Author talks of breaking free

An award-winning New Zealand writer spoke about resisting genre and finding inspiration in some surprising places at the Marlborough Book Festival.

Author Charlotte Grimshaw, the daughter of writer and critic CK Stead, said while she always wanted to write, she trained to be a lawyer.

She worked for a criminal barrister, then briefly became the ‘‘worst shipping lawyer ever in the history of shipping law’’ before deciding she was in the wrong job.

However, her legal career gave her some ‘‘fantastic material’’ to work with as a writer, she said.

‘‘I went to quite a number of murder trials,’’ she said.

‘‘What I really liked was the criminal law because of that element of a human story.’’

Grimshaw has written novels and short story collections, and has won numerous awards for her work.

Her latest book Starlight Peninsula was released in 2015.

She spoke to about 50 people at the Blenheim Club on Saturday, in conversation with interviewer Tessa Nicholson.

Her first critically-acclaimed novel, Provocation, featured a young criminal lawyer as the central character.

It was billed as crime fiction, but Grimshaw disliked that description because she aimed to create literary novels, rather than writing in a formulaic way, she said.

Her novels, which included characters such as a smart but inarticulate National Party prime minister, were intended to reflect New Zealand society.

She found inspiration everywhere she went, she said.

‘‘If you are a writer everything that you do is useful.’’

Grimshaw, who described herself as ‘‘hopelessly a New Zealander’’, began writing while she was working in London in winter, and found it was a way of dreaming up her home country, she said.

Although she had young children, she always managed to make the time to write.

‘‘It was probably because it was a source of comfort and entertainment for me.

‘‘It was something that I really liked doing.’’

Breaking free of her father’s shadow was important to Grimshaw, who said she had waited until she established a reputation of her own before appearing at book festival events with him.

‘‘I always absolutely distanced myself from him professionally.’’

However, Stead had always been very supportive of her writing, and she got on well with him.

‘‘My father has a reputation for being very ferocious but he can also be very funny,’’ she said.