12 Questions

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going back to France. Suddenly we were airborne. He said, “I say, I’ve never been on such a quiet aircraft”.

written about your dad’s dementia in your blog Why did you start a non-fiction blog for grownups?

I started blogging as a way of going public with my writing. I’d write things, hit post, then run and hide because you feel like you’ve revealed a bit of yourself. I thought maybe I’d become this fantastic mummy blogger or a publication would ask me to write a column, but it hasn’t happened. I’ve been surprised to get about 100 readers a day from around the world. I wrote about washing my feet at an Abu Dhabi temple and now get a lot of readers who google Iranian feet. They must have some fetish.

of your blogs was about a woman in the rest home who had the hots for your dad.

Apparently it’s quite common. She called him Vic and thought he was her husband. I was bringing dad into the home one day when she said, “I’m going to give you a kiss”. Dad was like, “He, he, he,” so I thought, “That’s quite cute. He’s getting a bit of affection,” but once she tried to sit on his lap I was like, “Oh no, no. I can’t do this.” I had to call a carer.

grew up in Bayswater on the North Shore and the Hawke’s Bay. Why do you live in Queenstown?

My husband was working for AJ Hackett when we married so we moved there and never left. Our three children are teenagers now.

I’d been in marketing but decided to do something completely different so started growing flowers commercially. Initially it was sunflowers. Now I just grow peonies.

were 51 when you published your first book, What sparked the late-life career change?

My eldest daughter Lily used to write her own picture books at age four which is probably what got me started. Reading to the children, I’d often think, “I could write a better book”. I wanted to create a feisty heroine because I thought the world needs more of them. I created the Lily Max character 12 years ago and had various goes at getting published. I stole the name from my daughter but when Lily read the book she said, “Oh Mum, she’s nothing like me at all,” which is true.

you decide Lily Max would make her own clothes out of op shop gear?

Partly in retaliation against all that peer pressure my daughters faced of wanting the latest top from the nasty old House of G. I grew up around sewing.

Mum sewed haute couture gowns at home in the 1960s. My younger sister works in film costume departments. I wanted to make Lily a bit punk because I was into punk when I lived in London in the 80s. I’d shave small strips above my ears and tease out the front.

does Lily Max go to the sea in

The first two books were set in Queenstown winters. I wanted the third to be a Kiwi beach holiday seen through fresh eyes.

Taking Lily Max out of her home town meant I had to find a new antagonist. Enter Ryder, the cute surfer boy who becomes the annoying third wheel in Lily Max’s longed-for summer reunion with her BFF Greer. Lily Max has been 12 in all three books but now undergoes a subtle coming-of-age.

dedicated this book to your mum and your dad. Why?

I wasn’t sure a dedication would mean anything to Dad but I decided to anyway. He died two weeks ago. The last time I saw him, I told him I’d dedicated this book to him because it had the sea, a salty old seadog and a shipwreck in it. He said, “Well, well, well. So there we are . . . ” He often said that.