Writer to swap table for ‘luxury’ of desk

Press, 10 October 1984, Page 8

Writer to swap table for ‘luxury’ of desk

PA Wellington The Wellington writer, Patricia Grace, will soon be swapping her kitchen table for the luxury of S' desk in her own office—complete with a typing service. She has just won next year’s writers’ fellowship at Victoria University, succeeding present fellow, lan Wedde.

The year-long, full-time post means she will be able to devote herself to writing for the longest period of her 20-year writing career. It means she will abandon the kitchen table on which she has done most of her writing.

“Even when I got a desk I kept using it,” she says. Ms Grace’s published works include a novel, two volumes of short stories, the award-winning children’s book “The Kuia and the Spider,” and the text for

Wahina Toa, a book on women in Maori myths. She is an English teacher at Porirua College. “Sometimes I don’t enjoy writing at all. Some things come more easily than others. But if you can see there is something you want to say you don’t give up” she said.

“I write from my own background and my own experience because that’s all you can do.” An important part of that background is her Maori heritage. She had previously said that she wanted to write not just about Maoris, but for them—“stories in which we are able to find ourselves, our way of talking, our manners and humour, our way of doing things.” Next year she plans to write more short stories, and possibly another children’s book.