Rotorua Noir will be your first visit to New Zealand. Tell us what you know about New Zealand and what you’re expecting to see and experience while you’re here.
Well, the first thing I think about when I think of New Zealand is of course my friend Grant Nicol :) He is the first Kiwi I really got to know and I have to say the man sparked my interest in visiting the country. If all New Zealanders are as lovely and talented as he is I might move there.
Another thing I think about is that it was a surprise for me to learn that the country was not named after Sjælland in Denmark (we Icelanders tend to think everything is named after Denmark, our former colonial masters) but after a place in Holland. I have of course seen photos of the amazing natural beauty and the very varied fauna and flora, tropical north and penguins in the south and all that. But I also heard that you launch a lot of rockets into space....what’s that all about?
You’ve been to quite a number of crime writing festivals all around the world. How are you expecting Rotorua Noir to be different to the other ones you’ve been to so far?
Well, my hopes are that I will get to hear New Zealand authors speak about their books. And I expect them all to be as friendly as Grant Nicol. I really expect the festival to be a friendly festival, not so very unlike Iceland Noir. I like festivals where you can get to know the other authors, engage in conversation with the readers and have many coffee-chats with different people. I hope it will be like that.
The weather in Rotorua during January will be very different to your country in the grips of winter. What steps are you going to take to combat the heat and humidity?
I will take a paracetamol in the morning to lower my body heat slightly and drink the water at room temperature. I was partly raised in Mexico so I have some tricks up my sleeve. One of them is to eat a lot of chillis. They seem to work for me in heat.
Along with being a playwright and crime novelist you also divide your time with some other very important duties. I have it on good authority that you are responsible for the quality control of all pies, pickles, sauces and condiments that are brought in from the UK to Iceland. Primarily pork pies and certain brown sauces that go very well with them. Along the way you have picked up the nickname the ‘Icelandic Minister for Food’. A role where you have been critical in the past of some of Iceland’s more traditional foods.
Yes, I am a foodie. I love to cook and eat and talk about food, therefore my very respectable title amongst friends. (‘Minister for Food’). After having lived in many countries I tend to miss certain delicacies from them and go out of my way to get my hands (and mouth) on them. But regarding Icelandic delicacies...hmmm. We have a very mixed tradition of food here. First of all we have a very old tradition dating back to the Viking age and most of that food is rather.... shall we say... interesting. At that time people were desperate to preserve food for our long winters, as we did not have any salt because we didn’t have any firewood to boil sea water, we leaned on more traditional ways of preserving meat. This food is rather sour in taste and I do like it as I was raised on it, but for the younger generation of Icelanders and foreigners I guess it is not really considered food. We have a number of traditional ways of preserving food such as smoking, curing and even rotting it.
The other culinary tradition we have is Danish in origin and the Danish make lovely food as they learned most of what they know from the French. Most of our baking derives from Denmark as we did not really have any wheat here before the Danish rule.
My imaginary scenario revolves around these two extra-curricular activities of yours. Imagine two people you know are visiting you from the UK on separate days. The first person you like very much and want them to feel as at home as possible while they’re in Iceland. The second person you can’t stand and as far as you’re concerned you never want them to return to the country.
For the first person you make them a cup of Earl Grey tea to hand them as they walk through the door. What else do you bring them out of your personal stash of goodies from London to serve with their cup of tea?
I would serve them a slice of English pork pie to go with their tea. But I would also serve this person something nice and traditionally Icelandic, as we do - although the horror stories might not suggest it - have some lovely Icelandic food. How about a roast leg of lamb, some smoked trout as a starter and skyr with cream as dessert?
And for the second person, what traditional Icelandic dish do you make them to ensure they spend the rest of the afternoon on the toilet and never return to Reykjavík?
How about a burnt face of lamb, served on the skull, with some pickled ram testicles and maybe a little rotten shark? No? Really? You don’t even want to taste it?
No, Lilja… we don’t want to taste it. Thanks for asking though!
Wednesday, 21 February 2018
Tuesday, 6 February 2018
Two Girls On A Train
Somewhere between the cities of Hull and London (Grantham perhaps?), on a train, the idea for Rotorua Noir was born. Two good friends of mine (who shall remain blonde, Nordic and nameless – for the time being at least) starting chatting to each other about the possibility of a crime writers festival in New Zealand. As I was well over 11,000 miles away at the time I can only guess as to why this topic of conversation came up but that’s exactly what I’m going to have a crack at right now. You see, I had just returned home after a disastrous relationship and I suspect it may well have had something to do with that. One of these fine ladies knew that I had found myself at something of a loose end back here in New Zealand and she had guessed (very correctly) that I needed something to keep myself occupied. And she’d have been right. I was in dire need of something to do to take my mind off things.
So when she finally got home she got in touch with me and told me about their idea. The idea that was born on a train. First of all I thought it to be nothing more than a rather flimsy flight of fancy but the more I thought about it the more it appealed to me. Why shouldn’t we have a festival of our own? I had attended a few in the UK while I’d been living there and even helped organise one while I’d been living in Iceland. I knew how they worked and people loved them. They’re a great way of getting writers and readers together and that always has to be a good thing. It’s hard to think of a more disconnected job than writing books and the need for authors to get out there and meet their fans is a very real one. On top of that I had seen the visibility of Kiwi crime writers swell significantly over the last few years. Thanks mainly to the publicity they were getting through the work of Craig Sisterson and his Ngaio Marsh Award. I had met Craig in Reykjavik at Iceland Noir and knew that he was the man to help me see this through. He was the first person to ever write anything about me – on his Crimewatch blog – and I knew that that piece of exposure had led to many more. And I also knew that I couldn’t possibly be alone in feeling this debt of gratitude to him.
Surely other Kiwi crime writers would feel the same way. It was time to find out one way or another.
So I dusted off my old Facebook page which I’d happily mothballed over two years ago and got to work figuring out how many crime writers we had in New Zealand. It was a laboured and rather awkward job at first and I’m still not sure I know exactly how many there are – but after talking to Craig in great depth about this it appears I am not alone in this – but at least I was able to put something of a list together and find most of these wonderful people out there in cyber land. After that it was just a matter of testing the waters and seeing who might be interested in coming to Rotorua in a year’s time to meet everybody else. As it turned out pretty much everyone I contacted was keen to do just that and so the idea first conceived of by two girls on a train somewhere just outside of Grantham (I like to amuse myself) took root in the volcanic soil on the shores of Lake Rotorua and I now find myself about to put tickets on sale for the first ever crime writers festival to be held anywhere in Australasia. Yes, that’s right, we’ve got another one over on the Aussies which is just the icing on the cake really.
The festival will be held at the home of a local theatre company here in Rotorua. The Shambles Theatre was formed in 1951 and puts on three major productions a year. Rotorua Noir will be held during a short break in their rehearsal time on the 26th and 27th of January 2019. There will be two days of panels and interviews at the Shambles as well as a day of workshops at a different venue held by Kiwi crime writer, radio host and TV presenter Vanda Symon. The idea of the workshops is to engage aspiring writers and to encourage the next generation of novelists in New Zealand to learn their craft. To that end we will also be running the Rotorua Noir Short Story Competition. Entries will open next week and will close on October 31st. The stories should be set in or around Rotorua and in keeping with the theme of the festival they should be of a dark or vaguely menacing nature. Or even extremely menacing if you like. They should also be no longer than 10,000 words long. The winner will be announced in December and will win a free pass to the festival, access to Vanda’s workshops and the opportunity to read from their work on stage at the festival.
Details on how to enter the competition will be on the Rotorua Noir website which will be up and running next week along with a link to take you to the ticketing site where tickets for the festival will go on sale March 1st.
As far as who you might get to see at Rotorua Noir, well, as well as the two mystery girls on a train who are definitely coming because it’s basically their festival, we’ve already had two other international writers agree to appear for us. One Scot and one Australian. We’re going to keep their identities under our hats for just a little but longer though but you’re going to love them. That’s one thing I am happy to tell you right now.
Interest in attending the festival has not been limited to New Zealand either or to just authors. Fans of the genre from Australia, America and the UK have already been in touch to let me know that they will be scooping up tickets as soon as they go on sale.
So it seems that from darkness great things can indeed grow. With a little help from a couple of girls on a train. I’m starting to feel like a certain Ray Kinsella staring at what was once an Iowa cornfield slowly becoming more convinced that if I build it they will in fact come.
Rotorua Noir – January 26th and 27th 2019 – Shambles Theatre Rotorua – Two days of awesome panels and interviews – One day of inspirational workshops – Four international guests of honour and a whole bunch of Kiwi and Australian authors – Two girls no longer on a train.
So when she finally got home she got in touch with me and told me about their idea. The idea that was born on a train. First of all I thought it to be nothing more than a rather flimsy flight of fancy but the more I thought about it the more it appealed to me. Why shouldn’t we have a festival of our own? I had attended a few in the UK while I’d been living there and even helped organise one while I’d been living in Iceland. I knew how they worked and people loved them. They’re a great way of getting writers and readers together and that always has to be a good thing. It’s hard to think of a more disconnected job than writing books and the need for authors to get out there and meet their fans is a very real one. On top of that I had seen the visibility of Kiwi crime writers swell significantly over the last few years. Thanks mainly to the publicity they were getting through the work of Craig Sisterson and his Ngaio Marsh Award. I had met Craig in Reykjavik at Iceland Noir and knew that he was the man to help me see this through. He was the first person to ever write anything about me – on his Crimewatch blog – and I knew that that piece of exposure had led to many more. And I also knew that I couldn’t possibly be alone in feeling this debt of gratitude to him.
Surely other Kiwi crime writers would feel the same way. It was time to find out one way or another.
So I dusted off my old Facebook page which I’d happily mothballed over two years ago and got to work figuring out how many crime writers we had in New Zealand. It was a laboured and rather awkward job at first and I’m still not sure I know exactly how many there are – but after talking to Craig in great depth about this it appears I am not alone in this – but at least I was able to put something of a list together and find most of these wonderful people out there in cyber land. After that it was just a matter of testing the waters and seeing who might be interested in coming to Rotorua in a year’s time to meet everybody else. As it turned out pretty much everyone I contacted was keen to do just that and so the idea first conceived of by two girls on a train somewhere just outside of Grantham (I like to amuse myself) took root in the volcanic soil on the shores of Lake Rotorua and I now find myself about to put tickets on sale for the first ever crime writers festival to be held anywhere in Australasia. Yes, that’s right, we’ve got another one over on the Aussies which is just the icing on the cake really.
The festival will be held at the home of a local theatre company here in Rotorua. The Shambles Theatre was formed in 1951 and puts on three major productions a year. Rotorua Noir will be held during a short break in their rehearsal time on the 26th and 27th of January 2019. There will be two days of panels and interviews at the Shambles as well as a day of workshops at a different venue held by Kiwi crime writer, radio host and TV presenter Vanda Symon. The idea of the workshops is to engage aspiring writers and to encourage the next generation of novelists in New Zealand to learn their craft. To that end we will also be running the Rotorua Noir Short Story Competition. Entries will open next week and will close on October 31st. The stories should be set in or around Rotorua and in keeping with the theme of the festival they should be of a dark or vaguely menacing nature. Or even extremely menacing if you like. They should also be no longer than 10,000 words long. The winner will be announced in December and will win a free pass to the festival, access to Vanda’s workshops and the opportunity to read from their work on stage at the festival.
Details on how to enter the competition will be on the Rotorua Noir website which will be up and running next week along with a link to take you to the ticketing site where tickets for the festival will go on sale March 1st.
As far as who you might get to see at Rotorua Noir, well, as well as the two mystery girls on a train who are definitely coming because it’s basically their festival, we’ve already had two other international writers agree to appear for us. One Scot and one Australian. We’re going to keep their identities under our hats for just a little but longer though but you’re going to love them. That’s one thing I am happy to tell you right now.
Interest in attending the festival has not been limited to New Zealand either or to just authors. Fans of the genre from Australia, America and the UK have already been in touch to let me know that they will be scooping up tickets as soon as they go on sale.
So it seems that from darkness great things can indeed grow. With a little help from a couple of girls on a train. I’m starting to feel like a certain Ray Kinsella staring at what was once an Iowa cornfield slowly becoming more convinced that if I build it they will in fact come.
Rotorua Noir – January 26th and 27th 2019 – Shambles Theatre Rotorua – Two days of awesome panels and interviews – One day of inspirational workshops – Four international guests of honour and a whole bunch of Kiwi and Australian authors – Two girls no longer on a train.
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