FEMINISTA

Tilly and the crew at Unity Books once again put on a great party to celebrate readers, writers and independent bookshops. At the entrance was a display of small press publishers in NZ - featuring my bro's publishing empire, The Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop in association with Mark Pirie's Headworks too. Homage was paid to Alan - the founder of Unity who passed away a few years back, as well as to author Nigel Cox - whose partner read an excerpt of his final novel...other Unity 'shopgirls' as Tilly called them - yes that means the boys too - read from favourite books and Jenny Bornholdt read a poignant poem about pain and surreality...a frail but beautiful gesture. Wine and food flowed around the usually pristine bookshop shelves and people sprawled across the floor and chairs to chat and reminisce. A great night was had by all and three chairs for the independents who keep supporting local writers and looking after guest writers as they cruise through Wellington ...

So, we cruised into Auckland on Friday morning from a gorgeous sunshine day in Wellington to a cloudy rainy bumpy landing...it was like - are we in Ak or Wn? Heading out to Muriwai to stay in my friends new motel unit with spa just installed, we cut out from the digital life and only came back to Ak and connectivity to join in the Great Blend at this really cool venue in Auckland which Russell Brown organised... William Cooper from InformITV did his thang before leaving to catch his plane back to the U.K. and then Mr Brown from Singapore presented his blogs and life in Singapore...'So say we all....so say we all..." it was a blast and heres some photos to prove it. The Auckland audience i felt was a bit more timid than the Auckland throng...and the L.E.D's did a great set that got me back in retro style band gal status....the lead singer even remembered our band, the Vibraslaps. I have to say - i was impressed and our drummer Dianne was with us too...so we had a groupy f...