Motherhood Missed: Stories from Women Who Are Childless by Circumstance – NZ launch

An evening with Dr Lois Tonkin discussing her book Motherhood Missed: Stories from Women Who Are Childless by Circumstance  is on on Tuesday 27th November 6pm Spark Place, He Hononga | Connection, Ground Level, Tūranga.

You are invited to hear Dr Lois Tonkin who has written a book honouring women who are childless by circumstance. She has interviewed a mixture of single, gay, straight, partnered and transgender women all of whom come from different backgrounds and whose lives have taken different paths for complex reasons, leading to childlessness.

Stories are presented in the voice of women from New Zealand, Australian, Europe and the United States. They reveal feelings of grief, and the search for fulfillment and purpose in their lives. Their hope, and the positive way in which they have found meaningful lives gives us insight into a growing issue for women today, in a society which does not recognise the grief of childlessness through circumstance.

Tonkin, who lectures at the University of Canterbury as well as working as a counsellor at Genea Oxford Fertility in Christchurch, will read an excerpt from the book and talk about it in an open discussion. Her book published in September by Jessica Kingsley Publishers was published to coincide with World Childless Week. Jody Day has written an insightful foreword. She met Tonkin at Fertility Fest.com in 2016 and is the founder of Gateway Women.

One story from the book tells of being part of a generation of women told the worst thing we could do was get pregnant. This is the story of our generation. This book tells the stories of women who fear having a child for the wrong reasons at the wrong time, with the wrong person, and then the desperation of trying to get pregnant in their late thirties. Then the acceptance that it would not be happening and what that meant for the future, and how they might build a fulfilling life in another way.

Come along and hear their stories at the launch of a book dealing with one of the most important and least discussed topics for this generation of New Zealand women.

Those who choose the traditional route of motherhood need to be aware of the sense of social isolation and the judgement these women feel, and the lack of understanding we have of the complex issues at play. Most women see themselves having a child at some point but in their thirties find themselves thinking “is this the way it is going to be?”  They still see themselves having children at some point, but due to expectations to fill early promise in education and career, or due to economic vulnerability and family background, they choose to postpone motherhood.

We have only to look at the different paths our female Prime Ministers have taken and the way the world perceives them regarding motherhood – the role chance has played in our latest Prime Minister’s choice regarding motherhood and how the media have feted her – to see how society views childlessness.

Come and hear Lois Tonkin and listen to the gift of these women’s experiences, and find out what it is to be childless by circumstance, and how women find other ways to forge valued and fulfilling lives.

Come and be part of the conversation.

Find out more

• Register for this event
• Not All Childless Women Are Happily Childfree. This Book Gives Them A Voice.  (Review from the Huffington Post)
• Find more titles about Childlessness

Gavin Bishop: Cook’s Cook book launch

Gavin Bishop, along with Gecko Press and Scorpio Books, launched his latest illustrated book at Tūranga, Cook’s Cook: The cook who cooked for Captain Cook. 2019 will be the 250th anniversary of the visit of the H.M. Endeavour to Aotearoa New Zealand and Bishop’s book offers a fresh perspective on their journey.

Gavin Bishop at the launch of his new book Cook’s Cook, October 2018, Tūranga

A large audience heard how Bishop spent several years researching for the book, which he says he really enjoyed, but was overwhelmed by the information he found.

One thing that struck him was the number of books that contradicted each other.

His challenge was how to find his own unique angle on the Endeavour story. As he looked through the names of the crew on the boat and their occupations, he began to wonder about the lesser-known members on board and was particularly struck by their curiously one-handed cook, John Thompson.

The story of the crew’s journey is told through food “as a point of context,” explains Bishop, with the cook as narrator. And, as his publisher Julia Marshall from Gecko Press notes “you can tell so many different stories through food—everything is here: culture, class, adventure, humour and much more.”

The Endeavour was originally the collier Earl of Pembroke and was designed for a crew of just 16 but when it sailed as the Endeavour it had 94 crew on board, packed in like sardines. And the meals were prepared on the mess deck where 74 men slept!

The cooking process on the Endeavour seemed to involve throwing everything together in a pot or bag and boiling it. Bishop says the meat became so rank that it was towed in a net behind the boat to soften it up and every second day was a vegetarian day consisting of Pease Porridge. To avoid scurvy, the cook served up stinky German cabbage. But all was not awful for the men, as it was noted how much booze was aboard the ship.

The book contains a little story about each of the countries the Endeavour visited and explains some of the names of the recipes featured such as Poor Knights Pudding, Stingray Soup, Kangaroo Stew, Dog and Breadfruit Stew and Albatross Stew “which you wouldn’t get away with today.” There were goats, dogs, pigs, sheep, cats and chickens on board. And when the ship crossed the equator everyone aboard, including the cats, were apparently tied to a chair and dipped into the water 3 times in an equator crossing ritual.

Bishop told his audience that there are two stories about the Endeavour that you won’t find anywhere else except in his book. One was told by Pete Beech, whose family was there in Picton when the Endeavour came with Cook, and tells the story of how a Māori woman was tricked into giving her taonga away for a bag of sugar. And the second story comes from an obscure poem that mentions a slave named Dalton on board who was a servant of botanist Joseph Banks. Like the Endeavour, not a centimetre of space in Bishop’s book was wasted, he says, and even the endpapers are full of illustrated facts.

At the book launch, Gecko Press were also celebrating 10 years of working with Bishop, starting with his collaboration for Joy Cowley in illustrating their successful Snake & Lizard. Marshall  said what a treat it is working with Bishop: “Gavin is a true artist and very knowledgeable.” Gavin’s other book published in the past year is the illustratively stunning Aotearoa: The New Zealand Story.

Our Painted Stories

You can see more of Bishop’s work in the Our Painted Stories exhibition at about the presence and importance of local Canterbury settings in children’s literature. Original artworks in the exhibition are from Bishop’s Mr. Fox and Mrs. McGinty and the Bizarre Plant as well as Margaret Mahy’s Summery Saturday Morning.

The books and exhibition feature scenes from around Christchurch such as the Edmonds Factory with its ‘Sure to Rise’ signage as well as further afield on Banks Peninsula.

The Importance of Identity

Join international award-winning writer and illustrator Gavin Bishop and invited guests as we explore the Our Painted Stories exhibition and have a conversation about how seeing ourselves and our city in children’s literature helps grow a sense of identity.
Wednesday 24th October 5:30-6:30pm 
Tūranga
Free, no bookings required
Created in partnership with the Painted Stories Trust. 

While visiting Tūranga, Gavin was delighted to discover a picture of his family on our Discovery Wall that even he didn’t have a copy of.

Gavin Bishop, with his youngest daughter Alexandra and his book “Chicken Licken”, 8 June 1984, Reference ID: CCL-StarP-00740A

It is auspicious that just as Gavin Bishop was the first author to have a book launched at the old central library, he is also the first author to launch a book in the new library, Tūranga, 36 years later.

18 September 1982 Gavin Bishop, with his book “Mr Fox” which was the first book to be launched at the Canterbury Public Library on the corner of Gloucester Street and Oxford Terrace. Reference ID: CCL-StarP-00739A

More about Gavin Bishop

• Visit Gavin Bishop’s website 
• Watch: Gavin Bishop talks about his new book, The Cook’s Cook

A limitless supply of hope – Sarah-Kate Lynch and Dolci di love

When a friend asked me out for the evening to a fundraiser at the Oxford Working Men’s Club, I said yes without really listening.  By happy accident, it turned out to be an evening with international bestselling author Sarah-Kate Lynch on the first stop of a tour to launch her new book Dolci di Love.  Tickets sales along with proceeds and royalties from the evening were donated to the Red Cross Canterbury Earthquake appeal.

For me, an incurable romantic is a person blessed with a limitless supply of hope. They are not brought down to earth by the ordinariness of everyday life. Their joie de vivre is not snuffed by sadness.  They are not put off by adversity, but instead see challenge. They use escapism to recuperate. Look for beauty in pain. Seek light where there is dark. They read romance when things are tough.

Sarah-Kate  is such a woman. She talks of happy accidents, including her accidental career as a writer, and the “happy” accident that occurred when her husband “the Ginger” lost his job when the film he was working on got cancelled. They used the opportunity to tour around Italy, finding themselves in Tuscany. She thought of Tuscany as overhyped, and was  delighted to find it was a “fairytale waiting to happen”, with “hillptop medieval towns like jewels atop a crown”.

Inspired, she decided to return there to write her latest novel. With  romantic notions swirling, she arrived in a Fiat Bambino, baby blue to match her cinched-in-at-the-waist suit.  She had enrolled in an Italian language school and was ready to eat every meal with her new Italian family.

To her horror, the sun was not shining. No,  it was raining, and not just light rain, but a “biblical downpour”. Her suit was soaked and she was freezing. She drove on to the house where her lovely Italian family lived. It was in a run down part of town, with graffiti on the walls, and there was no “family” –  just one 80-year-old-lady who didn’t speak any English. Sarah-Kate is a vegetarian, and had to explain this to her host in Italian. The closest she could get was  “I don’t eat dog”.

It was cold, there was only a single blanket on the bed, no heating and … well, you get the picture.  So, being the incurable romantic, she booked herself into a nice room down the road, and started writing anyway.

So, if you’re an incurable romantic, visit one of the libraries that we have already re-opened and have a chat with one of our friendly staff for some inspring reading, or simply browse our collection of Sarah-Kate Lynch novels.

We hope to have an interview with Sarah-Kate in the next few days – in the meantime read more on her facebook page.