ATARIA SHARMAN
There are er e ori warriors with sharpened teeth and huge pit h bla eyes. lso, a friendly moa, a giant eagle, a tribe of ea. We meet aui’s grumpy grandmother, an en hanted dog, a terrifying sor erer intent on world domination. Hine and the Tohunga Portal is the rst boo by taria harman Tapui a, g puhi a pa y fantasy adventure shortlisted in the est irst oo ategory at the up oming ew ealand oo wards for hildren and oung dults. harman has a master of arts in ori studies and re ently stepped down as editor of arts ulture website The Pantograph Punch. he lives in i urangi, Whang rei. he tells Grant Smithies about being a total nerd”, be oming a writer and the deadline that hanged everything.
Where did it all start for you? I grew up in Tawa. I went to university and did my postgrad studies in Wellington, then met my partner at a
ori Innovation hallenge in u land. e was from Whang rei, and one of my own iwi is from up there, too, so I moved up north to Te Tai To erau. nd I really li e it. our years later, I’m still here.
Were you a bookworm as a child? I was a total boo nerd I always thought my superpower was speed reading, be ause I plough through a novel in, li e, an hour. I was pretty small as a id, too, and loo ed younger than I was, so they’d hassle me at the lo al library for being in the oung dults se tion and point out where the little ids’ boo s were.
When did you become a writer yourself? That was mu h more re ent. I always thought it was something I was good at, but it didn’t seem possible to ma e a living from writing, so I did a ommer e degree. Then I went ba to do postgrad
ori studies when I was 2 , fo using on mana w hine and atua w hine the ori goddesses within pre olonial belief systems.
An email from Te Papa Tupu/the Māori Literature Trust changed your path. The message said, OK, you have six months if you want to submit a boo dra . It had been 1 years or so sin e I had done anything other than a ademi writing, so I pro rastinated until I only had one month le , then started on a manus ript. I would get up two hours early ea h day to write before I went to university, and in the end I had 30,000 words. I was one of ve people who won a pla e on their writing mentorship programme,
“I decided to write the kind of book I would love to have read when I was about 12, with young Māori characters doing exciting things in pre-colonial times.”
whi h is when my writing ourney really began. The pro ess was epi I was 2 when I started this boo , and I’m 32 now.
Tell us a little about the story. I de ided to write the ind of boo I would love to have read when I was about 12, with young
ori hara ters doing ex iting things in pre olonial times. I love fantasy and magi , li e animals that tal and dramati battles the inds of things that aptivate your imagination at that age. The plot revolves around two ori hildren wal ing home from s hool, and the younger brother is idnapped and ta en into the mouth of a taniwha by these men in strange lothing. The hildren are then set on a tra e tory where they have to learn about this strange world they’ve suddenly found themselves in and about their own wha apapa as
ori hildren. The boo is fun, but hildren also learn some reo and ti anga ori
on epts as they go along.
Your book seems part of a resurgence in essays, fiction, poetry and visual art that explore precolonial belief systems. Those narratives have always existed, but they’re a lot quieter than more dominant narratives and o en marginalised by traditional media. ut re ently, it seems the tide has turned a bit. I’m een to promote the appearan e of more diverse stories, whi h is why I want this rst boo to be part of a series, where I introdu e other tua ori and imagine what they might be li e and how they ould intera t with these hildren.
What’s next for you? I have a business alled
wa W hine, whi h is a digital ine publishing writing by w hine ori, in luding myself. We did a printed maga ine a few months ago whi h I edited, and we’re doing another one in ugust. I also do freelan e editing, writing and digital mar eting. I’m ind of a wor aholi , but when I’m not wor ing, anime means a lot to me, and my partner and I are both big gamers. ames su h as The Witcher and Age of Empires were huge for me, and really helpful in my boo when it ame to writing onvin ing battle s enes. lot of ids are gaming these days, mu h to their parents’
hagrin, I guess, even though it an really feed your imagination. Their parents will be li e
go outside and limb a tree nd the id’s more li e, ah, leave me alone. I’m ghting a dragon here”.