http://shop.realnzbooks.co.nz/shopn/spi/books_14541
Belinda Mellor arrived in New Zealand, from Ireland, in 2006, with
her husband and daughter, supposedly for a year or two. Before
that, she lived in County Wexford, where her maternal family hailed
from and where she and her mother went on holiday from England in
1998 and `forgot to go home’. She senses a pattern.
She has been writing creatively since before she learned cursive or
was allowed to use a pen. Her first writing success was a copy of
The Snow Queen, awarded for `creative expression’ when she was
five. A similar award, at age ten – this time a copy of J.R.R.
Tolkien’s The Adventures of Tom Bombadil – set her on the path of
exploring literary fantasy and myth. Her future writing might have
been quite different had her teachers chosen different books….
Despite her love of literature and of folklore and mythology (or
perhaps because of that) she did not study English at university,
but instead earned a degree in Theology and Religious Studies from
Bristol (England), and (several years later) a post-graduate
diploma in Applied Spirituality from Milltown Institute in Dublin.
Her other interests include Classical history, Mediaeval cooking,
animals and the natural world – all of which inform her
writing.
In between qualifying as a secondary school teacher and settling in
New Zealand, her writing career included time spent with a
theatre-in-education company, work with a local authority arts
council, facilitating creative writing workshops, freelance
journalism, copy-writing, some radio work and the production of her
own glossy magazine. The latter, while very satisfying, was
financially less than successful; it ran for all of one
edition.
These days she and her family live on a lifestyle block not far
from Nelson, with a couple of spoilt goats and `far too many’
chickens, as well as their beloved Samoyeds and a three-legged cat,
who came with them from Ireland.
I love how this will stay with me, there is a magic to your writing and characters that is potent ... it’s one of the best books I’ve read, hands down. I can’t wait for the next. ;The writing is masterful, strong and heart breaking but not sentimental. ; Please, please tell me there’s another book.
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