SLANZA School Library Association of New Zealand Aotearoa Te Puna Whare Mātauranga a Kura
  • Home
  • About SLANZA
    • About us
    • AGM
    • Contact Us
    • Membership >
      • Personal membership
      • Business membership
      • Life membership
    • Regions >
      • National Executive
      • Te Tai Tokerau
      • Auckland
      • Waikato / BOP
      • Central
      • Wellington
      • Aoraki
      • Otago
      • Southland
    • Our history
    • Policies
  • News
  • Professional Learning
    • Online PD >
      • Online PD registration
    • eBook platform
    • SLANZA Community Online
    • Conferences >
      • Waikato/Bay of Plenty Regional Conference
      • SLANZA Conference 2021
      • Previous Conference Resources >
        • 2018 Otago Regional Conference
    • Collected >
      • Archive
    • Study grants
    • Qualifications
  • Advocacy
  • Awards
  • Resources
    • National School Library Survey
    • Reading Survey
    • Resources for Librarians
    • Reading >
      • Reading Lists
      • Summer reading
    • Professional development >
      • Evidence Based Practice
    • Tertiary Transition
    • Vacancies
    • Links

Auckland's SLANZA Christmas Party

26/11/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
On Wednesday 21st November over 30 school librarians met at Epsom Girls Grammar to share stories and catch up on all the gossip as only librarians can.  We enjoyed beautiful platters of delicious nibbles and imbibed wine and/or coffee. We had a wonderful time! To add to our enjoyment we were privileged to hear author Fiona Sussman speak about her life as a writer, the journey she has taken to become a published author, and learnt a little about her life growing up under the Apartheid regime in South Africa.


Fiona was born and grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa.  She did a BA and then went into Medicine. She did all her clinical work at the Soweto Black Hospital (to show solidarity with the black and coloured students who were not allowed to work in a White Hospital).  She met her husband-to-be in her fourth year and chose to finish her medical training in New Zealand after they married and emigrated. She became a GP and had a family but found the demands of working as a GP and managing a family with a husband who worked long hours was too difficult so she took a year off to see if she could write a book.  Lacking confidence in her writing ability she enrolled in a Masters of Creative Writing and discovered that you are a writer when you think you are a writer.

As well as writing her first novel she also wrote and had published a number of short stories.  This established her CV as a published author so when she approached a publisher she was given a contract for her first novel - Shifting colours, a novel set in South Africa about adoption and identity.  Her second book ‘The last time we spoke’ is a gritty novel set in New Zealand that explores what happens to both the victim and the offender after a brutal home invasion.

We enjoyed meeting and hearing Fiona, a very entertaining speaker.  It capped off a great evening.
Thank you to Michele Coombridge and her library team at EGGS for hosting the event.
​

Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Auckland


    Contact

    Elizabeth Atkinson
    Avondale College
    auckland@slanza.org.nz

    Categories

    All
    Auckland Event
    Professional Development

    RSS Feed


    Archives

    March 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    August 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    September 2016
    August 2016
    March 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    May 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    September 2013
    July 2013
    September 2012
    July 2012

SLANZA Reading site
admin@slanza.org.nz
  • Home
  • About SLANZA
    • About us
    • AGM
    • Contact Us
    • Membership >
      • Personal membership
      • Business membership
      • Life membership
    • Regions >
      • National Executive
      • Te Tai Tokerau
      • Auckland
      • Waikato / BOP
      • Central
      • Wellington
      • Aoraki
      • Otago
      • Southland
    • Our history
    • Policies
  • News
  • Professional Learning
    • Online PD >
      • Online PD registration
    • eBook platform
    • SLANZA Community Online
    • Conferences >
      • Waikato/Bay of Plenty Regional Conference
      • SLANZA Conference 2021
      • Previous Conference Resources >
        • 2018 Otago Regional Conference
    • Collected >
      • Archive
    • Study grants
    • Qualifications
  • Advocacy
  • Awards
  • Resources
    • National School Library Survey
    • Reading Survey
    • Resources for Librarians
    • Reading >
      • Reading Lists
      • Summer reading
    • Professional development >
      • Evidence Based Practice
    • Tertiary Transition
    • Vacancies
    • Links