Josephine Van Den Berg with her latest book. Photo / David Haxton
Josephine Van Den Berg with her latest book. Photo / David Haxton
Josephine Van Den Berg was only 16 when she started writing her latest novel.
She loves animals - especially horses, the outdoors, and adventure.
Josephine, who described herself as a dreamer, was attending Fioretti College, in the Netherlands, and there really wasn’t a lot of adventure happening in hereconomics classes, so that’s when she started writing her book.
There were no mountains or wilderness in the Netherlands, and very few horses, so she decided to base her story in Montana, in the United States.
Eventually, Josephine, who now lives in Ōtaki, stopped writing the book, thinking there wasn’t any interest, and the manuscript sat in a cupboard for years.
“I thought ‘It’s just a horse story, no one will be interested’, but my kids said it’s a cool story.
“And it is a cool story.”
So, decades later she decided to revisit her old story, and over the next few years, she worked towards finishing her book Kozak, the Colt from Montana.
The book still needed a bit of work, including needing to be illustrated, edited, and translated from Dutch to English.
Before she moved to New Zealand, Josephine studied at an art school in the Netherlands and became a gifted artist, so she was able to fully illustrate the inside of the book herself.
Josephine Van Den Berg's five fictional books. Photo / David Haxton
“I had lots of fun doing it.”
And she’s not the only artist in the family who helped with the book.
Her son, Thomas specialises in wildlife paintings, and he had created an oil painting of a horse, which hangs in Josephine’s living room, which she decided to use as the cover of the book.
She’s quite knowledgeable about horses, and while she has always loved them it was after marrying her husband Hans that her knowledge really grew.
He had been working with horses for more than 25 years and is both an experienced horseman and farrier.
“I know a lot about horses because my husband has worked with them for his whole life.”
The book was Josephine’s fifth fiction book she published.
Her latest book, published in Levin, is being sold at the old Ōtaki Courthouse, Books & Co, Paper Plus Levin, and she is working to get her books sold in Paper Plus Paraparaumu too.
