Tanya Surrey is a senior associate at Mactodd Lawyers in Queenstown, specialising in criminal law and alcohol licensing law. She is the Chair of Queenstown Writers Festival and local arts group Creative Queenstown.
We all love the vision of the Kiwi summer with its warmer days, sunshine, and time off work with family and friends. But there may not always be sunny days, or perfect families (there’s definitely not many of those in literature), or even time off work. Luckily, we can always rely on the joy of books.
There’s pure bliss in opening a new book. It’s a magical journey to another world of new people, places, and situations. For young and old and everyone in between there’s a book that will captivate you.
As someone who organises a writers’ festival with our wonderful team in Queenstown, I live and breathe the power of words. During the summer break I’ll be reading the stack of books I’ve collected recently. I’m hooked on buying new books, but I need time to read them. In the pile already are The Bone Tree by Airana Ngarewa, The Deck by Fiona Farrell and Dice by Claire Baylis.
I’m hoping the Christmas elves brought more, especially John Boyne’s latest novel Water. My motto is that you can never have too many books and when I travel, checking out bookshops is always a priority. Admittedly I am fast running out of bookshelf space.
So, my wish for 2024 is that we read and understand more about the world around us. Recent years have seen an increasingly impatient society. There are heightened levels of intolerance, irritation, and random anger. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I want to see more empathy - more compassion, more understanding, more tolerance. Books can take us there. I especially want to see less anonymous venom on digital media and more comprehension of what it is to be human. We are multilayered and complex. The more we understand each other the better our society will be.
Words can move us and inspire us, make us laugh, make us cry. Words can make you think. They can change the course of history and the future. As one famous writer said many moons ago, the pen is mightier than the sword. Words open the windows to other people, places and other ways of thinking. They can allow us to look into the past and the future, and to know what it’s like to walk a mile in someone else’s jandals.
Books entertain and educate; they bring people together. I hope that in 2024 and beyond, people will always be able to find the time to read to their tamariki and show the wonder of words from a young age. Parents and grandparents reading stories creates delightful memories that carry on down the generations.
My wish for 2024 is that people spend more time buying and reading books, joining book clubs, attending writers’ festivals, and supporting the exceptional literary talent we have in Aotearoa. Queenstown Writers Festival is a young festival and we’re proud of the audience we have grown in recent years. This year, our writers left our audiences enthralled. My wish in 2024 is that literary festivals across the motu continue to flourish and leave audiences embracing the influence of words.
For those who have a story brewing in the recesses of their mind, may they find inspiration to spark the fire and put pen to paper. I hope those who have always wanted to write find a way to do so. Storytelling in all its forms brings happiness. It might be a memoir for family, a poem to entertain at a birthday soirée, or it might be the next Ockham winner. For every writer there is an audience.
My final wish for 2024 is that that our schools and libraries, those who teach, and those who work determinedly to improve literacy have the resources to thrive.
