New Zealand Writers

DE HAMEL, Joan

DE HAMEL, Joan (1924 - ) is a children's writer whose popular stories have a timeless appeal. Her first book, X Marks the Spot (1973) was reprinted for the fifth time in 1996, more than twenty years after its first publication.

She has twice won national awards: the 1979 Esther Glen Medal for Take the Long Path (1978), and the 1985 A.W. Reed Memorial Award for Hemi's Pet (1985).

Her other titles are The Third Eye (1987); Hideaway (1992); and Hemi and the Shortie Pyjamas (1996).

With a large family and a background as a teacher, de Hamel is comfortable with young people and is an active participant in the Book Council's Writers in Schools scheme. "I am very impressed by some of the young writers," she says. "I jot down their names calculating that if I live long enough, I'll read their published work some day."

In addition to writing and teaching, Joan de Hamel has for many years been a breeder of goats and donkeys.

(KC.)

KAPAI

KIDS AUTHORS PICTURES AND INFORMATION

Some Questions for Joan de Hamel

Where do you live?
The Otago Peninsula

What sort of books do you like to read?
Books for all ages, rather fast, usually two at once, one fiction and one non-fiction.

Where do you get your ideas?
Stir up the compost heap of memories in my head, then I re-mix or re-match the ideas that surface.

What is the best thing about being an author?
The words, especially the similes that sometimes appear, as if by magic, on the paper.

Some Questions for Primary School Students

What sort of pets do you have?
We have a herd of Angora goats, about 40 of them. I know them all individually by name and number – and their mothers and grandmothers. Dear old Bernadette, aged seventeen, became a great-grandmother in 2001.

Do you have a favourite colour?
Blue

Do you have a favourite food?
Chocolate

Do you have a favourite movie?
Providence

Do you play any games?
Mah Jong

What is the most fun about being an author?
Meeting children who have enjoyed my books. Getting to know young writers – some of these will be important New Zealand authors in a few years time.

How do you make a book?
I make one with much time and trouble, and, sometimes, joy. I especially enjoyed writing or illustrating short ‘real life’ books for my own children, who stitched them up and made the covers.

Where do you like to go for your holidays?
If possible we travel to remote places. We’ve been to Tibet and the Antarctic.
We often go to visit our grandchildren, but we are not away for very long because it is difficult to find ‘goat sitters’.

What was the naughtiest thing you ever did at school?
Boarding school was a big country house in England. One moonlit night, a friend and I climbed out of an attic window on to the gables of the roof. We perched ourselves between the chimney pots and howled at the moon, like dogs or wolves. Then we staged a catfight with much miaowing and spitting.

Some Questions for Children’s Questions

How did you get started?
I used to drone out stories, but by the age of four had progressed to drawing pictures. Then someone taught me the alphabet and I wrote phonetically (wnzvwz - once there was). I’ve carried on ever since, but my spelling has improved over the years.

Who inspired you when you were getting started?
No one. I kept my work PRIVIT. I read The Young Visiters by Daisy Ashford and reckoned I could do better than that.

What advice would you give an aspiring young writer?
There’s a Romany proverb ‘Shoon, dick and rig in zi’, which means ‘Hear, see and bear in mind.’ A good start becomes a good habit.

Is it difficult to make a living as a writer in New Zealand?
Yes.

What were you like as a teenager?
Fairly run-of-the-mill and not particularly outrageous. I had excellent parents who encouraged my interests in many directions. They gave me great freedom and trusted me, so sometimes, with regret, I avoided doing things that would let them down. I was a teenager during World War Two and life was fairly serious, with air raids and rationing. I could escape into my imagination and I used to write as much as possible.

Is there anything else you would like us to tell us about yourself?
I take a long time over my books because I feel the need to experience everything first hand before I can adapt it into fiction. For example, I have been lost in New Zealand Fiordland bush while searching for Kakapo. I’ve explored unmapped limestone caves. I once spent three summers on an in-depth study of Yellow-eyed Penguins. I have judged several pet shows and I’ve run a herd of Angoras for about twenty years. I’ve taught children of all ages and I’ve brought up my own five children. You can see how much trouble I took over the kid, Alice, in Hideaway – here she is having her 2 am bottle.