Name: Joanna Orwin
Date of birth: 28 November 1944
Place of birth: Nelson
Now living in: Christchurch
- What is your favourite food?
- Chocolate
- Do you have a nickname and if so what is it?
- (no answer given)
- What was your most embarrassing moment?
- My dog catching a duck in front of 400 people at Boat Race Day, Lake Rotoiti (Nelson) when I was about 11.
- How do you relax?
- With a good book when I'm feeling lazy; tramping in the hills when I'm feeling energetic.
- Who inspired you when you were little?
- A great aunt and an elderly friend, who believed in me and accepted me for 'me' - they taught me that it was OK to be yourself.
- What were you like at school?
- Shy, quiet, hardworking - but the other kids joined in the imaginative games I organised at school.
- What was your favourite/most hated subject at school?
- Nature and Social Studies - favourite.
Maths - most hated. - What was the book you most loved as a child?
- Everything written by Rosemary Sutcliff.
- Which person from the past would you most like to meet?
- Shakespeare - because of his amazing knowledge of people and the way they behave - knowledge that is still totally relevant in the twenty-first century.
- Who is your favourite author/children's author?
- Too many great authors to settle on one favourite.
- Why did you want to be a writer?
- To see if I could write books that children would want to read - to share ideas and the things that mean the most to me, particularly the New Zealand landscape and stories that grow out of living in New Zealand.
- Do you have a special place where you write your books?
- Not really, but my computer now sets the place I write - in my living room, with morning sun.
- What's the best thing and worst thing about being a writer?
- The best thing - exploring ideas and finding out stuff.
The worst - not being sure the story is working. -
If
you weren't a writer, what would you like to be? - Anthropologist - studying now communities of people relate to each other and their environment.
- What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
- Read, read, read; write, write, write.