NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / New Zealand

For the Love of Books: Author Deborah Shepard

NZ Herald
13 May, 2014 07:00 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Deborah Shepard is an Auckland author who teaches memoir at the Michael King Writers' Centre. Her new book Giving Yourself to Life: A Journal of Chronic Pain, will be published by Calico Publishing in September.

"My love of words began on my mother's knee when she read to me, stories, fairy tales, folk legends and the poems from AA Milne's When We were Very Young, "I went down to the shouting sea, Taking Christopher down with me ... We had sand in the eyes and the ears and the nose, And sand in the hair, and sand-between-the-toes ..." I was thrilled by the rhythm and the timbre of her voice enunciating those words. They filled me up.

"The love of words and literature was strengthened by regular trips, driving across the plains to the Canterbury Public Library to select an armload of books and to see the famous New Zealand writer, Margaret Mahy, behind the issues desk. I remember her wearing a Sanderson print smock that had peach roses and olive leaves and thinking how unusual this was. Seeing Margaret there was a revelation. She was proof that, women can write books in New Zealand, actually just over the hill in Governor's Bay. I had no idea, then, that one day I would go to Governor's Bay and sit on Margaret's sofa, beside a crackling fire and a tall picture window that looked straight up Lyttelton Harbour to Godley Head, and listen to her narrating the story of her life and work for my book Her Life's Work.

"At school I received an education in the English literary classics, which was all very good, but Wordsworth's daffodils weren't quite the thing for the raw and elemental landscapes of the South Island, where I grew up. Finally at university in a stage one paper on New Zealand literature I discovered the poems of Bethell, Baxter, Curnow, Glover, Campbell and suddenly I had poems about this land that I could recite in the mountains and by the lakes and tarns and rivers and in my own city. That year I also read Janet Frame's shatteringly beautiful autobiographical novel Owls do Cry set in Oamaru and Katherine Mansfield's short stories. It was in Katherine's journal that I found what I most wanted, a woman writing her interior landscape, and doing it honestly and poetically and with passion. The work was profound and sad.

"In my 20s I read The Women's Room by Marilyn French and was unsettled. She was writing out her anger and bitterness over the breakdown of her marriage to a doctor. I was engaged to a medical student and found her analysis of the patriarchal culture of the medical world confronting, but I liked her saying women did not have to put up with flak from men, that they should step out and develop their own lives. I felt a similar frisson recently when I read Caitlin Moran's How to be a Woman. I thought good. Feminism is not dead and she's funny. That's the way to do it.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"These days my love of words and books flow into my teaching of memoir. I use excerpts from autobiographical literature for group discussion and to inspire the writing because I believe if you want to be a writer it helps to be a reader too. I think I am happiest when I am teaching. I love it when a new voice emerges, or when an experienced writer deepens her craft. I love to witness the pleasure on a writer's face when he reads his work and it reaches the listener and makes a connection.

"I am also deeply happy when I am journalling. Recently I learned about the power of words to heal. In 2011 I had an operation to cure a chronic back pain that failed. The day following the surgery a friend gave me a journal, and said "Write, Deborah. Write your way through." Was this possible? I felt fully extended trying to breathe through the moment, and woozy on the drugs, but I wrote three lines and the following day I wrote another entry and slowly the journal grew. As I wrote I began to notice that when I am journalling about what is directly in front of me, what I can see here, right now, slowly I relax and begin to feel more tranquil."


20 January (excerpt)
It is early morning and I am standing typing at the kitchen bench with the sliding door wide open so that the outside is coming in. Up against a blue sky I see the gum and the pohutukawa and the jacaranda. A light breeze is ruffling the leaves. The cicadas are singing. What happens to cicadas in the other nine months of the year when they are silent? What happens to wings in the rain? A bumblebee is sipping nectar from the sapphire blue flowers of the salvia that grows joyfully in the big terracotta pot by the window. The cats are fed and settled, one on the chair, assiduously cleaning his ginger fur, the other on the wooden floor, spread flat like a piece of golden pastry ...

- VIVA

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Discover more

New Zealand

For the Love of Books: Poet Michele Leggott

13 May 11:00 PM
New Zealand

For the Love of Books: Bookseller Jenna Todd

13 May 10:00 PM
Save

    Share this article

Latest from New Zealand

Premium
OpinionAudrey Young
|Updated

Audrey Young: Bishop puts boot into councils as rates table reveals biggest hikes

New Zealand
|Updated

'We have you surrounded': Police in armed standoff at Hawke's Bay house

New Zealand

Red and black: How Whaka plans to seize rugby glory


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from New Zealand

Premium
Premium
Audrey Young: Bishop puts boot into councils as rates table reveals biggest hikes
Audrey Young
OpinionAudrey Young
|Updated

Audrey Young: Bishop puts boot into councils as rates table reveals biggest hikes

OPINION: It's been the week for bashing local government – although not without cause.

17 Jul 12:42 AM
'We have you surrounded': Police in armed standoff at Hawke's Bay house
New Zealand
|Updated

'We have you surrounded': Police in armed standoff at Hawke's Bay house

17 Jul 12:15 AM
Red and black: How Whaka plans to seize rugby glory
New Zealand

Red and black: How Whaka plans to seize rugby glory

17 Jul 12:12 AM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP