Cowley named Arts Foundation icon
It was children that taught her to write, says Joy Cowley, one of New Zealand’s most prolific and well-read authors.
At 83 years old, she has written more than 1000 books and this month is among three creatives welcomed by the Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi into the prestigious circle of 20 artists who have made their mark on the arts.
Cowley lives in Featherston with her husband, Terry, and the news of the honour came as a big surprise. ‘‘I did not know it existed,’’ she said. The email ‘‘was in big print, so someone wanted me to see it’’, she said, referring to her 75 per cent loss of vision over the past year.
The Icon Awards, Whakamana Hiranga, are the Arts Foundation’s highest honour, and recognise the impact each artist has had on their field.
Established in 2003, there can only be 20 icons at one time – this year marks a total of 41 artists honoured since the beginning; 20 living, and 21 now dead.
Cowley was chosen alongside visual artist and Ma¯ ori art educator Dr Sandy Adsett, and actor and film-maker Sam Neill, and will be formally recognised at a ceremony at Government House in Wellington in December.
Cowley began writing when her son struggled with learning to read. Their house was always full of books but he did not relate to fiction.
‘‘I would be reading some classic about talking animals, and he would say: That’s not true, animals don’t talk.’’
Her house was often full of children. ‘‘There was no point in putting a book in front of some of them.’’
Instead, she would ask them about their weekend and she would write down their tale, even an event as simple as going to the shop.
After they had gone, she would type them up on an old manual typewriter to give them the next day. ‘‘And no child was ever reluctant to read their own story.’’
She also learned that no child could be tense when they were laughing. ‘‘If they got the giggles, that was it, I had them.’’
She wrote fiction for the local school, and the teachers made big books out of brown paper and used them in class.
Her dream was to get them published but no publishing house would print books for children. ‘‘Picture books were few and far between.’’
Finally, in the late 1970s they were picked up, intended for teachers in New Zealand. ‘‘I didn’t know they would go round the world.’’
Sometimes stories did not work.
‘‘I remember one I took into Redwoodtown School in Blenheim. I quite liked it but the children were restless, fiddling with the velcro on their shoes and nudging each other.
‘‘And I said: What’s wrong with this story? And the boy in front said: It is boring. I asked: Which bit? And he looked me in the eye and said: All of it.
‘‘And so I trashed it.’’
She still enjoyed writing to this day. ‘‘I don’t know what I would do with the ideas – I would probably blow up.’’
She still enjoyed writing to this day. ‘‘I don’t know what I would do with the ideas – I would probably blow up.’’