CHRISTCHURCH WRITERS FESTIVAL 2008
CREATING WORLDS
The Sister Knox

“As children Elizabeth & Sara Knox created a rich and intricate fantasy world that kept them enthralled for years and provided the ideal grounding for their lives as fiction writers”.

And we learned today that they still play this fantasy “game “ and they both continue to mine the game’s creations in their writing.
The sisters Knox are two interesting women (great understatement) and this morning under the skilled probing of Chair John McKenzie, (an expert in the field of children’s literature at the University of Canterbury), we gained an insight into their minds and thought processes. They are remarkably in tune with each other, seem to know what each is thinking, and are clearly very familiar with each other’s writing.
I was so totally intrigued by the session that I completely overlooked making notes! Two remarkable women.

Sara Knox’s The Orphan Gunner was shortlisted for the 2008 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, no mean achievement. Younger sister Elizabeth is the author of seven novels the best known of which, The Vintner’s Luck, won the 1999 Montana NZ Book Award for fiction and she revealed today that a sequel to that work, The Angel’s Cut, is to be published in 2009. Also due net year is the movie version of The Vintner's Luck.

Her two latest titles, Dreamhunter and Dreamquake (YA fiction) have recently been published as one title for the adult fantasy market and she told us of some of the rewriting that had to be done to achieve this..