I'm delighted to announce that my short story "Dandelion Clocks" has won the 2021 NZSA Graeme Lay Short Story competition. In his announcement on Facebook today, Graeme said: Themes of childhood loss and the possibility of renewal make this beautifully observed and sensitively written story difficult to forget. Thank you, Graeme, and congratulations to the…
Offline Liberation
A couple of months ago I removed myself from Facebook (apart from my author page) and deleted Twitter. I spend a limited amount of time on LinkedIn and Instagram, mostly for my work. I’ve been thinking about how the decision to (mostly) unplug, based on protecting my mental health, saving time, and stopping mindless scrolling…
The Girl Behind the Bar
I dug this story out recently. It was highly commended in the 2014 Takahē short story competition. (Takahē is a New Zealand literary journal.) It's one of my favourite pieces of work - perhaps because it takes the reader to Northern Ireland, where I was born. It's never been published, although I did post it…
Soundbites and Clickbait: my experience as a radio journalist
Last month I posted my thoughts about journalism in New Zealand generally, and in a pandemic in particular. I thought today I would dig a bit deeper into my own experience as a journalist and what it taught me - about writing, about humanity, about the media, and about the way we choose to show…
First Person POV: the risks and rewards
As those of you who visit regularly will know, my first novel is coming out in February next year. It's off to be typeset shortly, then printed. I'm excited and terrified - primarily that as soon as I flick through a printed copy I'll find a typo. These are the fears that keep a proofreader/editor…
Let me tell you about joy
I deactivated Twitter and Facebook this week. I'm not sure how long for. It's called a sanity break. Social media dominates our lives and minds and I'm no longer willing to let that happen without my agency. I feel my adrenaline pumping and my outrage and anxiety spiking every time I see a clickbait headline…
Our Father
I wrote this story ten years ago, after my father-in-law (at the time) died. I wanted to somehow make sense of my profound feelings at having witnessed his death. It was published in Takahē magazine (a literary journal) in 2013. Today, on Father's Day, I remember Carl Bosselmann, and everyone who has lost a father.…
Journalism in a Pandemic
We're in a hard lockdown here in New Zealand due to the Delta variant of COVID-19. It's working. It's hard and shitty for so many of us, but it's working. And unsurprisingly, journalists the length and breadth of the country (but mostly in the parliamentary press gallery) are frothing at the mouth with every new…
Question Everything
When my daughter was four, we took her to Disney on Ice. As princesses and pirates and heroines and villains swished and pirouetted and twirled, her little face was a study in concentration. At one point, Donald Duck was put into an enchanted sleep by an evil queen. All the children around us oooohed and…
That Bloody Woman: theatre review
That Bloody Womanby Luke Di Somma and Gregory CooperAuckland Music Theatre17th July 2021 You had me at Fuck Fuck Fuckity Fuck. That’s not strictly true: you had me from the moment the house lights went down, when the wickedly, gorgeously clad cast strode out and the men sat down, silent, as the women took the…
Patricia Bell, Author 