Sins of omission: Alex Reece Abbott in conversation with Iona Winter

Alex Reece Abbott is an award-winning NZ-Irish writer, who currently resides in the UK, with work that has been published worldwide. In 2023, Alex was honoured with the Flash Frontier Summer Writing Award for a body of work, and this year, her story ‘A femur, a rib and two claws’ was highly commended in the 2024 NZ National Flash Fiction Day competition, and her story ‘We start and end with family’ was Commended in the Katherine Mansfield Sparkling Prose Competition this month (read it at At the Bay | I te Kokoru).

Ten years ago, Alex delved into the short genre and her first-ever flash fiction ‘Antipodean Pepper Tree’ won the Arvon Prize in the UK (recently re-published in the anthology Cluster of Lights by Pure Slush Books). Later that year, Flash Frontier published ‘Te Puna’, a personal piece, reimagining ancestors who came to Aotearoa. Archaeologists found a sherd of crockery with a pattern called ‘Wild Rose’ (see photo) around Ruatara’s mission site in the Far North, at Rangihoua, where Alex’s family had settled. Alex described this crockery as “a deeply poignant artefact, because as lay-missionaries they were only allowed seconds, which meant that the plate was very precious – even more so, when my research showed that this pattern features a scene from Oxfordshire, their home county”.

Iona Winter: Can you tell us how ‘A femur, a rib and two claws’ came to be?

Alex Reece Abbott: To be honest, I was angry! I was reading about this extraordinary eagle, Te Hokioi, and how when tangata whenua spoke of it, the settlers dismissed it as “just another Māori fairy story”. That was until one of the settlers found some bones, and then they took ownership and morphed it into Haast’s eagle. That really spoke to me, the different versions, the renaming, and not being heard or believed. A lot of that was happening around me.

IW: What’s an expat Kiwi writer, Alex, and how long have you been away from NZ?

ARA: Several decades now, here and there – and to be contrarian – are we ever truly away? Kiwis travel a lot, so expatriate, hmmm  . . .  it’s a strange notion, especially with technology enabling connections. When you’re away you’re constantly discovering and rediscovering both here and there, it’s a supple and unbreakable connection, and it’s dynamic, it does ebb and flow. Cavafy, who was diasporic himself, wrote in The City, “You will find no new lands, you’ll find no other seas. The city will follow you.” Yeah, it does.

When you asked about diaspora, you really made me think  . . .  is that me? What does that mean? Labels can be reductive. Then I realised that it’s an involuntary state, and one that resists easy definition, but sure, I carry (as Elif Shafak calls it) the shadow of another land. And that notion of an imagined – even re-imagined – homeland too. I’m very aware that my whānau came to colonise Aotearoa New Zealand, two hundred and ten years ago. Later in the last century, others came from Ireland, another colony then, a country at the beginning of the end of Empire, to Aotearoa – the last colony. Now, I’m living in the land of the colonist, and at a time when many people in Wales and Northern Ireland continue to seek self-determination. It’s a peculiar tension. There’s a great kōrero between David Geary and Alice Te Punga Somerville on diasporatanga.

In my hybrid ‘Far Away Fields’ that spans borders and history, I wrote that “displacement is in our air, in our bones” and, like Tina Makereti, I’d reframe diaspora as both international and domestic, since Aotearoa is a settler colony of people who, to use Elif Shafak’s phrase, are up-rooted, re-rooted and rootless – there’s tribal migration and displacement too. And as we learn more about epigenetics, most of us could be considered internal and intergenerational diaspora too, descended from migrants who escaped famines, poverty, transmigration, genocides and wars . . .  we’re so via-via-via . . .  aren’t we all a little diasporic?

IW: It’s almost like you’re the container for all these connections. Depending on where you are, do you have more choice about what you do or don’t show?

ARA: A very porous container! I have a really strong sense of ahi kā, so for me it is continuous connection. That flame is dynamic and constant, a weaving between at least two worlds . . . Katherine Mansfield’s notion of home as the constantly shifting horizon. Cartography has its limits, that’s very true for me, in that the people in my whānau are diverse – and that’s just the parts of the kaleidoscope that I know about. I write about this innate here-and-thereness in ‘Antipodean Pepper Tree’. Our superpower as writers is that we are Schrodinger’s cats, in at least two places at once, that beautiful paradox. And that has pros and cons.

Maybe it’s more about submissions and placement, rather than what is shown – where it can be shown? You can’t predict when or where work will be picked up. I guess the hope is that the writing will transcend geography and bias in some way. It’s peculiar, writing about Aotearoa and then it’s picked up overseas and not at home. And ‘Funny, Ugly Little Baby’, an historical hybrid about the Troubles, was a finalist in Aotearoa’s Katherine Mansfield Sparkling Prose competition (At The Bay | I Te Kokuru) so  . . . you’re not asking for advice, but I’d say – very wryly – give it a go.

IW: That’s so true. More of my work has been published overseas than here. This might be a good time to link readers to ‘Antipodean Pepper Tree’, via the voice recording you’ve provided me.

ARA: ‘Antipodean Pepper Tree’speaks to that ahi kā, being a Schrodinger’s cat.

Listen to Alex reading this story here.

IW: As we’re talking, I realise it’s not just about home, is it? It’s about place and how many of us are dislocated; and whether we grew up in a village or not, it would seem there’s no village to return to. There’s a shared ancestry of being removed from place, kinship, ties to whenua, which seems a more visible thing with what’s going on the world. That sense of an eradication of history feels timeless.

ARA: Yeah, Ottessa Mossafegh points out that you can also be homesick for another world too – and that rings true, especially in a time of climate crisis, global pandemics and wars.

And it’s in the images we’re shown, like the women and children in Gaza who are wanting to stay in their neighbourhoods, rather than being moved on. The riots we are experiencing across the UK right now . . . maybe being diasporic and so readily witnessing global events, we can have empathy and insight into outsider characters.

My work is often described as having a strong sense of place, and being away probably distils your vision. And so, the past follows us . . . and technology means we can follow the past more than ever – like my research on that Wild Rose sherd. I have a roaming eye for place too. Hiraeth doesn’t quite translate from Welsh, but that sense . . . kind of wistful (be)longing . . . yeah, yearning.

IW: In the world now it’s very difficult to have a sense of place and belonging, with the constant sensory overload (if you’re choosing to engage with it), and how that entrenches powerlessness. What do you feel we as writers are responsible for?

ARA: Arghgh  . . . I take my work very seriously, but don’t take myself very seriously . . . I think it’s to write, imagine, record and reflect. Re-imagining too – like Yasmin Seale’s work on The Thousand and One Nights – the first translation by a woman. Kathy Fish taught me that it’s also about being brave and authentic in my practice, as well as speaking truth to power, and keeping language alive; using te reo Māori where it’s appropriate, older language, and colloquial language – so we don’t forget . . .

IW: We’ve lost a lot of language, haven’t we? People spoke quite differently in the past, and seeing how language is used now, and with an increase in grammatical mistakes online; do you think that come about through another act of suppression?

ARA: Yeah, the voices of ancestors, and in Aotearoa with our history of ‘King’s English’, reclaiming our rich, fabulous vernacular too. It’s a strange thing to be surrounded by street names from Tāmaki Makaurau, words and names that I might’ve taken for granted, and finding out the other connotations over here. June Jordan’s unspeakable in her Problems of Translation: Problems of Language. Sins of omission.

IW: That feels like a good title for this kōrero, e hoa! Perhaps our role as writers is to put these omitted things back in and to speak to this in ways that are connecting rather than sensationalising?

ARA: I agree, it’s about language and it’s also about people who are unheard and overlooked. Maybe being an unwelcome messenger. Respecting human rights, within the layers of trauma, and finding and writing a range of stories . . . we can be like change agents too.

I have a piece coming out soon called ‘SHUT YOUR MOUTH: Three grandparents, defiant, beaten for speaking’, that will be published in English and te reo Māori. The story arrived one day through a grim realisation about language suppression in my family – especially for my mother’s mother, a whāngai girl raised in Northland, and the injustice of te reo Māori censorship was deeply scarring for her. Lifelong. So, that’s about a lost inheritance, and it feels important to use te reo in my work; almost like closing the circle a little for her. My missionary ancestor also tried to make one of the first English-Māori dictionaries, so I think he’d be dancing a jig too.

IW: What I was struck with, in ‘SHUT YOUR MOUTH’, was that it made me think about te reo Māori and Gaelic in my whakapapa. Taking this a little further, going back to the metaphor of a container; by holding different cultures, languages, histories, and the legacy of ancestors who were told to shut their mouths, would you say that giving voice to people who’ve been silenced is an important theme in your mahi?

ARA: Certainly, there’s that link to what’s said and what can’t be said, it’s about suppression and part of our colonial experience. Dirty secrets. The late, great Edna O’Brien is a long-standing lodestar for me – also diasporic, and in the face of great loathing and censorship, she kept writing, right to the end of her life. Great courage.

IW: I really liked the layering of oppression, the inherited and the present, in this story too.

ARA: Thank you . . . it was sobering to write. I intentionally wrote that ‘SHUT YOUR MOUTH’ title as a headline, framing it like a tabloid crime story. And being told to shut your mouth – that’s infantilising. I experimented, tried redaction, then went for strike-outs in the text. Shout out to some very supportive editors as I wrangled with this one.

IW: What matters to you, in terms of thematic focus in your mahi?

ARA: All my writing, whatever the form, is fuelled by curiosity. Where you’re from  . . . that impacts my writing and since we began talking, I can really see that in my short stories like ‘Shakespeare’s Country’ and ‘Think No More of the Sea’. Memory and nostalgia and mis-remembering are keystones for me, often there’s an historic element too – sometimes it’s ekphrastic, like in ‘Gumfield Wahine, Maybe Houhora Way’. I’m interested in power and alienation, and displacement and communication – those problems of language and translation. What can be said, what cannot be said. Those sins of omission. And through living among others, perhaps you gain a sharper vision when it comes to seeing the differences, othering and contradictions too. I’m also a long-standing fan of Katherine Mansfield, probably our most famous diasporic writer, and she often inspires me, either with her words, as in ‘Child of the Sun’, or her life, in a piece like ‘Miss Katherine Mansfield dreams of Menton and the many benefits of Heliotherapy’.

IW: How would you describe yourself, as a writer?

ARA: Emerging and pre-published! I write across forms and genres for variety and partly out of necessity, flexing as carer and health needs shift. The Flash Frontier Writing Award that I received said something about adventurous – and I thought, hmmmm  . . . yeah  . . . chur, I’ll take that!

IW: Pre-published?

ARA: Well, I’m far from unpublished, but I haven’t had a book published yet.

IW: Does NZ call you home via your writing practice?

ARA: Yeah, I feel very engaged and coupled to my sprawling roots, my homeland, to languages, my kin and the world. That sense of ahi kā is kindled by being able to go online and do courses and panels with other kiwi writers, where you can get ‘got’ and feel understood. That’s very special, and it’s always great to see kiwi publishing opportunities and competitions where residency isn’t a requirement. To have work published in Aotearoa, without debates and the compromises that limit your full expression . . . you know, over glossaries, italics and footnotes, tikanga Māori concepts, and even place names . . . I’m looking forward to reading Alice Te Punga Somerville’s book, Always Italicise: how to write when colonised. Graham Beattie is a fantastic pioneer, his Beattie’s Blog really helped me to stay in touch back in the day – thanks, Graham. Since then, I think New Zealand short form writing has flourished online, not least with Flash Frontier and At the Bay. For me, writing is a portal, a process of connection. I occupy a liminal – living on an island, I would even say littoral – place, although I feel very connected to other diasporic writers.

IW: You’re currently working on some longer work, and missing short form; so, what does the short form give you?

ARA: Well, I love variety and to have a choice of forms, depending on the story that wants to be told. Completion and an opportunity to finish too, and being pragmatic, shorter work is more readily published.

IW: Kā mihi aroha ki a koe e hoa, thank you Alex for such a robust and enlivening kōrero about being an Irish-Kiwi-Diasporic writer. It was heartening to discuss the importance of tending our māra, the growing and harvesting as writers, and our connection to te whenua o Aotearoa regardless of geographical distance, isolation and colonial influence.

ARA: Kia ora, Iona, for this kōrero, for your mahi – and your wero  . . . lots for me to mull.

 

Below are links to four flash fiction pieces Alex resonated with, that related to our kōrero around being a writer away from home.

• Kathy Fish, Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild – her powerful response to the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas
• Alice Kaltman, Casual Pinch, 1991 – an evocative ekphratic piece
• Sara Lippmann, Wolf Cry  hugely atmospheric
• Gail Ingram, Alien in Daylight – from her new anthology, showcasing her passion for nature, her eye for detail

 

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Alex Reece Abbott (www.alexreeceabbott.info) is New Zealand-Irish writer published in Best Small Fictions, Bonsai: Best Small Stories from Aotearoa New Zealand among numerous others. A Penguin Random House WriteNow finalist, and London Independent Prize Rising Star, she works across genres and forms. Often shortlisted, including in the Katherine Mansfield Sparkling Prose, Maria Edgeworth, Bridport, Tillie Olsen, Lorian Hemingway and Sunday Business Post/Penguin prizes, her work has won the Irish Novel Fair, Northern Crime, Pulp Literature, HG Wells Grand and Arvon prizes.

 

Iona Winter (Waitaha/Kāi Tahu) has authored four collections, most recently In the shape of his hand lay a river (2024). Her work has appeared in takahē, Underbelly Press, APJ, Pure Slush, Otherhood, Te Awa o Kupu and Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook, and performed at the Newcastle Writer’s Festival, Camp A Low Hum, and Dunedin Fringe Festival. In 2023, Iona founded Elixir & Star Press, and the inaugural publication a liminal gathering included over 100 multidisciplinary responses to grief. https://ionawinter.com