Author(s): Barbara Else

Literature | Aotearoa New Zealand Non-Fiction | 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards long lists | 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards short lists | Biography and Memoir

'My own first memory is the cupboard door, and laughing, erupting with laughter' - a memoir about finding an identity, a voice and laughter.

A funny, elegant, moving memoir by one of New Zealand's best-known authors, a woman who finally rebelled against being a handmaiden. By the time Barbara Else was in her forties, she was married to a globally recognised academic physician, had two beautiful teenage daughters and a house in Karori. Gradually she realised her husband didn't want her to have a career of her own or do anything outside his orbit. He refused to acknowledge there was a problem. In the end, the man who became her second husband offered a way out. It was a huge risk. But she fled, with a laundry basket of oddments, two suitcases, and her little Mac Plus and dot matrix printer.

The result was best-selling books and literary honours. With her trademark wit and humour, Barbara describes her transformation from a shy but stubborn child into a fulfilled and successful adult.

She is just as funny writing about the New Zealand publishing scene and the triumphs and disasters of life as an author and editor.

'I laughed and laughed, and I cried and cried. It's got everything in it except a murder.' - Lesley Graham, soprano (and totally unbiased sister)

Author Biography: Barbara Else is an acclaimed writer and editor whose writing is distinguished by its acerbic wit and sharp observation and is often concerned with 'bringing women out of the shadows'. In a career spanning three decades, she has written plays, short stories, novels for adults, children's novels and a non-fiction work, and has edited collections of stories for children. She has held a number of fellowships and residencies- the Victoria University of Wellington's Writer's Fellowship 1999; the Creative New Zealand Scholarship in Letters 2004 and the University of Otago College of Education/Creative New Zealand Children's Writer in Residence 2016. She was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2005. Through her work as a literary agent and assessor, she has discovered and mentored a number of emerging New Zealand writers, many of whom are now award-winning writers in their own right, and she was instrumental in setting up the New Zealand Association of Literary Agents and New Zealand Association of Manuscript Assessors. She has won multiple awards in New Zealand for her children's books, including Storylines Notable Book Awards, Honour Awards and the Esther Glen Medal, and has been internationally recognised at Bologna with a White Raven. In 2016 Barbara received the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal in recognition of her services to children's literature.