Lockdown challenge for author
Trisha Hanifin has just had her debut novel The Time Lizard’s Archaeologist published but the road to publication has been paved with challenges, as has her role as a lecturer in Bridging Education.
Hanifin has lived in West Auckland since 2007 and for the past 11 years in Sunnyvale. Since 2013, she has worked in Henderson at the Waitakere campus of Unitec, although with five lockdowns in two years because of Covid-19, she and her students have spent considerable time working from home via Zoom, phone, text and email.
‘‘It’s been a challenging couple of years but both staff and students have worked very hard and shown resilience and creativity in coping with offcampus lockdown conditions.’’
Hanifin has also found Auckland’s latest and longest lockdown challenging for another reason: production of The Time Lizard’s Archaeologist had to be delayed until level 3, and events around the country were postponed and cancelled.
‘‘It was disappointing but it’s been a more difficult time for so many people, including those in the creative sector,’’ she says.
With the current relaxation of restrictions, The Time Lizard’s Archaeologist has finally been published and is now available from local bookshops (you can order it if they don’t have it) or directly from Cloud Ink Press.
When asked to tell us about her first novel, Hanifin says it is ‘‘a multilayered, speculative fiction story. It mixes the real and the surreal, moving between the ordinary and the extraordinary – and then back again.
‘‘Readers will encounter unusual characters, landscapes, cultures and ideas.’’
Hanifin says her novel is like many books and movies these days: ‘‘It includes myths and legends, ghosts and magic, but the heart of the book is about personal, family, socio-economic and environmental concerns and conflicts, their interrelationship, and the hope for a better, more sustainable world.’’
The motivation for the story came quite a while ago.
‘‘In 2001, I had a dream about a woman who lived in a village in a remote valley at the foot of a mountain range,’’ she says.
‘‘She was a mysterious, compelling character, and I dreamt about her many times. So many times that I began to write down each ‘episode’. This was the impetus for what later became this novel.’’
Hanifin is a graduate of the Masters of Creative Writing programme at AUT (2010). In 2019, the unpublished manuscript of The Time Lizard’s Archaeologist was awarded second place in the Ashton Wylie Mind Body Spirit awards.
For further information go to trishahanifin.com. The Time Lizard’s Archaeologist by Trisha Hanifin, Cloud Ink Press, RRP $29.95