Super boss, mum and author launches first book

Deborah Burnside says some of the best advice she has received about writing was to, well, just start. It came from bestselling children's author Joy Cowley, who she called one night for help.

Coincidentally, mentor Cowley lent her name to an award run by the Children's Literature Foundation of New Zealand and Scholastic NZ last year, in which Burnside was a finalist for a picture book story about adoption.

Burnside, 35, says it is the process of writing, more than the thought of getting her work published, that interests her . She says she would write anyway.

Her idea for her first novel, written for teens, grew out of an exercise at a workshop. It is about a girl in a car with a boy, who is not quite sure if she should be there. "We always read back over it, and I guess I was moved. I thought, I can do something with this."

In On a Good Day, published by Penguin, Lee, 15, has to deal with a lot more than pimples, fat moments and crushes. Dad's long gone, Mum is an alcoholic, a popular boy is starting to like her in return and, to top things off, her partner for the forthcoming wearable art awards is definitely not supermodel material.

Although entirely fictional, it had to be "physically" set somewhere and Burnside used her local knowledge of landmarks and events. Hawke's Bay readers may recognise some of her inspirations, such as the Taradale Wearable Art Awards and Napier Solstice Fire Festival. Bestselling children's author Tessa Duder, who was partnered with Burnside in a mentor scheme in 2001, was a valuable part of the process.

Burnside has always loved reading and was good at English at school, but writing wasn't something she thought was a proper job.

"I grew up in the era of being told girls can do anything, but we weren't always told how to get there.

"It would have been about 1998 when I said I wanted to write a book. I had done a bit of painting, been in Les Mis (Les Miserables - another passion is drama), and I was pregnant. Robert (her husband) just threw up his hands and said, what?"

She wrote her book in the little spare time she had. As well as running wheelie bin business Clean Earth she and Robert have three boys: Matthew, 12, Simon, 11, and Andrew, six.

Children also feature at tonight's launch of Burnside's book. It is a fundraiser for the children's foster care organisation Open Homes. Some of the proceeds will go towards sending two teenagers on a Spirit of Adventure trip.

- NZPA