The Stories Behind the Stories

For the end-of-the year event Fleur Beale, award-winning author and Patron of the Friends of the Dorothy Neal White Collection, will talk about how she became a writer and where the ideas came from for some of her books.

Join members of the Friends of the Dorothy Neal White Collection to celebrate the festive season with a talk by Patron of the society, Fleur Beale.

Fleur will talk about how she became a writer and where the ideas came from for some of her books The Dorothy Neal White Collection is a research collection of children’s books that were enjoyed by young New Zealanders before 1940.

The Friends of the Dorothy Neal White Collection support the work of this and other children’s literature collections held in the National Library of New Zealand.

Speaker:
Fleur Beale began writing stories for radio when she was at home with pre-schoolers. When she returned to secondary school teaching she was looking for books set in NZ that were of an appropriate reading level and that spoke to the very reluctant readers she was trying to entice into reading. Not being able to find anything suitable she decided to write one herself.

She had a ready-made topic of high interest at home because her late husband was co-driver for a friend in club car rallies as well as national ones. The resulting book was ‘Slide the Corner’ published in 1993 and still in print. She has since written over 20 books, including the very popular series that began with I am not Esther. In 2011 her young adult novel Fierce September won the YA category of the NZ Post Children’s and Young Adults Awards. In 2015 Fleur Beale received the Insignia of an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature.

Image:
Fleur Beale, of Wellington, after her investiture as an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature, by the governor-general, Sir Jerry Mateparae, on 19 May 2015 (Image from the Office of the Governor-General)