This month saw the launch of my new book Radar Man.
Price: $27.00 Available from good bookstores
or from the author, mcgregors@xtra.co.nz

About Me

I’ve always wanted to be a writer.  When I was a child I loved Enid Blyton stories and I once saw a picture of her in her garden with her portable typewriter on her knee writing yet another exciting adventure story.  I thought there couldn’t be anything more wonderful than sitting in a pretty garden and writing stories.  I used to talk to myself a lot when I was young making up stories and I lived in my head a lot – much to the annoyance of everyone else in the family.  I read everything that came my way.  We lived in the country and it was a mile walk to the library – I would walk to the tiny local library get some books and then I would start  reading on the way home and usually had one nearly finished by the time I had to step back into the reality of farm life.

Then there was a big gap when I didn’t write anything and then after attending university in my 40s I couldn’t stop.  I had a great lecturer who encouraged me to send out my writing and would you believe it the first thing I sent off to a magazine got picked up.  Wow!  I haven’t always been so lucky since but it was from my studies at Auckland University that my first book a biography on New Zealand writer Jane Mander came about: The Story of a New Zealand Writer: Jane Mander.

Since that book I have had five books published.  I have also taught creative writing at Massey University for their Extra-Mural Course and I’ve also taught a paper called Academic Writing at Massey.  I enjoyed working with the students and liked teaching, but it is writing that is my first love.

I belong to the New Zealand Association of Manuscript Assessors and have worked on many manuscripts hopefully giving helpful guidance.  I constantly read and I regularly review books for Radio New Zealand on the Nine to Noon programme.  I have given many workshops which is always stimulating and fun and then of course there is the love of theatre.  The drama and the excitement of taking the word from the page to a performance has been an interesting and attractive aspect of working with language.

A quote from Jane Austen

“For my own part if a book is well written I find it too short.”  I read Jane Austen when I don’t  know what else to read.  She always has something new for me to find. Northanger Abbey is one that is the least popular but one that amuses me very much, but of course Pride and Prejudice is a stand out and probably because of the fantastic BBC adaptation with the luscious Colin Firth in it.

Handy links
www.authors.org.nz
www.ampublishingnz.com

Drop me a line on mcgregors@xtra.co.nz. I’d love to hear from you!