posted on October 17, 2013 by Justin in Blatant plugs
For the next five days you can grab my travel memoir ‘Bowling Through India’ for NOTHING from Amazon. Don’t panic if you’re not into sport. Here are one reader’s comments: ‘Fantastic story of friendship male bonding and cricket. Far from your typical travel book you learn as much about the ways group of men treat each other as you will about India. Highly recommended.’
So get to it – and enjoy!
posted on October 16, 2013 by Justin in Wordy advice
Huge congratulations to Kiwi Eleanor Catton for becoming the youngest person to win the Man Booker Prize. Holy hell. What an achievement. And what a humble speech. You’ll be surfing on a rainbow right about now.
Recently, when I was struggling to string a sentence together in my new children’s novel I found a great quote from Eleanor which stuck. ‘If a book starts off funny,’ a thesis supervisor once told her, ‘It has to get funnier; if it starts off weird, it has to get weirder, if it starts off sad, it has to get sadder. Like all good advice it seems pretty straightforward at first glance, but I came to realise that having to trump oneself means having to outwit oneself, and that’s actually really difficult.’
posted on August 31, 2013 by Justin in Uncategorized
It’s been a busy time and I’ve been slack with the blog. Still, here we are, finally. I’ve been having a lot of fun doing school talks all over Auckland. The kids are brilliantly funny and ask memorable questions. Some schools, like Mt Eden, even send you hand drawn covers of your book (pictured.) Thank you! Otherwise, I have been head down bum up working on a new novel which I’ve been told is too scary for adults, but just right for kids. Also, my first travel book ‘UK on a G-String’ will soon be available on Kindle. Will keep you in the loop. Happy weekend wherever you are.