Q&A: Gavin Bishop
Gavin Bishop's stunning, once-in-a-generation compendium, ATUA: Māori Gods and Heroes, introduces readers to the pantheon of Māori gods, demigods and heroes, and explores Aotearoa's most exciting legends from the Creation to the Migration.
1. How are you and what have you been up to lately?
I am well, thank you, and I’ve been busy doing a variety of activities that have taken me to places in my head I would not have visited otherwise.
I have spent a lot of time reading and researching a mountain of books in preparation for another “big” book for Penguin Random House. I have also been doing the complete opposite for another “small” book in te reo for babies to be published by Gecko Press. As well, I've judged the children’s book entries for the 2021 NZSA Heritage Book Awards. They will be announced later this month.
And I have been attending lots of meetings, mostly on Zoom, as a member of the Southland Museum Governance Group. As a born-and-bred Southlander, I was honoured to be invited to help set the Vision and find the way forward for the new museum to be built in Invercargill, Murihiku. This is a very exciting project and I get to work with a wide range of talented and interesting people from a wide range of professions.
2. If you were working in a bookshop, how would you hand-sell your book to customers? What would you say to convince them to buy and read it?
First of all, I would pick the book up and open it. Then I would present the gatefold to the customer with the seven major gods. (It is my first gatefold and I am very pleased with it.) Next, I would outline the structure of the book: the creation stories, the Māui and Tāwhaki cycles, and finally the migration sagas.
3. What books (or other art/media) influenced you while writing this book, or generally in your life?
To get started I did a lot of reading - Māori Myths and Tribal Legends by Antony Alpers; Tikao Talks, Treasures from the Ancient World of the Maori edited by Herries Beattie; Reed Book of Maori Mythology, and so on. Then, as with all research, this material had to be digested and processed.
The shape and length of the book (64 pages), as well as the targeted audience, determined how much material I could use to tell my stories. I made a 64-page dummy (a blank book), and very, very roughly sketched out the images that I thought should go on each page. I did the same with the text, printed it off, chopped it up and glued it into place. That gave me some boundaries.
I put a great deal of trust into my instincts and my subconscious and allow these to solve a lot of the problems that arise when shaping up a book. “Sleeping on it” sometimes does wonders to unsnag an elusive tangle of words and pictures that you simple cannot get to work. Sometimes, just mowing the lawns or going out for a cup of coffee does that trick. Your brain never stops, no matter what else you are doing. Writing and illustrating a book is a 24-hour job.
4. What good books have you read lately?
Displaced by Cristina Sanders; Contested Ground: Te Whenua I Tohea edited by Kelvin Day; The Life and Times of Eddie McGrath by Brigid Feehan; Under the Radar by Des O’Leary; Three Scoops by David Hill; Early Victorian New Zealand by John Miller.
Buy ATUA: Māori Gods and Heroes (Penguin NZ), $40
