Swashbuckler!

Head on over...

2010-12-02T17:23:00.000+13:00

I'm not blogging here any more, as you can probably tell. But head on over to the Swashbuckler website if you want to know more about my pirate books.

What did pirates wear?

2008-08-25T17:13:00.002+12:00

Sorry, but real pirates didn't all look like Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp - though some might have been able to carry off the odd frill.
The Bonnie Bookaneer has a great update on new research at Pirates & Privateers.
And you can read what I think about pirate fashion, over on the Swashbuckler website.

Pirates of the you-know-where

2007-06-15T00:09:00.000+12:00

Got to see the third instalment of Pirates of the Caribbean a week or so ago. I'm just not too sure about it.
Way too long (but so was the last one) and terribly waffly in places.
Then there was the big speech by Keira/Elizabeth (the other Swann) meant to rally the troops, and I thought everyone would laugh out loud at the end of it, because I nearly did. But no, they rallied.
I have to say that she's no Aragorn.
I can still shed a tear over his rousing cry "This is not that day!" in the final Lord of the Rings.
Keira, I'm afraid, wouldn't get me heading off into battle. She might just convince me to sit down to a nice lunch with that inspiring tone, or maybe get so fired up that I stop yawning, but face violent death and an afterlife stuck with old tentacle features? I don't think so.
And as much as I love Jack Sparrow, I think he's really lost the plot. Well, Jack has, obviously, but so has his scriptwriter.
Anyway, I wonder what other people think...

Whew!

2007-06-14T23:56:00.001+12:00

I'm back from Auckland and recovering from all that talking and reading and making stuff at Storylines.
Thanks to everyone who came to hear me read and asked a millions questions at Kohia, St Cuthbert's, Kowhai and Epsom Normal schools, and Next Page Please bookshop, and also at the Family Day.
I was asked to judge the Storylines writing competition in Auckland and it was amazing to see how many entries there were - we ran out of space on the display boards - but that made it even harder to judge.
The winners were Jamie (age group four to eight) who wrote about a dreaded pirate captain who smelled as bad as a "500 year old mustard sandwich", which is an image that's hard to beat, and Eleanor (9 -12) for her warning about the effect of floodwater on the ocean's fish. Bruce Potter judged the drawings and chose winners in each age group who happened to be sisters - although he didn't realise that at the time - so take a bow, members of the Berge family.
I wish I'd had about a dozen prizes.

Story time at Storylines

2007-05-30T00:26:00.000+12:00

I'm heading back to Auckland next week for the fabulous Storylines festival and a few school visits.
The Storylines family day in Auckland is on Sunday 10 June at the Aotea Centre. We've got a special Swashbuckler Pirate Zone on Level 3 (sponsored by HarperCollins) and I'll be there all day. Make a hat, a flag, a parrot. Bring your writing and illustration competition entries, and I'll be judging at 2pm.
Storylines is free fun for the family all day long. Authors, illustrators, performers and storytellers celebrate the joy of books and reading - Margaret Mahy and Tessa Duder will both be there, along with international guests Shaun Tan and John Boyne, and many others.
If you're in Auckland that day, we hope to see you there.

Possessed by daemons

2007-05-12T23:11:00.000+12:00

We've all gone a bit daemon mad, with the imminent release of the film of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass (you might know it better as Northern Lights). In his imagined universes, everyone has a daemon who is their other half, like an external soul: sometimes it's their better half; sometimes a reflection of their true selves.
Here's mine.

Nice.
If only I really had one...

Mind you, before we get to see Golden Compass, there's the new Pirates of the Caribbean, and then good old Harry Potter in July (movie and final book).

The Silver Swan

2007-04-30T23:31:00.000+12:00

The third book (you note I'm not necessarily saying "final") in the Swashbuckler series is out now.
Here's the blurb:

In her spacious new home overlooking the sea, Lily is having trouble coping with life ashore.

Parental discipline is boring after months of a carefree pirate life, and it’s not easy to adjust to being back with her family. Everyone is grumpy and on edge, nothing she does is right, and nobody seems to believe Lily's stories of her days as a pirate.

Then one night a fiery family argument is interrupted by a sinister knock on the door.

The world around them has erupted into war, and this time the Swann family goes into action together, as Lily faces her most dangerous adventure yet.

Ahoy there!

2007-03-24T21:34:00.000+12:00

It's been quite a while since I wrote - sorry about that.
But I've been in the process of moving house, and countries, from beautiful Waiheke Island near Auckland, to equally beautiful Warrandyte in Melbourne. To everyone I've met at all the schools and libraries in Auckland over the past year, don't worry: I'll be back for the Storylines festival in June.
It's taken quite a while to get myself sorted out, but now I finally have an internet connection and a house to live in, I can blog more often.
The newsflash from here is that The Silver Swan, the third book in the Swashbuckler trilogy, is published next month - April - in New Zealand and Australia.
Not long now...

News flash

2007-01-16T11:12:00.000+13:00

I've just finished a few last minute changes to book three in the Swashbuckler series: The Silver Swan. It'll be off to the printer soon.

I'm moving to Melbourne soon, where I'll be working at the State Library of Victoria, home also to the wonderful inside a a dog website about books for young people.

I'll write again when I get settled in.

Happy New Year

2006-12-17T14:14:00.000+13:00

It's lovely on the island at the moment. The pohutakawas (NZ Christmas trees) are in flower and the sun is - finally - out. Yesterday I sat on the beach in the sun and ate fish and chips, which is my idea of heaven, and now I've got a bright pink strip of sunburn down each leg. I look like a licorice all-sort.

I'm flying to Melbourne tomorrow to spend Christmas with my family: maybe we'll drive down to the Mornington Peninsula, where we have a little beach shack; hang out by the river in Warrandyte; lie in the sun and read a few books. With sunblock on.
I'll be back in Auckland on New Year's Eve, just in time for the fireworks.
Hope you have a wonderful holiday season, too.

A big hello to Grade Five at Aitken College who just sent me a huge envelope filled with the most fantastic letters. Thank you so much!

Swashbuckler book three, The Silver Swan, comes out early next year, so I'm looking forward to hearing what you think about it. April, apparently.

Happy sailing.

What I did on my holiday

2006-11-13T09:25:00.000+13:00

I need a holiday!
The last few weeks I've been rushing around madly, working, studying and also letting The Pirate's Revenge loose on the world. Well, on New Zealand, anyway.
Thanks to everyone at the schools I've visited for welcoming me, and asking such intelligent (sometimes unanswerable) questions:
~ Kristin School
~ Kohimarama School
~ Takapuna Normal
~ Pinehurst Primary
~ Marist College
~ Whangaparaoa School.

In the meantime, I've been reading some great books, including:
First, Automaton, a new graphic novel by Gary Crew and Aaron Hill, set in the factory where the famous inventor Thomas Edison created a set of robotic dolls - which nobody wanted.
Then there were some classics, such as Calabrian Quest by Geoffrey Trease, a modern day adventure set in southern Italy, involving an amateur archaeological exploration, the Mafia and government intrigue.
But even better was The Children of Green Knowe, the first in L. M. Boston's mystical series about a house that is haunted in the most delicious way. And I re-read The Story of the Treasure Seekers, by Edith Nesbit, which I hadn't read for ages and enjoyed even more, I think, this time around. The first time I just read it it as a treasure hunt, whereas now I think it's a very funny picture of the family and of the narrator, Oswald.

And I loved this story by Lucy Mangan in The Guardian about her favourite kids' books. I'll have to think about mine, and write about those later, since people often ask.

Lastly, a few recent reviews of my books.
Ocean Without End:
Upstart magazine (reviewed by Candice, 12, of Whanganui)
Australian Women's Weekly NZ edition (reviewed by Tessa Duder)

The Pirate's Revenge:
The reviewer in Boating NZ reckons it's "a great escape for young mariners stuck in the doldrums", while Magpies Online's Trevor Agnew wrote:

Kelly Gardiner uses Lily's first person narrative to keep the mood of the story cheerful ... The tone of the tale may be light but nevertheless the human suffering involved in war and piracy is not ignored.

The knock on the door

2006-11-11T17:06:00.000+13:00

In The Guardian recently, Australian illustrator Robert Ingpen explained why he is hooked on classic books, and why he wanted to produce a new version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (a copy of which, signed by Ingpen, is among my prized possessions):

When blind Pew knocks on Admiral Benbow's door in Treasure Island it's "the most scary sound in literature," he says. "It comes as a sound to you by the skill of the writing and the vision of the man. You hear the sound and, if you hear that sound when you're nine years old and you've read it yourself, you'll read forever."

Reading

2006-10-25T15:02:00.000+13:00

Just back from Melbourne.
Hello to everyone I met at:
~ Gladstone Views Primary School
~ Aitken College
~ Loreto Mandeville Hall
~ Altona Green Primary School
~ Eltham Bookshop Chatterbooks club
~ Readings bookstore in Port Melbourne
(and of course hello to my friends at Anderson Creek Primary).
I had a great time reading and talking at all the schools, answering some really smart questions, some of which I'll post later.
At Eltham Bookshop, I appeared with Gregory Rogers, illustrator of sensational wordless books such as Midsummer Knight, and together we invented a pretty silly pirate called Pistachio.
From tomorrow, I'm visiting a number of schools in Auckland. Better get on with it, then.

Bound for Port Phillip Bay

2006-10-13T16:03:00.000+13:00

I'm off to Melbourne tomorrow, where I'll be:
~ visiting lots of schools
~ launching The Pirate's Revenge on Wednesday 18 October, 6.30pm, at Readings Books, 253 Bay Street, Port Melbourne
~ having a whole lot of piratical fun at Eltham Bookshop's Chatterbooks afternoon (details below).
Hopefully I won't have to fight any bushfires while I'm in town - there were 250 (count em!) bushfires raging in Victoria yesterday.

Then from 24 October, I'll be doing the rounds of schools in Auckland. Maybe one of them will be yours.

Chatterbooks afternoon

2006-09-29T19:10:00.000+12:00

Chatterbooks, the Eltham Bookshop Kids’ Bookclub in Melbourne, invites you to celebrate
"THE RETURN OF KELLY GARDINER" (that's me)
with her exciting new sequel to Ocean Without End:

The Pirate’s Revenge

DATE: Sunday 22nd October
VENUE: Eltham Bookshop
970 Main Road
Eltham 3095
TIME: 2.30-4.00pm
ENTRY: $2.00
BYO: A treasure map to share with Kelly
RSVP: elthambookshop@bigpond.com or (03) 9439 8700

Hideous!

2006-09-26T10:45:00.000+12:00

Here's the new anthology of stories for young readers , from Random House. It's called Hideous and Hilarious, and it includes historical stories by writers like David Hill, Sandy Mackay and James Norcliffe ... And me.
My story is called Anzac Day and it's about a boy who finds a boat on the beach. It's set just after World War One.
The book is edited by Barbara Else, who has worked on other collections such as Weird and Wonderful and Claws and Jaws.
Hideous and Hilarious will be in the bookshops in New Zealand from October 6.

Launch dates: Pirate's Revenge

2006-09-10T11:41:00.000+12:00

Here are the dates of the launches for book two in the Swashbuckler trilogy:

Auckland
Thursday 28 September, 6pm, Jabberwocky Bookshop, 202 Dominion Road, Mt Eden.

Melbourne
Wednesday 18 October, 6.30pm, Readings Books, 253 Bay Street, Port Melbourne.
You're all welcome.

And on Sunday 22 October, I'll be at Eltham Bookshop (in Melbourne) for a special pirate afternoon. Details soon!

Questions, questions

2006-08-28T19:28:00.000+12:00

Here are some questions - and my answers - from comments on the blog, emails and school groups:

Q: How long did your book take to write?
A: There are three books in the Swashbuckler series, and it took me about three years to write all of them.
But the first one took longer than the others, because I had to do an awful lot of historical research and planning for all three during that first phase.

Q: Which one of the three books is your favourite?
A: Oh dear. Other writers always have really clever answers to this question, and often say they love whatever book they've just finished writing.
But I have to admit that the The Pirate's Revenge is - hopefully - the funniest. So I guess it's my favourite. So far. I hope you'll think it's funny, anyway, as well as exciting.
I love humour in otherwise dramatic books: I just read Jeanette Winterson's new book for young readers, Tanglewreck, and I laughed out loud several times while I was reading it. Sometimes you need a good laugh when terrible things are happening in a book.

Q: Does Lily find her Dad?
A: Not telling. Sorry.

Q: Will there be more Swashbuckler books?
A: The third book is called The Silver Swan, and it will be out in May next year. After that, who knows?
I'd quite like Swashbuckler to sail off into the South Seas, and I have a few more ideas, but we'll have to see how the first three books go first.

Q: Have you written any other books?
A: I've written an adult book set in World War One, which hasn't been published yet - I'm rewriting it at the moment. And I'm working on a new series of timeslip novels for young readers set in World War Two, but they aren't finished.

Q: Who was the most bloodthirsty pirate?
A: Pirates were a pretty horrible lot, all in all. Some of the most fearsome were those in the Mediterranean, who took thousands of slaves and sometimes captured entire villages.
Blackbeard is probably the most famous pirate, and he certainly tried to make people scared of him - and it worked. I don't think he was really all that great as pirates go. But I wouldn't ever want to meet him.

There are more readers' questions about pirates and about the books on the Swashbuckler site. If you want to ask a new question, just click on the word "Comments" below. It'll pop up a little window, and you can type your question in there. You don't have to log in, just tick the Anonymous button, but you can write your name with your question if you like.

Sail away

2006-08-25T13:55:00.000+12:00

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
~ Mark Twain

The whalers

2006-08-22T08:32:00.000+12:00

My great-great-great-great grandfather was a whaling captain. His name was Samuel Mott, and this is his cottage, which you can still see in Port Fairy, on Victoria's Great Ocean Road. It's a museum now - a very small museum.
Old Samuel wouldn't have approved of me when I protested against whaling outside Parliament House with my "Save the whales" badge on, many years ago.
Nobody needs whale products nowadays, so there's no reason to go on killing them.
But for centuries, whaling was one of the most important and lucrative maritime industries. Whale oil and blubber was used in lamps and soap, people ate whale meat, whale bones were used in women's corsets and combs, and ambergris (a fragrant resin found rarely inside a whale's head) was essential for perfume and incredibly valuable, as indeed it still is. A couple of months ago a boy walking his dog found a huge lump of ambergris on the beach, here in NZ, and now he's rich.
It was a hard life, as it was on any fishing boat. The crew sailed away from home for months, sometimes years, on relatively small ships. If a whale's spout was sighted ("There she blows!"), they struck out in small boats, rowing as hard as they could, often for miles, hoping to spear the whale with a harpoon.
Once speared, the whale might drag the boat under, or smash it to pieces, or tow it leagues away. Many whalers were lost at sea, or terribly injured. But they became the folk of legend: of Herman Melville's book Moby Dick.

You can read more about the history of sailing ships on the Swashbuckler website.

The Pirate's Revenge

2006-08-15T08:40:00.000+12:00

Here it is!
The Pirate's Revenge, book two of the Swashbuckler trilogy, is out on October 6:

Once a pirate slave, Lily Swann is navigator on the Mermaid, running the French blockade of Malta, when she learns her long-lost father may still be alive.
But before she can follow up her discovery, Lily clashes with the vile Captain Diablo, who forces her to show him the way to the famed Golden Grotto. Furious when he is unable to locate its fabled wealth, he abandons her to die in the darkness. As she battles her way out, Lily discovers the true treasure of the grotto, and her silver sword is soon put to the test.
But after another confrontation with Diablo, Lily is cast adrift with her old adversary, Hussein Reis, in a tiny boat without oars, sails, food or water - the pirate's revenge.

You can download a larger version of the cover here.

News flash

2006-08-07T22:44:00.000+12:00

Release dates for The Pirate's Revenge, the second Swashbuckler book:
Australia - September 27
New Zealand - October 6

Across the Tasman

2006-07-29T16:25:00.000+12:00

I just got back from a week visiting lots of school groups in Melbourne.
Thanks to everyone in all the different classes I met at:
~ Anderson's Creek
~ Warrandyte
~ Donburn
~ Ringwood Heights
And my old school, Antonio Park, which is rather larger now than it was when I started there in 1965!
They have hens and sheep and all sorts of wonderful things there now. Even a library. When I was there we just kept the books in a cupboard off the corridor.
I had a great time, too, at the Eltham Bookshop's Chatterbooks Club at Eltham Library. What a beautiful building it is. It's a concentric, circular shape, built of mudbrick, and includes a gallery and cafe.
I suppose there were about thirty young readers there on Sunday afternoon, and some had dressed as pirates especially. All great fun.
Thanks to everyone who came to listen to me read, and who asked some great questions.
If you still have more questions, you can click on the "Comments" link below and type it in, and I'll try to answer it for you.
There are already some Questions & Answers on the Swashbuckler website.

Flying high

2006-07-18T17:27:00.000+12:00

I'm off to Melbourne tomorrow, where I'll be visiting several schools (including my old school!) and reading at Eltham Bookshop's Chatterbooks Book Club on Sunday 23 July.
See below for details.
Oh and I might see Pirates of the Caribbean while I'm there.

Ahoy Birkenhead

2006-07-11T15:13:00.000+12:00

Had a great time reading and having pirate adventures at the North Shore libraries last week.
Paul from Birkenhead Library has posted some photos from the day there: Guess which one's me.
Thanks to all the staff at the libraries, and to everyone who came along.

Reading pirate books

2006-07-08T14:26:00.000+12:00

I've just read a couple of new maritime/pirate novels - well, new to me, but since I got them for half-price at a Whitcoulls sale, I guess they've been around a while.
First up was Secrets of the Fearless, by NZ-born Elizabeth Laird. It's not a pirate book but it is a swashbuckler that rips along at a fearful and thrilling pace from the very first line: "It was a wild night, raw, with rain in the air". Laird has a deft way with dialogue and action, as well as historical detail (besides a couple of little glitches).
Our young hero John Barr falls into the navy almost by accident, and the novel traces his early years on board HMS Fearless, his best friend Kit (who has secrets of his own, which you'll work out well before John does) and cloak-and-dagger espionage along the coast of France during the wars between Britain and the Republic.
Like Hornblower and the Jack Aubrey books (Master and Commander) - and indeed many maritime adventures - the incidents are inspired by the life of the greatest spy/swashbuckler of them all, Lord Cochrane. It's a ripping yarn, but does slow down into a kissing book towards the end, which might disappoint some boys who read it.
On the other hand, girls might have thought it was not for them - as is, for example, Celia Rees's Pirates, which combines swashbuckling and romance. Peter Raven Under Fire suffers from the same complaint, although Secrets of the Fearless is by far the better book.
I read it in one sitting and didn't want it to stop. It's for readers 10 to 14.
The Ring of the Slave Prince is another thing altogether. Written by Bjarne Reuter and translated by Tiina Nunnally, it's part swashbuckler, part South American magical realism, part rites-of-passage story. Some of those elements work, some don't, and they don't necessarily mesh well together. I found it at once compelling but also overlong and overcomplicated. But perhaps that's just me. I felt the same way about Brian Jacques' Castaways of the Flying Dutchman but most other people loved it.
There are also a few disconcerting grammatical or editorial mistakes (on one page someone was the eldest son, on the next, his older brother died) and some of the strangeness in the dialogue must be due to the translation. It's probably a book for readers over 14 or so, as it gets rather gruesome and macabre at times.
Finally, a picture book: Pirate Girl, by Cornelia Funke, author of Inkspell and Dragon Rider, with illustrations by Kerstin Meyer. This is quite new (not half-price yet!) and really fun - a readaloud picture book for younger kids, with a cast of suitably 'orrible pirates, a brave little girl called Molly, and Molly's fearsome Mum: Barbarous Bertha. I've read this out loud twice every day in the library holiday program last week, and can bear witness to the fact that kids even up to about 7 or 8 thought it was a pretty good read.
Oh and don't forget the new non-fiction Pirates book by John Matthews, which is gorgeously produced and crammed with facts and snippets about pirates, corsairs, buccaneers, and the whole scurvy crew.

Lost for words

2006-07-04T18:50:00.000+12:00

I'm halfway through my week of reading at every library on Auckland's North Shore, and it's been great fun so far. I read picture books like Cornelia Funke's Pirate Girl if there are little kids there, and read my book and answer questions about pirates, the books, writing, and anything else. Today we've even made treasure maps (and eaten quite a bit of treasure).
At Birkenhead this afternoon, I was delighted to meet a Maltese family, the Testas, who had come especially to give me a copy of the review Luke had written of my book. Here's some of it:
I thought it was a breathtaking story, although I usually do not enjoy reading pirate stories. I liked the way Kelly Gardiner put in Maltese words such as "merhba" and the fact that the story was based in Malta because it reminded me of the place where I was born and grew up... I recommend the book to other children because they can learn more about pirates and far away countries and because it's a good fun story.

Thanks Luke, and thanks to everyone who has come along to listen.
The last three gigs are:
5 July
10am Northcote library
2pm Devonport library
6 July
10am Takapuna library.
Maybe we'll see you there. I hope my voice lasts that long.

Hooked in

2006-07-02T16:14:00.000+12:00

Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life,
The flag o’ skull and bones,
A merry hour, a hempen rope,
And hey for Davy Jones.
- J. M. Barrie, The Adventures of Peter Pan

Melbourne reading

2006-06-26T20:14:00.000+12:00

On 23 July, I'll be in Melbourne, reading at the Chatterbooks Adventure Afternoon. Christine Harris, author of the Spy Girl series, and David Harris, author of the Cliffhangers books, will be there too, for an afternoon of "swashbuckling, espionage and thrill seeking".
Chatterbooks is run by the Eltham Bookshop, and offers "a chance to talk about your favourite books and authors, and let us introduce you to the most exciting and readable books. Don't forget that we also run writing and storytelling workshops and close encounters with acclaimed authors. Especially for 8-13 year olds and their families."
It's from 2 to 3.30pm at Eltham Library, Panther Place, Eltham.
For more information or to book in, phone 03 9439 8700 or email elthambookshop@bigpond.com.
Hope to see you there!
If you're in Auckland, go to my schedule of school holiday readings.

Big Bad Read

2006-06-23T11:20:00.000+12:00

This is really hard: choose who you think is the most evil character in a children's book in Bloomsbury's Big Bad Read competition.
I can't decide between Bill Sikes from Oliver Twist (I'll never forgive him for beating up Nancy), Voldemort, The Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, or Narnia's White Witch. I would have chosen the Dark Riders from Lord of the Rings, but they aren't on the list.
Eoin Colfer's favourite all time baddie is Captain Hook.
Michael Morpurgo chose Long John Silver from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.
You can place your vote online here.

School holiday readings

2006-06-20T12:56:00.000+12:00

Here's where I'll be reading in Auckland during the NZ school holidays:
3 July
10am East Coast Bay library
2pm Albany Village library
4 July
10am Glenfield library
2pm Birkenhead library
5 July
10am Northcote library
2pm Devonport library
6 July
10am Takapuna library

Whew! If you're in the area, you'll be very welcome.

Then I'll be in Melbourne in the middle of July - stay tuned.

Storylines festival

2006-06-18T16:03:00.000+12:00

Just got back from the annual Storylines day in Auckland. And what a wonderful thing it was: the Aotea Centre was filled with excited kids - mostly younger. Some were dressed up: I saw a Little Red Riding Hood, and two small purple dragons who were having a swordfight.
There were plays, face painting, story telling, book-making, play dough, readings and drawing - and even Hairy McLary and Clifford bounding about. You could make your own dragon, or watch some of our finest illustrators work, or learn calligraphy.
I'm always deeply jealous of people who can draw. It seems like magic to me. I went to listen to Anthony Browne, all the way from the UK, and he showed us how to play the Shape Game (one of his books) which is a way of teaching yourself to draw. He reckons even dud drawers like me ought to be able to do it. We'll see. He launched his new book Silly Billy here today.
Most of the sessions were about picture books, or with authors who have published picture books, although some have written books for readers of all ages.
In the morning I listened to Margaret Mahy read a couple of her books, including her wonderful poem, Down the Back of the Chair. Then later Joy Cowley answered lots of questions and told a story with a surprise ending (she screamed) that made us all jump a metre in the air with fright.
There were also similar days in Wellington and New Plymouth - but why not Christchurch, I wonder?
All too much fun for a wet and windy Sunday.

Be a pirate: travel the world and meet interesting people

2006-06-17T09:10:00.000+12:00

The great difference between voyages rests not with the ships, but with the people you meet on them.
- Amelia E. Barr

More Q&A

2006-06-16T13:20:00.000+12:00

Yesterday I visited, in the middle of a rainstorm, Milford School on Auckland's North Shore. I found out that the teachers have been reading my book to everyone - in installments over the loudspeaker system - which is a fabulous idea.
I read from Ocean Without End, and people asked lots of interesting questions. Here are a couple:

Q. What do you like most about being a writer?
A. I start work early, but I get to stay in pyjamas until 11am because nobody can see me. And while I sit at my desk, I can go anywhere in the world, and anywhere in time - in my head. Yesterday I was reading the edited version of the next Swashbuckler book so in my imagination I was in Malta in 1798 - the day before, in my head I was in 17th century Amsterdam, learning about how printing presses work. Next week, it'll be back to London during the Blitz.
Q. Are there any books you wish you had written?
A. I wish I'd written Margaret Mahy's The Man Whose Mother Was a Pirate. In fact, I wish I'd written most of her books. (If I'd been thinking straight my answer would have been Harry Potter, but I guess everyone wishes they'd written those books!)
Q. Who are your favourite characters in your book?
Well, Lily is really my deep-down favourite, but mostly I love the Maltese characters Carlo, and the brothers Francesco and Ricardo, because they are honest and funny and brave - and I never know what they'll do next.

Thanks to everyone at Milford for inviting me to your school and making me feel welcome.
I'll be reading at all the North Shore libraries over the July school holidays, so maybe I'll see some of you again then.

Winter days

2006-06-13T09:19:00.000+12:00

I love these dark winter days, when I'm writing in my study - all cosy in a yellow circle of lamplight, surrounded by books.
I can hear the rain on the roof and the wind in the ti-tree, and next-door's chooks clucking damply in the back yard. They'd rather be inside, in the warm, like me.
I'm making corrections on the edited text for Swashbuckler book two, The Pirate's Revenge, this week. Last week I saw sketches of the cover design, another exciting painting from Mark Wilson.
The new book is due out in September/October, but there's lots to do before then.

Win a copy! Ocean Without End

2006-06-12T14:52:00.000+12:00

The NZ Woman's Weekly has ten copies of Ocean Without End to giveaway.
The competition is open to NZ residents - get your entry in before 24 June.

Pinball pirates

2006-06-12T08:09:00.000+12:00

Why do people in ship mutinies always ask for "better treatment"? I'd ask for a pinball machine, because with all that rocking back and forth you'd probably be able to get a lot of free games.
- Jack Handy

The smallest pirate

2006-06-04T17:56:00.000+12:00

This is a real story, for all those people who wonder if kids were really ever pirates.
John King was 11 when pirates captured the ship he and his mother were sailing on in the Caribbean. As he watched the pirates haul off the cargo of sugar and tobacco, John made a decision: he would leave his mother and join the pirate crew, led by Captain Sam Bellamy.
Now, 290 years later, John's remains have been found in the wreck of Bellamy's ship, the Whydah, 460 metres off the coast of Wellfleet, Massachusetts. While teenage pirates were common in the 18th century, John is considered to be the youngest ever identified.
You can read his story, and about the archaeologists who found the wreck, in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Reading out loud

2006-06-04T15:29:00.000+12:00

This month I'll be visiting some schools in Auckland, and when it's school holidays in July I'll be reading at all the libraries on the North Shore. Stay tuned for details.
In the meantime, take a look at the fantastic program for the annual Storylines festival right here.

Swashbuckler! book two?

2006-05-30T20:25:00.000+12:00

Someone has left a comment asking when the next Swashbuckler book is due out.
Good question.
It's called The Pirate's Revenge, and it will be published in October of this year (by HarperCollins).
Book 3 is called The Silver Swan, and it will be out around April next year.
Hope you can wait that long.

Something fishy

2006-05-28T17:03:00.000+12:00

This morning, it was the Great Onetangi Beach Surf Casting Competition. The person who catches the biggest fish wins a thousand dollars. So the beach, which normally has a couple of dozen people wandering aimlessly along it, and a few kids playing in the sand or shallows (depending on the weather), was this morning filled with people fishing.
Well, they were trying. Nobody seemed to be catching anything but seaweed, although I did watch a couple of people catch one another (ooh - nasty).
The remains of the shipwreck were still visible at one end - the tide has washed over it many times now, so there's only part of the prow sticking up through the sand and shells and seaweed. It has become part of the beach - part of the ocean. One day there'll be nothing at all left.
It was very hard to think while I was walking along the beach. Usually, I write stuff in my head while I walk, or think about what will happen next in the books I'm writing, or completely change my mind about something I wrote the day before. I can mutter dialogue to myself and nobody can hear me. If I get confused I can stare out to sea.
Once I wrote a whole story in my head , and then rushed home to scribble it down - it's set in that bay, but many years ago, during World War One. After the initial scribbling, of course, I rewrote it and tweaked and polished it until it was finished. But everything that happens in the story, and the cast of characters in it, was invented while I was walking, because I was staring at the farmhouse on the headland and imagined what it would have been like to live there before all the holiday-makers came.
The story is called Anzac Day, and you'll be able to read it in a Random House anthology, History: Hideous and Hilarious, later in the year.
But I have to admit I didn't write anything at all in my head this morning - I was too busy watching everyone else, and wondering where I'd put my trusty old fishing rod.

How to talk back

2006-05-28T17:01:00.000+12:00

If you want to ask a question or talk about anything on this site - or about the Swashbuckler books - click on the word "Comments" at the bottom of this note. It will pop up a little window for you to type in a message, and then send the message straight to me. I will publish it here, with any reply. Sometimes people ask me to post anonymous comments for them, which I can do, too.
If you want to leave a comment on a particular piece of writing (or post) on this site, each one has its own "Comments" link.
Cheers,
Kelly

Never trust a pirate

2006-05-27T16:41:00.000+12:00

Will Turner: You cheated.
Jack Sparrow: [shrugs] Pirate.
- From Pirates of the Caribbean (bring on number two - due out in July!)

Latest reviews of Swashbuckler, book one

2006-05-27T16:31:00.000+12:00

Here are extracts from a couple of recent reviews of Ocean Without End:

"Lily Swann's transformation from slave to pirate princess as she searches for her father ... is surprisingly believable. Set off Santa Lucia, near Malta, the swashbuckling story also carries a palatable dose of history."
- Ann Packer, Dominion Post

"...A good narrative for either sex to get their teeth into. It is well-assembled in a young person's (not to say children's) sense, with sentences and paragraphs structured to meet the target audience.
But an Enid Blyton tale this is not... There's a bit of everything thrown in - drama, violence, escape - as is required with a young person's read, but the yarn will keep them up to finish it. And then they'll want the next in the series. A good stimulus to get them reading.
If you give Ocean Without End to your offspring, remember to set the alarm on school mornings."
- Christine Jordan, Greymouth Star.

There are a few more reviews posted on my other blog.

Anytime, anywhere

2006-05-27T16:05:00.000+12:00

Pirates could happen to anyone.
- Tom Stoppard (playwright)

Shouldn't you be outside playing?

2006-05-25T17:55:00.000+12:00

"No!" says that old pasty-face Lemony Snicket, who is calling upon young people to "stay indoors and read" this northern hemisphere summer.
"Mr. Snicket believes that summertime is such a dangerous season, what with sunburn and melted ice cream and the possibility of summer camp, that it's best to stay indoors and read," said Snicket's "representative", Daniel Handler, who still denies the overwhelming evidence that he is in fact the author of the million-selling Snicket books, A Series of Unfortunate Events.
He suggested that in summer, to avoid the heat, humidity and insects, children might want to stay inside, "with a good book and a glass of lemonade that has not been poisoned" - perhaps even one of his own "wretched books".
Mr Handler, or possibly Mr Snicket, was speaking at the launch of Barnes and Noble's annual Summer Reading Program, in which the big chain store provides a reading journal, all you have to do is read, and you get a free book. Cool.
The only other thing is that you have to live in the US. But hey... We have the Storylines Festival in NZ soon, and Reading Challenges are already underway in lots of schools in Australia this very moment.

So many books, so little time

2006-05-25T08:48:00.000+12:00

Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky.
My pile of books
Are a mile high.
How I love them!
How I need them!
I'll have a long beard
By the time I read them.
- Arnold Lobel (author and illustrator)

Barking mad

2006-05-23T12:51:00.000+12:00

Inside a dog is a great new website about books, especially designed for young readers. There are lots of reviews, themed booklists, quizzes, and you can even write your own reviews - and win prizes.
Funny name? It comes from this comment by comedian Groucho Marx:
"Outside a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read."

A book of your own

2006-05-23T12:39:00.000+12:00

It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes)

A few more reviews

2006-05-15T11:16:00.000+12:00

"I enjoyed the part where Lily gets sent down to work with the cook, because the cook is the only one at the beginning who is nice to Lily... I look forward to reading the rest of the series."
- Laura Rogers (aged 12), Timaru Herald

"A really good read."
- Marlborough Express

"Kelly Gardiner doesn't avoid the violence and death of the pirate world - Lily has to help the cook treat the wounded and dying in battle - but she has also created a fast-paced, swashbuckling story... the first of what promises to be a very lively series."
- The Press

"Readers will be captivated by the story and will look forward to the release of the second exciting novel."
- Tomorrow's Schools Today

Reading out loud

2006-05-13T18:35:00.000+12:00

Last week I visited Erskineville Public School in Sydney, to read and talk with some of the older students.
It was interesting to hear how many of them had read and loved some of my favourite books, like Treasure Island, and of course everyone has seen Pirates of the Caribbean, so they are very clued up on pirates.
We talked about how my books aren’t really scary, but then when I was reading they thought it was all pretty tense during the build-up to the first battle, and someone muttered, “This is really freaky!”
And that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.
Thanks to everyone at Erskineville for listening, and for your fascinating ideas and questions.

Storms and shipwrecks

2006-04-25T20:08:00.000+12:00

This morning I saw a shipwreck - or at least the aftermath of one.
It had been a wild, woolly night, with pouring rain, floods in some areas, and winds so strong that they knocked birds out of the trees. (Who'd want to be a bird? They must get so miserable.)
Anyway, for the past couple of weeks, down on our beach, there's been a yacht careened in a little cove. In other words, the owner has sailed it right up onto the sand, so he can work on the hull - last time I walked past he was stripping off some old paint, and patching the cracks between the wood. It's the old way of doing things. In 1770 Captain Cook had to careen the Endeavour after she hit the Great Barrier Reef, in the place where now you'll find Cooktown, should you ever be in the very farthest north of Australia.
So this yachtie has been working on his boat for a week or so. It's about 25 feet long, maybe more - a good solid yacht that looks like it's been around for a couple of decades. He worked alone - perhaps he lived on the yacht. He certainly looked like and old salt, with a grey beard and wiry legs. Most people pay to put their boats on the slips at the yacht club when they need fixing, but perhaps he couldn't afford it.
Big mistake.
This morning I walked on the beach again, and the boat was smashed into tiny fragments on the rocks. The cabin roof was embedded in the sand. Part of the mast was halfway up the hill. Bits of decking were splattered across the rocks, and pushed by the stormy sea right up against tree trunks.
The waves must have picked his yacht right up off the sand and smashed her against the rocks.
It was so sad. People were wandering around helplessly, wishing they could put her back together again, but that lovely old girl is nothing but firewood now.
May she rest in peace.

Tall tales and (not) true

2006-04-22T11:22:00.000+12:00

Last night I read Iain Lawrence's The Wreckers. Wow, that man knows how to spin a tale. Everything happens so quickly in the first few chapters, you're left rather breathless. His The Buccaneers is also very good - just as thrilling, but perhaps not quite so relentless.
Over the last few weeks, I've read a couple of terrific books by Sherryl Jordan: The Hunting of the Last Dragon, set in medieval England, and The Juniper Game, a timeslip novel moving between our time and the dark witch hunting days.
Next I'm going to start on Knight's Fee, by Rosemary Sutcliff, which I read years ago but have mostly forgotten. Can't wait.
Now you can see what I've read lately in my library, on the left hand side of this page (scroll down).

The journey begins

2006-04-21T10:45:00.000+12:00

Ocean Without End set sail on her maiden voyage last night, at the launch at Jabberwocky Children's Bookshop in Auckland.
Thanks to Jabberwocky, and to everyone who came along.
Not only did I get to launch my own book, but I was also presented with a copy of the new Pirates book by John Matthews, soon to be released here. It's fantastic - it even includes a fold-out map of places where treasure was lost or possibly buried in Jamaica.
Gotta go - I might need to sail on a High Wind to Jamaica on the morning tide to beat everyone else.

Enslaved by pirates

2006-04-20T15:24:00.000+12:00

Perhaps the most famous pirate slave in history was the Spaniard Miguel Cervantes, who was captured by Memmi Reis after the Battle of Lepanto. He tried to escape four times, but was eventually released with the help of the Redemptionists, who paid 500 gold escudos for his life.
Cervantes went on to become famous as the author of Don Quixote de la Mancha ("The Man of La Mancha"), which includes a story about slavery, called 'The Captive's Tale'.
Famous fictional pirate slaves (besides, of course, Lily Swann and Carlo, in Swashbuckler, who aren't treated that badly - at first) include Sir Oliver Tressilian in Rafael Sabatini's novel The Sea Hawk. Sir Oliver is betrayed by his own brother, sold into slavery, but ends up becoming one of the most notorious Barbary corsairs.
On the other hand, in Captain Blood, Sabatini's hero Doctor Peter Blood is sent by an English court as a slave to Barbados. He escapes from there and becomes a pirate, and later buys his sweetheart, Arabella, from a French pirate who has captured her.
You might have seen the movie of Captain Blood, with Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone - it's one of the first great swashbuckling films.

Growing up pirate

2006-04-18T14:12:00.000+12:00

When I was about five, I think, I desperately wanted to be a pirate and have the hat and everything.
- Keira Knightley (Elizabeth in Pirates of the Caribbean)

Love those helmets

2006-04-18T13:59:00.000+12:00

I’m sure you’ve heard stories of the Vikings: the fearsome raiders from Denmark and Norway who raided the coasts of Europe and Britain in their longships; terrifying small towns, enslaving the inhabitants, and carrying off cattle, food and whatever plunder they could find. The great stories of the Vikings are told in the sagas, which are long, complex tales of adventure, battle, heroes, gods – and Alfhild the girl pirate.
The saga was first written down in the twelfth century, and it tells the story of a beautiful princess, Alfhild, whose father tried to keep her locked away from everyone until he could find her a suitable husband. But Alfhild refused to get married. Instead, she “exchanged woman’s for man’s attire and …began the life of a warlike rover.” Alfhild had an all-female crew, and there were many other brave and warrior-like women described in the sagas.
Alfhild might even have come up in battle against one of the Vikings’ most brilliant opponents: the English general Aethelflaed, daughter of King Alfred the Great.
You can read more about the lives of real pirates on the Swashbuckler website.

Book launch

2006-04-12T22:12:00.000+12:00

The first Swashbuckler book, Ocean Without End, will be launched on the evening of 20 April at Jabberwocky children's bookshop in Mt Eden, Auckland.
In the meantime, if you want to know more about the books, go to the official Swashbuckler website.

I'll also be at the Australian Children's Book Council conference in Sydney from 4 to 6 May.

B-Day

2006-04-07T19:45:00.000+12:00

Today is the day the first book, Ocean Without End, goes into the shops in New Zealand (26 April in Australia).
Thank you to everyone in Australia, New Zealand and Malta who has helped me research, write, and finally publish the first Swashbuckler book.
Bless her, and all who sail in her.

The first review - Ocean Without End

2006-03-29T10:50:00.000+12:00

I've just got back from Melbourne (I visited my family and attended so many Commonwealth Games events that I need a holiday to recover).
While I was there, Rachel from the Eltham Bookshop sent this through: it's my first official book review, from the Chatterbooks Kids' Bookclub newsletter.

OCEAN WITHOUT END by Kelly Gardiner
Lily, a twelve-year-old girl, was taken by pirates during a raid on her island Santa Lucia. She was taken aboard the ship Gisella and she soon made friends with Cook, Carlo the cabin boy and many others. When the ship Gisella is visited, she finds out that she was working for the man who killed her father. A great read! 10/10. Reviewed by Erik Steller aged 10.

Thanks to Erik - I'm so pleased you liked the book - and to Rachel.
I'll make sure I get to Eltham Bookshop or the Bookclub next time I'm in Melbourne.

Writing adventures

2006-03-05T17:15:00.000+13:00

I didn't really mean to write adventure books, but it makes perfect sense to me now.
What I like to do is to acknowledge all the great things about the tradition of adventure books, and swashbuckling books in particular - and then have some fun with it.
I like to pay tribute to the great novelists of the past, and I've sneaked in something in honour of each of my favourites somewhere in the Swashbuckler trilogy.
We don't read Rudyard Kipling much any more, for example, and as a man of the Victorian empire some of his ideas and attitudes may seem very old-fashioned. His writing, in the language of another era, can be hard to read. But everyone's heard of The Jungle Book, and maybe Kim or Captains Courageous, or seen the movies, even if they haven't read the books. I love how he used to end tales with "But that's another story". It's like starting a fairytale with "Once upon a time". It fills you with expectation.
That's an adventure story tradition.
But then, being me, and not really good at traditions, I sometimes like to take the genre and shake it up a little.
You know how fiendish pirate captains often seem to be Spanish? In movies of the 1960s they were the sort of evil genius who might have been played by Anthony Quinn (he was actually Mexican, but he was often called upon to play Greeks or Arabs or ... anyone with an accent).
What, I wondered, would happen if things weren't quite as they seemed?
What if the pirate was a girl?
What if the Arab was really Irish?
What if the dashing nobleman fell over a lot?
What if ...
Ah, but that's another story.

Shipping out

2006-03-04T11:13:00.000+13:00

These great and beautiful ships, imperceptibly rocking like waddling ducks on tranquil waters, these robust ships, with their idle and nostalgic air, aren’t they telling us in a silent tongue: When are we leaving for happiness?
- Charles Baudelaire

Sneak preview

2006-03-02T11:35:00.000+13:00

Here's the cover of the first Swashbuckler book, Ocean Without End, due out in six weeks.
The wonderful artwork is by Mark Wilson.

Sea gypsies

2006-02-24T14:17:00.000+13:00

As I was driving home last night I looked out to sea and there, in the cove, it seemed as if someone had built, magically, a whole new town. Lights glowed soft yellow all across the bay - a village of boats.
The sky and sea were clear and bright blue this morning. There wasn't anyone much on the beach: three women walking their dogs and talking non-stop; a man swimming long breast-stroke laps; a roadwork crew in bright orange vests eating meat pies for breakfast; three cormorants, a few dozen gulls, millions of cockle shells, a dead fish, and me.
But the bay was filled with boats - not the normal pleasure cruisers or catamarans that often spend the weekend here (I live on an island). These were boats that people lived on, with bikes strapped on deck, and dogs, and washing hanging from the rigging: just the way people lived for centuries, and still do in some places in the world.
There was a solid blue ketch, possibly a converted fishing trawler, and many well-rigged ocean-going yachts - all small ships, really, able to weather storms and high seas, and big enough for a few people to live on.
It's not like the pirate days, of course. Now they have global positioning systems and solar panels and stainless steel barbeques and probably dishwashers for all I know. But still, it'd be a wonderful life.
I don't know why they all suddenly appeared. Perhaps they travel together. Or maybe it was a sea gypsy conference. Or just a wonderful coincidence.
All I can report is that it's very hard to concentrate on walking fast when there are too many boats to look at. By 8.30 when I'd finished my walk, there were lots more people on the beach: joggers with grim faces and sweat stains; yappy dogs with legs about an inch long; three back-packers screaming as they ran into the cold water; two German tourists wearing those complicated khaki trousers with a thousand pockets; and me.
A man came out onto the deck of the ketch, stretched and yawned, and sat down with a cup of tea. Nobody else seemed to be awake on the boats.
Imagine waking up and wondering, "Where shall we sail this morning? Or will we just stay here and laze about on the beach?"
It was such a bright day, you could see the outlines of all the other islands, and even the valleys on Great Barrier which are often hidden in seamist.
But I had to go. There was work to do.
When I drove back into town at lunchtime the local school was having a sports day on the beach and the tourist buses were unloading people for a picnic. A handful of gleaming white yachts lay at anchor. And yet somehow the bay seemed deserted.
The sea gypsies had gone.

Book booty

2006-02-22T17:48:00.000+13:00

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island and at the bottom of the Spanish Main."
- Walt Disney

Visiting Malta

2006-02-22T10:14:00.000+13:00

The Swashbuckler books are partly set in Malta (and in the sea around the islands). In May last year, after I'd finished writing all three books, I finally visited Malta to make sure everything was as I imagined, after years of research from the other side of the world.
Here are some of my notes about what happened while I was there:

Day one I know I'm supposed to be doing very serious research but it's gorgeous and you can't help falling in love - the cities glow yellow, and sea and sky are ridiculously blue. The limestone is crumbling now, but it's warm and honey coloured, and even the most impressive ramparts seem somehow welcoming (unless you're a Turkish corsair, of course).
Flew in a circle around the islands and it all seemed terribly familiar, except for the high rise apartments, which don't feature in my unique 1798 picture of the archipelago. Then the first things I saw when I arrived were a house called Lily [the name of the main character in Swashbuckler!] and a restaurant called Il Pirata.
Then I opened the curtains in my hotel room and a schooner sailed past.
Day three Am resting up after a day of scrambling around dusty old forts. Having invented a series of secret tunnels under Vittoriosa for Swashbuckler book 3, today I found some real life ones, and there was some very undignified squeezing through rusty iron gates and crawling along drainage ditches (which I'd also invented).
Day eight A potted history of Malta, so you know what I'm doing here:
Settled first by Sicilians, who built miraculous temples of huge monoliths a thousand years before Stonehenge. From then on, it's a Mediterranean hit parade of all the usual gang - Phoenicians, Ulysses (who spent seven years in a cave on Gozo, probably eating crunchy bread and honey), Romans, Arabs, Normans. Then the Knights of St John, who'd been thrown out of Rhodes by the Ottomans, were handed the islands. They built the great fortress cities and set themselves up as pirate crusaders, that is, they took Muslim slaves and gold as a way of getting back at the Barbary states. In 1798 Bonaparte arrived, then Nelson in his wake (and my imaginary pirates).
I spent all day yesterday back in Mdina, the Old City. Lots of pirate research there, as my books' narrator, Lily, and her crew have a few adventures there and I had to retrace all their steps I had made up. Luckily it all makes sense, and in fact it's a perfect pirate town. The laneways twist and turn, a bend every ninety paces, as that's the usual flight of an arrow, so you can fight a running battle in the streets.
This afternoon I've been out on the water, checking the fortifications from below.
Day ten In the second Swashbuckler book there is a long sequence where the crew goes into the Inland Sea - and today I did. It's a crack in the rock on the smaller island of Gozo, and you zoom through in a fishing boat (you don't row, lucky I checked) and the cliffs are sheer on either side and the water is... actually there's not a word for it... it's not electric blue, and azure doesn't even come close, it's just Impossibly Blue, that's all, and so clear you can see the coral forty feet down. I was in a little fishing boat with a grin from ear to ear (me, not the boat), although Max the fisherman told me I was crazy because you're supposed to do the research before you write the books.
Day thirteen Today was the final research day, the bit I've been looking forward to - the circumnavigation of the islands. I just booked one of those normal cruise boats, filled with sunburned English people, all unsuspecting that they are involved in a great pirate enterprise. They thought they were going snorkelling in the Blue Lagoon. Actually, it wasn't blue today, just a crazy kind of aqua. Because today was the first cold day.
After lunch came the coastline I really need to see, because I've decided on all these pirate landing places and my guide had showed me some cliffs that were about as death-defying as a council drain.
The cliffs! From the sea, they soar. For miles. And the pirate haven I had chosen on the basis of book-learning only looked absolutely perfect to me, and there are grottos deep into the limestone and on every headland a Knights of Malta watchtower still stands, beautiful squat stone things they are too. The wind rose, the sea was heaving and a wonderful dark blue.

In port this month

2006-02-22T09:31:00.000+13:00

The Auckland Anniversary Regatta a few weeks ago brought a flock of tall ships into port. Good old Soren Larsen was around for a while, and I felt sure that the Spirit of Adventure visited us briefly. I recognise her profile. She's a tall ship especially designed to teach young people how to sail.
Now Windeward Bound, the brigantine that famously recreated Matthew Flinders' epic voyage, is tied up at Princess Wharf. She (like Endeavour) looks frighteningly small to venture out into the Tasman, let alone halfway around the world.
As if that weren't enough, one day I pounded around the corner to come face to bow with the QE2. She may no longer be the biggest cruise liner in the world, but she's still one of the most elegant, for my money, looking for all the world like one of those old Cunard Lines Art Deco posters. I shouted aloud in excitement. I'd only seen her once before, dwarfed by the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but she towered over the Hilton Hotel on the wharf. Six men were abseiling down that famous funnel, painting, like tiny Action Man figures.
The next day I heard her horn, sounding the departure - it was deafening, even all the way down at my office in Westhaven (about a twenty minute walk).
The following morning, her berth was taken by Aurora, a megalithic white office block of a ship: she accommodates 1,950 passengers, has an atrium with a waterfall, and three swimming pools (including one with a sliding glass roof). The day after, the brand spanking new Diamond Princess arrived, all 116,000 tonnes of her. Both seemed even more monstrous than QE2, but less dignified.
The ferries turn and dock right next to the big ships so we get a tug's-eye view of the hull.
My personal favourite is the relatively miniscule Clipper Odyssey, which looks like an elegant version of those wonderful coastal tramps that ploughed their way from Hong Kong to Vladivostok via Shanghai in the '30s.

I grew up watching ships come and go - "under the hook," as they say in Port Melbourne. My grandfather was a warfie. So were all his mates.
We used to go down to Station Pier and watch the passenger ships leave. In those days, everyone on board, and everyone on the wharf, would throw streamers, and try to catch the streamers thrown by others. So as the ship pulled away from the dock it was still connected to the land by a bright web of thin paper strips. One by one, the streamers broke, until the last one fluttered into the water, and then the people on the wharf who were saying goodbye would shed a tear and stop waving.
Nobody throws streamers anymore, which I'm sure is much better for the environment, but not nearly as much fun.

Into the lion's den

2006-02-13T20:40:00.000+13:00

At the weekend, I was at a rural show in Hamilton. In one of the huge halls at the Showgrounds, there was a vast series of wire cages. Inside, at one end, were three white lions. At the other end, separated by a wall of wire, were two young Bengal tigers. And in the middle, in a kind of big-cat playpen, were two Royal White tiger cubs, only a few months old.
The cats come from Zion Wildlife Gardens, run by "The Lion Man," Craig Busch, who breeds rare and endangered species. It was one of his lions, Zion, who was the real-life model for Aslan in the filming of the movie of The Narnia Chronicles.
The tiger cubs, Rongo and Kiwi, were born here, two of only about 100 Royal White tigers left in the world - all in captivity. One day soon they'll go to Africa, to a special World Heritage animal sanctuary.
They may have been young, but they were still fairly big, standing as high as my shoulders on their hind legs.
I can say this with some certainty, because I went right into the tiger enclosure - inside the cages with Craig - to take some photos!
Luckily, it was just after feeding time.

It's a mystery

2006-01-25T17:00:00.000+13:00

The Marie-Celeste set sail from New York on November 7, 1872, bound for Genoa in Italy.
Ten people were on board, including Captain Benjamin Briggs, his wife Sarah and their two-year-old daughter Sophie. The ship's company was two officers, a steward, and four crew.
On December 4, the British brigantine Dei Gratia found Marie-Celeste sailing west under full sail, with not a single person, living or dead, aboard.
The fore hatch had been removed, but the cargo of alcohol hadn't been touched.
The ship's boat was missing, but Captain Briggs' navigation equipment was in his cabin.
Only one pump working, and there was a lot of water between decks, and four feet of water in the hold.
Some fittings and rigging showed evidence of storm damage, but there was no way of telling whether that had happened before or after the ship was abandoned - if indeed it had been abandoned.
A six-month supply of food and water was aboard.
The clock and the compass had been destroyed.
All of the ship's papers except the captain's logbook were missing.
Food was found uneaten on the stove and everything else on board was just as it should be.
But there were no clues as to what had happened - to the ship or her crew and passengers, who were never seen again. They had simply vanished.
The story of the phantom ship Marie-Celeste is one of the great maritime mysteries of all time.

The ship was brought into port, refitted, and sailed on for twelve more years until she was grounded (probably on purpose) on Rochelois Reef in Haiti.
The shipwreck of the Marie-Celeste was discovered in 2001, by an expedition headed by the author Clive Cussler.

"Oh, you’ll love the sea. There’s something about it. The hot red dawn, the towering sails, the wake on a tropical night. Oh, you’ll love it all. It’s a glorious kind of world. I couldn’t live without it."

- Captain Briggs (played by Arthur Margetson), in Phantom Ship , a 1936 film about the Marie-Celeste.

Sea and stars

2005-12-10T14:54:00.000+13:00

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.

— John Masefield

A world of boats

2005-12-10T13:28:00.000+13:00

Wherever I go in the world, as long as there's a river or lake or the sea, I try to find the boats. Even in the great cities of the world, many of which are old port towns, you can find historic ships or working tugs or fishing boats or gloriously swift yachts. I've been up Port Hacking in a battered aluminium dinghy, sailed on a timber ketch on Lake Te Anau, circumnavigated Malta on a day cruiser, cruised down the Thames on a tourist barge, sailed down the Bosphorus on a tall ship, and criss-crossed Hong Kong harbour on a Star Line ferry. It's the best way to see a city. Any old ferry or fishing boat will do.
Here are some of my favourites.
Auckland, where I live, is home to the graceful black-hulled yawl Ethel The Pirate Ship, which used to run bootleg liquor round the harbour. I'm not the only Ethel fan - one of her previous admirers was Errol Flynn.
The Auckland Maritime Museum in the Viaduct owns Breeze and the old scow Ted Ashby, both of which take to the harbour on day sails.
In New York, you can scramble all over the venerable barque Peking, launched in 1911 and one of the largest (and last) sailing ships ever built. Once I sailed around Manhattan at sunset on the elegant 1885 gaff-rigged schooner, Pioneer. Both are at South Street Seaport.
I've even got a certificate that proves I know how to climb the dizzyingly high masts of the James Craig, built in 1874, and sailing again on Sydney Harbour. The Australian Heritage Fleet's wonderful collection of ships and small boats is at the National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour. So is one of my other favourite ships: the replica of Captain Cook's bark Endeavour.
In Malta, where the Swashbuckler! books are set, you can potter about the harbour on a traditional luzzu .

But here's the ship that really stole my heart: the Star Flyer. I sailed on her from Istanbul to Athens, through the islands of the Aegean Sea.

Sailing ships or steamboats?

2005-11-25T09:20:00.000+13:00

"When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient... now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. These ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained."
- Mark Twain

Best swashbuckling books

2005-11-24T10:30:00.000+13:00

(Besides mine, of course)

Best fencing - Captain of Dragoons, Ronald Welch
Best intrigue - The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
Best castaways - The Coral Island, RM Ballantyne
Best Barbary corsairs - The Sea Hawk, Rafael Sabatini
Best treasure hunt - Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
Best sea battles - The Buccaneers, Iain Lawrence
Best naval midshipman - Hornblower, CS Forester
Most evil captain - Captain Hook in Peter Pan by JM Barrie
Least blood-thirsty pirates - Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

That's what I reckon, anyway.

Mind over matter

2005-11-24T09:42:00.000+13:00

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."
- Dr Seuss

Swords

2005-11-23T11:34:00.000+13:00

People often ask me why I write about pirates, but it just seems very obvious to me: I love ships and boats, I love history, and I love swords.
I always have. I started fencing when I was eleven, and I read as many books about swords and fencing as I could (the best ones were Ronald Welch's books about the Carey family, who all seemed to be expert swordsmen).
Here's the sword I bought as a present for myself, to celebrate publishing the Swashbuckler! books.

Welcome

2005-11-23T10:43:00.000+13:00

Welcome to this new blog for readers of the Swashbuckler! books. I'm happy to answer questions, or you can just make notes (use the Comments tag under each post) about the books, the people and places, and what happens next.