Tina Shaw tells Sandra Simpson about the bizarre coincidence surrounding her latest book.
As New Zealand went into lockdown on March 25, Taupō novelist Tina Shaw was preparing a launch party for Ephemera, her book set in a New Zealand of the near-future where the population has been brought to its knees by a virus.
"It was quite a surreal time," Shaw, who is at the Escape! festival in Tauranga today and tomorrow,
says.
"I never got my launch party and then it turns out my fictional computer virus has much the same effects as Covid-19 – people stuck in airports, queues outside supermarkets and fights inside, although mine are over bottled water. I never imagined it would be toilet paper."
Shaw's virus has crippled modern life. so when her main character needs medication for a loved one she joins a group risking a trip from Auckland south on the Waikato River to find a man said to have a store of pharmaceuticals.
"The river was used by Māori and Pākehā as a highway, so a trip on a steamboat isn't far-fetched, but what's happened in the meantime are the dams. I had to figure out how to get the boat across them. The little settlements along the river are having to find a new way of life that harks back to the past.
"I've made Mangakino a bit livelier than it is now."
After experiencing lockdown, Shaw admits she would make some changes to Ephemera.
"Some people in our road had a race between ride-on lawnmowers – that's the kind of wacky thing I might've included if an alternative fuel source had been found. And perhaps a greater sense of fear, the fear of change and the unknown."
"A bookish girl", Shaw grew up at Matangi near Hamilton and wrote stories from a young age. However, it wasn't until 1988 and as the mother of a new baby that she started to write seriously "and started to learn how to write". Her first book was published in 1996.
It didn't mean an end to her varied CV, which includes freelance photographer and cleaner – "I had a poem in an anthology about cleaning other people's toilets so nothing's ever wasted" – but Shaw continued to work steadily at her craft and these days critiques manuscripts by others and tutors creative writing at AUT University in Auckland.
She is also a member of the executive committee of the Cloud Ink Press co-operative, which has a mission to publish first-time authors.
One of Tina Shaw's previous books, Ursa. Photo / Supplied
"I've been so heartened to hear that lockdown has started people buying books again. There's nothing better than settling down with a good book and a cup of tea."
Shaw's own reading includes graphic novels and essays, many titles coming via newsletter recommendations of Volume Books in Nelson. She's also a member of the Book Discussion Scheme, the country's biggest book club, finding it a good way to read outside her usual preferences.
A highpoint of her career so far was winning the Berlin Writers Residency in 2001.
"It was a validation of what I was doing, it gave me time, set me loose in the centre of a vibrant European city with great travel connections and there was a stipend so I didn't have to worry about earning a living."
The ripples from that residency resulted in Shaw's 2019 award-winning young adult novel Ursa, a coming-of-age story set in an alternate world loosely based on Nazi Germany.
"I've ended up being a writer who follows my nose," she says. "Each book is quite different to the one before and I really enjoy moving from adult to young adult to children's books and back again.
"I like creating a story out of nothing, building up a world and populating it with characters. I guess you could call me a tinpot god."
• See more about the Book Discussion Scheme at bds.org.nz
• Tina Shaw appears at Escape! in Looking on the Dark Side with fellow novelists Nikki Crutchley and Brannavan Gnanalingam at 11am today
; and in Only Solutions, a panel discussion about the past year, at 2pm tomorrow
. Tickets and the full programme at taurangafestival.co.nz or Baycourt
