The interviews were conducted in three blocks and span 30 years; the first seven feature the late Michael King and Alison Gray as interviewers. Two of those interviewees, Christina Cole Catley and Edmond, have died, while King was killed in a car accident in 2004.
NZSA director Jenny Nagle says hearing from the authors themselves makes for intimate and compelling interviews which capture a snapshot of the social history of the day.
The NZSA started as PEN (Poets, essayists and novelists) NZ in 1934. Written records include such gems as, from the Christchurch branch AGM, details of when "a young chap arrived with some very interesting ideas about poetry", who turned out to be James K Baxter.
Nagle says there are also records of the NZSA contacting Seacliff Hospital, where writer Janet Frame was about to undergo a lobotomy. The operation was stopped when the society told hospital authorities she had won the Hubert Church Memorial Award — then the country's most prestigious literary award.
Recorded interviews, started in the 1980s, were deposited in the Alexander Turnbull Library but funding enabled the tapes to be cleaned and edited so a podcast could be produced by Auckland author Elizabeth (Libby) Kirkby-McLeod.
Kirby-McLeod says the series provides a rich source of stories about incidents and situations that have been long forgotten.
"But there's some real drama there. The heat and emotion of those times might be gone but we can look back and become aware of how intense things were and the importance of advocacy."
McLauchlan, a former NZSA president, says the character of the NZSA has changed dramatically in the last 20-30 years so it's important to make sure the history is told and different attitudes and approaches recorded.
He believes issues such as copyright licensing and freedom of speech are as relevant as ever and the organisation needs to maintain and possibly strengthen its stance so it remains a political force.
Series three of the interviews, done by oral historian Deborah Shepard, feature in the book The Writing Life, which will be released by Massey University Press in November. Nagle says they hope to launch podcasts from this series early in 2019 and undertake a fourth one.
"… so this will be an ongoing and enduring record, social history and resource about writers in Aotearoa: Alive and passed, historic and modern."
The first two podcasts are now available at authors.org.nz, with new episodes to be added every fortnight.
