Where do you get your ideas? – You look like a nice person? I don’t go searching for ideas for my novels, rather, it seems, they sneak up and ambush me. Sometimes the idea slinks out of someone’s chance remark during a conversation or sometimes it’s in something I read or see or it’s …
Category: 2015
Permanent link to this article: https://4thfloorjournal.co.nz/past-issues/4th-floor-2015/contents-2015/paddy-richardson-where-do-you-get-your-ideas/
Liz Elson
Georgy Porgy Mister George Lamkin carries his chamber pot to the far end of his garden. My sister Barbara and I watch from our upstairs bedroom window as he empties the pee onto his rhubarb plants and runner beans. In the summer we often wake up early and hear the shush-shushing of Mister Lamkin’s …
Permanent link to this article: https://4thfloorjournal.co.nz/past-issues/4th-floor-2015/contents-2015/liz-elson-georgy-porgy/
John Haxton
In the Gullies In the gullies, swamp at the bottom, up to our knees in mud, my cousin and I reach high for blackberries. We say; the sun will shine tomorrow, today we will get more than half a billycan each, our mothers will be pleased, tragedy makes us sad. We say; …
Permanent link to this article: https://4thfloorjournal.co.nz/past-issues/4th-floor-2015/contents-2015/john-haxton-in-the-gullies/
Tracey Schuyt
How to Catch a Rat ‘Get rats out of flats!’ the man has decreed. ‘Bring them to us for free beer.’ ‘Nice one Johnny,’ says India. ‘Very creative.’ I know I’m not much of a poet, but at least I made her smile. India and I are studying biology, so dead rats are nothing …
Permanent link to this article: https://4thfloorjournal.co.nz/past-issues/4th-floor-2015/contents-2015/tracey-schuyt-how-to-catch-a-rat/
Tina Regtien
Midwifery The cloak of bees part and from one cell she wriggles, a cluster of pale light. Snub-nosed sister, the little blonde bee strokes her antennae and dances her first circle in the palm of your hand – round and round the garden. Midwife Mike murmurs there you go before a bang of trays, …
Permanent link to this article: https://4thfloorjournal.co.nz/past-issues/4th-floor-2015/contents-2015/tina-regtien-midwifery/
Sarah Delahunty
True Origins I started my regular play-writing life out of necessity while teaching drama to teenagers. It was very hard to find scripts that suited the number of students in a class, or were engaging for young people today. So I wrote to order, taking into account what I felt would challenge individual actors. …
Permanent link to this article: https://4thfloorjournal.co.nz/past-issues/4th-floor-2015/contents-2015/sarah-delahunty-true-origins/
Nicola Easthope
1 | 2 Centrepiece The table took up most of the room – round oak top, four solid legs curved at the knee. It must have been brought in legless, torso rolled through three doors like a cartwheel. The surface was too good to be seen. Tablecloths changed weekly – fawn linen …
Permanent link to this article: https://4thfloorjournal.co.nz/past-issues/4th-floor-2015/contents-2015/nicola-easthope-centrepiece/
Mary-Jane Duffy
The Left Bank Collage Rebecca West wrote Black Lamb, Grey Falcon about former Yugoslavia in the 1930s. It’s a non-fiction work that combines historical research with her own experiences and observations. At its best, it brings alive the history with insight and tells as much about the writer herself. It made such an impact …
Permanent link to this article: https://4thfloorjournal.co.nz/past-issues/4th-floor-2015/contents-2015/mary-jane-duffy-the-left-bank-collage/
Janet Colson
Chocolat Bitter-sweet burst on the tip of her tongue, firecracker of perfect alchemy pressed to a wafer-thin wisp of devilment. Was it possible? Had they tricked her? Chocolate was so honest in America, tainted with purity like Reese’s rule book on a high school treat. Not so this chocolat; seeping velvet, melting …
Permanent link to this article: https://4thfloorjournal.co.nz/past-issues/4th-floor-2015/contents-2015/janet-colson-chocolat/
Elizabeth Smither
At the Compassionate Restaurant When Francine Marquand took over the old Bel Cibo restaurant, she inherited not just the black walls and black interior, but two cooks, one black-haired and pale, the other red-haired and freckled, and a waitress with hair dyed orange and green. This unlikely trio she summoned to a meeting after …
Permanent link to this article: https://4thfloorjournal.co.nz/past-issues/4th-floor-2015/contents-2015/elizabeth-smither-at-the-compassionate-restaurant/
