past and openness to future possibilities – brought on by his encounters with the people, places and spirits of New Zealand.
In this, his first novel, Antony Millen explores the complex spiritual fabric of New Zealand while still telling a simple story of a man trying to mend his family.
PURCHASE LINKS
~~~~~
Montreal Perec is an accomplished cartographer with unusual powers of perception. He lives as a recluse in the town of Te Kauhanga, sheltered deep in the central North Island of New Zealand. Thirty years ago, he travelled from overseas and settled into his lighthouse look-off, led by his unfruitful search for the treasure of his ancestors. An online encounter with a mysterious mapping hobbyist launches Perec down a new trail of mind-bending clues.
Sharon Pellerine works for the local council in Te Kauhanga. An attractive woman, she is desired by various rural and municipal courters. But her skills and demeanour as an archivist from Wellington conceal a painful past and a shady secret that she attempts to address with the help of a peculiar visiting transient.
Another immigrant to this small town, Stanley Kowalczyk, hails from the northern city of Hamilton. Five years ago, he arrived with his own unique set of skills as an insurance adjuster and an even more specialised obsession with straight lines. His weakness for beautiful women opens him to the possibilities of wandering outside his self-imposed parameters.
These characters’ lives revolve around the apparently perishing tree of Taumata—an enormous tree, one of the legendary legs of Tane Mahuta and a taonga to local iwi Maori. As debate rages in the township about the tree’s future, Perec is led closer to his treasure by the activities of his fellow citizens.
Te Kauhanga is Antony Millen’s second novel—a tale of spaces that examines our position and movement in this world and how these interchange, connect and influence others.
PURCHASE LINKS
~~~~~
No comments:
Post a Comment
I'd love to hear your thoughts, so please don't hesitate to leave a comment :)