How I write:
Grant Sheehan is a Wellington-based photographer, publisher, and writer. His work has featured in magazines and newspapers such as Condé Nast Traveller, The Telegraph, the New York Times, and in more than 30 books.
His recent books include The Night Watchers: New Zealand Nightscapes (2018), Does Ava Dream? (2020) – about artificial intelligence, its development, and implications – and three children’s books about New Zealand lighthouses.
His latest, In Memory of Travel, not only takes the reader on a roller-coaster trip around the globe but also explores both the place travel occupies in our memory and the near future of travel.
Which book do you wish you’d written and why?
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. A great story with fascinating shifting characters and a well-drawn setting, it vacillates between historical novel and thriller, and is packed with humour and irony.
Which writer do you turn to when you have writer’s block?
Fortunately, I don’t really suffer from writer’s block. This is mainly because much of my writing is either essay or introduction to my photographic books, so there are always photos to draw from. With my current book, In Memory of Travel, each story was written first from memory, then cross-referenced with photos taken at the time. Photographs can often function as small memory bombs.
Which book had such an effect on you that you bought it for your friends?
Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future. It’s a powerful, compelling story set in the near future that spins off from a catastrophic climate event to explore a raft of constructive and achievable ideas concerning climate crises. A book about hope.
What book do you go back to time and time again to re-read?
Alexander McCall Smith’s The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, set in Botswana. These stories are beautifully written,
evocative and transportive. Each book has multiple stories running parallel but interconnecting, a technique that really lends itself to re-reading.
Which authors would you want in your book club?
Andy Weir, Matt Haig, Tade Thompson, Kazuo Ishiguro, William Ford Gibson, Amor Towles plus about 100 or so others ...
What book did you read as a child or teen that had a profound effect on you?
As a 13-year-old school librarian, I read The Hobbit, which led me on to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I reread them several times as an adult, the last time just before the release of Peter Jackson’s first movie, knowing that when I saw the films, the characters would no longer live in my mind in the same way.
Have you ever finished a book and gone straight back to the start to read again?
Although I don’t remember having done that, I often dip back into books that I have just read, re-reading sections or passages. Recent examples are Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli, and Gaia theorist James Lovelock’s 2019 wide
sweeping Novacene (which he completed aged 99).
When it comes to a memorable book, what is more important, a great plot or great characters?
While both are important, I feel strong characters hold sway, since in most cases they are the drivers of the story, and the reader is more likely to emotionally connect to them than any other aspect. Without a good plot, though, even strong characters can be left stranded.
What’s your writing routine?
I write mostly in the early morning, as I often wake around 3 or 4am, write on my iPad, then email it to my office PC and edit it during the day. This fragmented system seems to work well for me.
What ‘‘must read’’ book have you not read? Go on, fess up.
The Man who fell to Earth by Walter Tevis. I saw the 1976 movie starring David Bowie and the 2021 mind-expanding television series, but I’ve yet to read the book. It was described by US writer James Sallis as ‘‘among the finest science fiction novels’’.