Orwin, Joanna
IN BRIEF
Joanna Orwin writes books for children. She has a background in ecology and science editing and her stories often focus on New Zealand flora and fauna. She also draws extensively on Maori mythology and her interest in New Zealand’s cultural heritage. Orwin won the Children's Book of the Year Award for The Guardian of the Land (1985), and Owl (2001) was the Senior Fiction category winner for the 2002 New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards. Orwin participates in the Writers in Schools programme.
ProfilePlace of residence: Christchurch, New Zealand |
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joanna Orwin is a writer for children and adults. Her fiction and non-fiction books share a focus on New Zealand's natural environment, Maori history and mythology, and European history.
She won the Children's Book of the Year Award for The Guardian of the Land (1985).
'The 1000 years of Maori occupation provide us with a rich heritage of story and belief that cries out to be woven into our literature,' she writes.
Orwin's background is in the natural sciences, and she has worked as a plant ecologist and science editor. She now works as a freelance writer and editor on interpretation projects with a focus on natural and cultural heritage.
Her first book for children is Ihaka and the Summer Wandering (1983), which was followed by Ihaka and the Prophecy (1984); The Guardian of the Land (1985); Watcher in the Forest (1987); and Tar Dragon (1997).
Owl (2001) is a young adult novel based on the Waitaha legend of the Pouakai, a ferocious giant eagle. Owl was awarded Best in Senior Fiction at the 2002 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, and was also listed as a 2002 Storylines Notable Senior Fiction Book.
In Out of Tune (Longacre, 2004) Jasmine is out to shock. Electric clothes, electric hair, wired behaviour: anything to get approval from the cool kids at school - and admit it, Jaz - to force her parents to take notice.
Out of Tune was a finalist in the Young Adult Fiction Category for the 2005 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, and made the 2005 Storylines Notable Young Adult Fiction list.
The Guardian of the Land was republished in 2005 by HarperCollins as a Collins Modern New Zealand Classic.
Orwin's Kauri In My Blood: The Diary of Laura Ann Findlay, the Coromandel, 1921-24 (Scholastic, 2007.) is part of the My Story series, and tells the story of a childhood lived in the logging camps of Kauaeranga Valley near Thames. This a fictionalised story, based closely on the true story told to Joanna Orwin by Ruth Mickey Murray.
Orwin's two non-fiction titles for adults are Four Generations from Maoridom: The Memoirs of Syd Cormack As Told to Joanna Orwin (1997) and Kauri: Witness to a Nation’s History (2004). She won awards in history towards the writing of both these titles. She has contributed articles for 'The Bush', in Te Ara, the New Zealand on-line Encyclopaedia.
Her latest fiction work is a historical novel for adults entitled Collision, published in 2009. This is a fictionalised account of Marion du Fresne’s French expedition to the Bay of Islands in 1772, told from the perspectives of a seventeen-year-old French ensign and the later recorded memories of a Maori youth present at the time.
Joanna Orwin was the 2009 recipient of the University of Otago College of Education Children’s Writing Fellowship.
writers in schools information
Orwin is available to talk to intermediate and secondary schools. She is prepared to talk about being a teen fiction writer, a novelist/adult fiction writer, and a non-fiction writer. She can give an introduction and talk, a reading and Q&A session and will consider workshops with prior notice. She would prefer to speak to classes with a maximum of 40 students. She is prepared to travel out of town for Writers in Schools visits.
Kapai: Kids' Authors Pictures and Information
Where do you live?
I live in a suburban house with a large garden in Christchurch.
What sort of books do you like to read?
Lots of fiction – adult and children’s. Lots of non-fiction for research purposes.
Who is your favourite author?
At any one time I have half a dozen or more – these change depending on what books/writers I’m reading. Children’s writers like Philip Pullman, Sonya Hartnett, and Margaret Mahy. Adult fiction writers like Anne Tyler, Jane Gardam and Maurice Gee – at the moment.
Where do you get your ideas?
A place or an event captures my interest and I build on that thinking up a story line, characters and eventually I have enough to base a book on. It takes a long time and often involves a lot of research before I actually start writing.
What is the best thing about being an author?
Having an excuse to find out about something that interests me, then ending up with a story that didn’t exist before.
Some questions from Primary School students
Do you have any pets?
Just now I have an aging tabby cat called Moppet. I have two bantams with large feathery feet called Ginger and Spice – they live in my garden.
Do you have a favourite colour?
Ocean blue.
Do you have a favourite food?
Chocolate.
Do you have a favourite movie?
Bagdad Café.
Do you play any games?
Tiddly Winks.
What is the most fun thing about being an author?
Believing in magic and making it become real in a story.
How do you make a book?
By sitting and thinking and writing a lot, then walking and thinking and writing some more. I do this for weeks and weeks and months and months until the story is a finished pile of paper.
Where do you go for your holidays?
Mostly I go to our family bach at Nelson Lakes National Park. I also go to other places in the South Island on tramping trips.
What was the naughtiest thing you ever did at school?
I once read my way through an arithmetic test in Year 5 (Standard 3). I had Enid Blyton’s The Castle of Adventure on my lap under the desk. I didn’t hear the teacher tell us we were about to have a test. I finished the book before I noticed everyone else scribbling away.
Some questions from Secondary School students
How did you get started?
By chance really, I had time on my hands with two children at school, a baby and no job. I just decided writing a book would be fun and a challenge.
Did anyone inspire you when you were getting started?
All the writers I’d loved when I was young – Rosemary Sutfliff, Arthur Ransome, C. S. Lewis, Henry Treece. I didn’t tell anyone I was writing a book until I’d finished, but once it was published, Margaret Mahy and Elsie Locke were a great support.
What advice would you give an aspiring young writer?
Read heaps, live heaps, be observant about places and people, then write heaps.
Is it difficult to make a living as a writer in New Zealand?
Yes, the market is small and most writers have other jobs. I worked as a science editor until recently. Now I do a lot of contract writing as well as writing books.
What were you like as a teenager?
Quiet as a mouse, shy and introspective and not at ease with my classmates. But inside my head I was witty, bold and adventurous. I lived a highly colourful life, often based on the characters in books I was reading. I spent time mucking about in boats and walking on the hills with my dog and sometimes with a friend. I expected too much of my friends and never had more than one or two at a time.
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about yourself?
When I was growing up, books went everywhere I went. I read in the top branches of a huge plum tree where interlacing twigs made a cradle thirty feet above the ground. It was great when the plums were ripe. I read sprawled out on a thick mat of banana passion fruit vine that was strangling the tall hedge between our house and the neighbours. I read inside an old water tank where the light came through a million tiny holes in its rusted sides – it was a bit claustrophobic. I read on board my sailing dinghy on calm evenings while I drifted on the tide, fishing pole out one side, homework reading on my knee. Somehow the reading I do now as an adult seems very tame. Maybe I should try out the tall red beech in my garden?
Media links and clips
- Read an interview with Joanna Orwin on the Christchurch City Library website.
