New Zealand Writers
McKINNON, Kingi
Offers fascinating insights into Maori belief
Photograph: Courtesy of Te Ha / Toi Maori Aotearoa
McKINNON, Kingi (1943-2006) wrote fiction for children and young adults.McKinnon was born and raised in Auckland. He has worked a wide variety of jobs including as a railway worker, a freezing worker, a truck driver, a glasscutter and glazier, as well as spending time in the Armed Services.
McKinnon completed his 6th Form English Certificate in 1986. In 1996 he completed a Diploma of Freelance Journalism and then worked as a freelance journalist as well as an author.
McKinnon’s novels include Whitebait Fritters (1995), The Friday Frights (1995) and When The Kehua Calls (2002).
McKinnon’s short stories have appeared in the School Journal, Touchdown (1994), Tangata Tangata (1998), Body in the Driveway (1995), Nga Korero (1994) and Te Ao Marama 4. He was also a regular writer for 'Ears' on National radio.
In his successful writing career McKinnon has received various awards for his work including Te Atairangikaahu Award for Fiction (1991), Te Kaunihera Short Story Award (1995). He was short-listed in the Junior Fiction Category at the AIM Children’s Book Award (1995).
In 1995 he was awarded the Creative NZ Todd New Writers Bursary for When The Kehua Calls. A novel that went on to be described as ‘a genuinely spooky book that has fascinating insights into Maori belief and is, simply, a really good story.’
Kingi McKinnon was a participant in the New Zealand Book Council’s Writers in Schools Programme.
(LK)
Updated Information
When the Kehua Calls (2002) was shortlisted for the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards 2003.
Kingi McKinnon participated in 'On the Bus: Flat Out Brown Contemporary Maori Writers on Tour' Taupo 9 – 13 February 2004. His short story, 'Maiki' appeared The Six Pack, the sampler of New Zealand writing from New Zealand's inaugral Book Month publication (2006). He also published a collection of short stories for young adults entitled Tales from the Swamp (Scholastic).
Kingi McKinnon is available to talk to primary school students. Topics he is prepared to discuss is writing for children. He would prefer to talk to groups of 30 students and he is able to run workshops. He is prepared to travel out of town for Writers in Schools visits.
KIDS AUTHORS PICTURES AND INFORMATION
Some Questions for Kingi McKinnon
Questions for Primary School Students
Do you have any pets?
I don’t have any anymore because I travel a lot and I wouldn’t be able to fee them.
Do you have a favourite colour?
Purple
A favourite food?
Porridge
Do you have a favourite movie?
Lord of the Rings
How about a favourite game?
Pool
What is the most fun thing about being an author?
Showing the finished books and stories to children and seeing the pleasure they receive from the characters you have created.
How do you make a book?
It is quite a complicated process with more than just the writer involved. There are also: editors, illustrators, printers and publishers.
Where do you like to go on holiday?
I go to Waiheke Island.
What was the naughtiest thing you ever did at school?
Hmmm. Well once a friend of mine told me another pupil was in a certain toilet cubicle, so I filled a gumboot with water and threw it over the top. Sadly, it wasn’t a pupil. It was a rather wet, red-faced and angry schoolteacher.
Questions for Secondary School Students
How did you get started as a writer?
I have always enjoyed writing and wrote fairly interesting essays at school. An accident caused me to begin writing while my leg was in plaster.
Did anyone inspire you when you were getting started?
I had a schoolteacher friend who urged me to send some of my stories to the school journals and they were accepted.
What advice would you give an aspiring young writer?
Be as creative and imaginative, as you need to be. People love to lose themselves in fantasy. Be original.
Is it hard to make a living as a writer in New Zealand?
It depends on how successful your books are and how regularly they are produced. You need to be prolific to make it really worth your while.
What were you like as a teenager?
I was outgoing, fun-loving and made the most of everyday. I loved to travel, liked going to dances and the movies. I was pretty shy, and unfortunately I had a talent for say the wrong thing and upsetting people. Oops.
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about – maybe something quirky?
Ummm I think throwing the gumboot into the toilet cubicle was about the quirkiest thing I’ve ever done.
Another this is, I was a ‘notorious’ sleep talker. If any of my family wanted to know what I’d been up to, they merely had to place a hand on my chest while I was asleep, fire up the questions, and I sang like a canary. Understandably, no one trusted me with their secrets.
News from nzoom.com
Kingi, the kids and their curious questions Being a geek, my favourite day at primary school was Book Day. We stuttered out our book reviews at the front of the class, dressed up as our favourite characters (I went as Anne of Green Gables, my brother was the digger from Digger Dan ) and best of all, had real live authors come and visit.
So I was pretty excited to be following children's writer Kingi McKinnon around for a day as he toured libraries as part of this week's New Zealand Post Children's Book Festival. As the writer of a shortlisted book in the junior fiction section of the NZ Post children's book awards, entitled When the Kehua Calls , he is much in demand.
McKinnon, of Tainui descent, looks like a comfortable grandfather, with greying hair tied back in a ponytail. An affable and uncomplaining gentle giant, which is fortunate because, as I found out, the life of a touring author is hard graft.
For instance, his day started at 4am so he could catch the 7am plane from Rotorua to Auckland. My day started at the more civilised hour of 9:30am when I met him and his library monitor - the lovely Youth Specialist Kaye Lally - in the Auckland Central Library's Whare Wananga.
The Kowhai Intermediate bilingual te reo unit was late. Cue nervous looks out the window and a whole collection of bus breakdown stories from the librarians. But no, they'd just left late, and were soon happily seated on the library's multihued airport carpet which is so loud that if it were human it would be breaking library rules.
After being introduced, McKinnon talked about leaving Auckland at age 7 and growing up in the Waikato. He said When the Kehua calls was inspired by going to a tangi when he was 12 and seeing people tramping the house where the dead person was, to get rid of any evil spirits. "It freaked me right out. I'm not saying you have to believe in it, but it's something to think about."
His speech, delivered in slightly muffled tones, was all of two minutes long. I guess if they have anything to say, authors prefer to write it down.
"Any questions?"
A bit of rustling from the kids. Scabs were picked. Watch straps were played with. One enterprising youngster started scraping paint off a support column with a paper clip.
So McKinnon asked a question of his own.
"Anyone been to a tangi?"
Hands shot up all over the place and their owners lost their shyness. Questions started coming thick and fast:
"Do you write all your books in English?"
"Is it hard?"
"Are your books true?"
"How long does it take you to write a book?"
For the record, the answers were yes, no, yes and "it depends how long the book is". There were "ahs" of wonder in the audience when McKinnon said he sometimes writes from 2am to 2pm and "oos" of admiration that one of his books had been translated into German. After about twenty minutes of questions for McKinnon, Lally wrapped the session up by talking about the book awards. More questions, including "do the judges have to read all the books?" then the rest of the session was in Maori: one of the Maori Services library staff, Raniera Kingi, told a couple of stories, one of the students thanked McKinnon and they all sang him a song.
Next stop for the author and his entourage of two (Lally and me) was the Mt Albert Public Library (airport carpet in red and orange). There was enough time for a cuppa and an insight into the minds of librarians: only certain cups were allowed to be used by us guests as most of the cups were special cups only for staff use. Goodness knows what furore would have broken out if Lally hadn't been on the ball with her library etiquette.
There were fewer children at Mt Albert, but they were from two schools: Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o nga Maungarongo and Balmoral Intermediate. Again, McKinnon gave his short speech and this time, his audience was even more inquisitive:
"How old are you?"
"Are you married?"
"Do you have kids?"
"How old are they?"
"Has one of your kids been married yet?"
"Do your kids give you ideas?"
"Do you give them free copies of your books?"
Hard-bitten hack that I am, I envied the kids their innocent faces as they asked cheeky questions. Not that it got them anywhere: if McKinnon's answers were true, he's 21 and his two children are 80 and 90. The students laughed, and at the end swarmed around him clamouring for him to autograph their arms.
There was just time for a foodcourt feed before driving across town to the Glen Innes Library (surprisingly subtle carpet colours here). Lally handed us over to the very capable Sue Jackson and drove off to do less fun parts of her job. The audience for this visit were all the students at Glen Innes Intermediate School - all 38 of them. Interestingly, one of the students asked "do you have to go to university to be a writer?" which one of the kids in Mt Albert had asked as well. "No," answered McKinnon. "Anybody can write."
Actually, the adults hogged most of the questions at Glen Innes, so instead of "if you earned lots of money from writing books, would you buy a limousine?" we got "are you writing about a similar theme in your next book?" but McKinnon refused to say. "Go on, we promise we won't tell," said one of the teachers. "No we don't!" said a truthful librarian. The kids started eyeing up the lollies, which were finally handed out at the end, along with an activity sheet.
Then it was back to school for them, back to work for me and across to Waiheke Island for McKinnon. He was visiting a friend before he did the whole thing again the next day, this time in North Shore City. In fact his tour of duty only finishes this Tuesday, when he goes to Wellington for the book award ceremony. Only 400 questions to go.
Janet McAllister
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