Snapshot: CLAIRE FIN LAY SON

Past: Claire spent her childhood in Mount Maunganui, moving happily between the sea and her prized pack of 36 Stephens felt-tip pens. She dreamed of being an artist or cartoonist and ignored her mum’s advice to study something that would open employment doors, instead emerging from university with an MA in art history. She worked in various arty jobs before falling word-wards and began writing for magazines in 2002, publishing a book on self- portraits by New Zealand artists in 2005. Claire’s a repeat offender on the NZ Life & Leisure front: she was a contributor right from the getgo in 2005 when the magazine was a bouncy newborn. She took a few years’ break from writing to tackle the role of programme director for the Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival (an enthralling and vertiginous learning curve) but missed the business of shuffling words around on a page so decided to pester editor Kate Coughlan about returning to the

NZ Life & Leisure fold. Kate relented.

Present: Claire is relishing the return to freelance writing. It combines two of her favourite things: chatting to people and trying to find the right collection of words in which to wrap their stories. (For this issue she talked to a van- keen man called Ted about his prized electric Citroën 2CV. See page 152.) The freelance life also gives her enough room to grow two raucous boy creatures and chauffeur them to various ball games. With husband Ian and sons Sam and Monty, she lives on the Otago Peninsula.

Future: Claire’s been throwing fond glances at Japan lately and thinks a trip there might be quite the best thing to long for.