grub street -

Steve Braunias resumes his diary as a literary nobody

My big fat gormless face will stare from the cover of my next book. It was the publisher’s idea. She said, Your big fat gormless face will help sell it. I said, Oh well if you insist. But vanity was at work. I could have said no. I said no when I was shown the cover design. The colour of the title and the author’s name was bright pink. Unbelievable. I said, Everyone will think I’m a total homo. She said, No they won’t but so what if they do? I said, Are you insane? Sanity prevailed. The colour was changed to bright red. God almighty.

The book is a new selection of columns. I came up with a great title: Sweets. The publisher said, That’s terrible. She came up with about a dozen suggestions. I hated the lot. I showed them to Wellington writer Neil Cross, who advises me on all literary matters. I said, Just how bad are these! He said, You’re an idiot, they’re great, especially Smoking In Antarctica.
Smoking In Antarctica is published by Awa Press in October

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The winners of a major literary prize are announced on Thursday night. Two authors will pocket $35,000. Last week I ran into someone who claimed to have a close connection with the selection panel. She whispered: “You’re in with a chance.” The following day I ran into somebody else who I knew was connected. He said in a normal voice: “No, you’re not.”

*

Four beautifully produced art books were nominated as finalists in the category of best book of illustrated non-fiction at the recent NZ Post Book Awards, but the judging panel chose Al Brown’s garish and ugly cookbook Go Fish as the winner.
 It struck me as maybe the stupidest awards decision since the famously stupid decision in 2003, when judges reckoned that Michael Cooper’s boring Wine Atlas of New Zealand was superior to Philip Temple’s masterly biography of Wakefield, and named it the best book of non-fiction.

Research quite possibly shows that books about food and wine affect the mental capacity of judging panels, which is why I must see about persuading the publisher to change her title of my book to Eating and Drinking in Antarctica.

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To Christchurch, last month, where I was engaged as a keynote speaker at the national annual conference of English teachers. The conference was held at Christ’s College. Before and after my talk, I chatted with teachers from Dunedin, Lower Hutt, Marton, Nelson, Auckland and Twizel over sandwiches and pastries. They were very nice, and so were the teachers, who were also very funny, and very, very fond of swearing, but that’s because I kept mentioning education minister Anne Tolley.

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I know where I am every day of the working week in 2010. Monday, look after my daughter; Monday night, write this column. Tuesday, look after journalism students at the Waikato Institute of Technology in Hamilton. Wednesday, think, read, sleep. Thursday, write the Secret Diary column for the Sunday Star-Times. Friday morning, write the May Contain Facts column, syndicated to the Southland Times, Dominion-Post, Waikato Times, Nelson Mail, Taranaki Daily News, and Timaru Herald; Friday afternoon, plan ahead, tidy up, drink.
But I’ve decided to quit writing the diary column. No doubt many thousands of readers will take to the streets in protest, and already there’s talk that it could lead to a government inquiry. I will be available for comment on Thursday, unless I’m reading, asleep, or at an awards ceremony.

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Why is New Zealand television so remorselessly stink? New drama series This Is Not My Life is like a repeat of last year’s drama series The Cult, meaning that it’s just as phoney and ridiculous and probably endless, meaning that its only idea of narrative is to throw around pieces of a contrived and fatuous puzzle, meaning that it’s made, utterly and hopelessly, in Auckland. It stinks of Auckland. Auckland television has very distinctive traits: soullessness, mental deficiency, and fast editing but slow acting.

Anyway, I hope that helps to answer the question.

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What kinds of agonies do painters suffer when they’re included in a group show? Maybe they stand in the gallery with clenched fists and think, Oh god I’m so much better than these other bums, this is humiliating, never again. Or perhaps they hide in a corner and fret, Oh god I look like a complete amateur next to the other works, this is excruciating, never again.
The closest equivalent for writers is to appear in an anthology.

I recently received a copy of Flights of Imagination: Extraordinary writing about birds, published in Canada. It opens with a chapter from my book How to Watch a Bird. The next selection is by American writer Kenn Kaufman. He’s a birding legend, and author of the classic Kingbird Highway, a book as bright and captivating as a Halcyon sancta.

I think it’s entirely possible that Kaufman opened the book, started reading, and thought, Oh god never again.

Footnote:
This story was featured in the Sunday Star Times magazine on Sunday 12 September, 2010 and is reproduced here with permission of the author.