A NOVELIST RETURNS

Taranaki Daily News, 21 December 1932, Page 11

A NOVELIST RETURNS

ROSEMARY REES. WRITING A BOOK A YEAR. A novel a year for the last eight years is the writing record of Miss Rosemary Rees, a New Zealand-born author, who arrived in Wellington from England by the lonic on Friday. Miss Rees spoke to a Dominion representative mostly of the writing and stage work she has been doing in London and New York in recent years. Her new novel, “Local Colour,” in which the background is England, will be published next month. At the moment she is busy writing another.

What began Miss Rees’ career as an author was, in effect, the poor support that was given by people in New Zealand country towns to her theatrical company which appeared in Wellington about 10 years ago. In the main centres the company did well, but in the country towns it did not meet with the same success. “I struck a slump/’ Miss l&es said, “and I lost a whole lot of money and had to do something else. I went over to Sydney and could' not get a theatrical job straight away. So I sat down and wrote a novel —“April’s Sowing.” Short stories I have written before, but this was my first attempt at a novel. At all events it was sent off, and was taken. I had a great thrill inMelbourne when ■ I was at a dress rehearsal and someone handed me a telegram. I opened it and read: “Novel accepted.’ ” After that, said Miss Rees, she wrote two more novels, and then, went back to England, where she has written one at year ever since. Three of her New Zealand novels were published .first as serials in the London Evening Standard. It was a paper which printed Arnold Bennett, Sheila Kaye-Smith, and Hugh Walpole, so she had felt herself in good company.

In New York, she said, her work had also been published, and she had appeared in a talkie in which Clive Brook was the star. “But I had only a small part,” she said.

Miss Rees intends to be away from England for 15 months or so. She will spend the greater part of her time in New Zealand at Gisborne.