John Summers’ new book The Mermaid Boy is published by Hue & Cry Press and will be released on May 7.
You can pre-order it here
And you should because it is an extremely exciting new work and a damn good read.
The Wellington launch is 6pm on May 7 at Unity Books.
John’s work has appeared in a wide range of publications. Along with Hue & Cry Journal these include Turbine, NZ Listener, NZ Herald, and JAAM, and forthcoming in Sport. Summers is a co-founder of and regular contributor to Up Country, an online journal for creative non-fiction about the outdoors, and he has a Masters (with distinction) from the University of Canterbury.
John and I talked about Ronald Hugh Morrieson’s book The Scarecrow, which we both love. I think it might be the first book written in Aotearoa we’ve done on the podcast.
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Or you can listen to it here:
Episode 15: Pip Adam talks with John Summers about The Scarecrow by Ronald Hugh Morrieson
John’s copy of The Scarecrow, stamped with ‘Children’s Library’
Pips copy of The Scarecrow
Articles pasted into Pips copy of The Scarecrow
Articles pasted in Pips copy of The Scarecrow
This edition slightly revised by M. after the 1963 editions. M. born 29 January 1922, died 26 December 1972, age 50. A comic novel in style of P.G. Wodehouse – Jeeves etc with “boys own” fiction like Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure Island see pp. 2,23 etc). The stranger Salter resembles Long John Silver as the villain and The Scarecrow – he is the scarecrow, just as Long John Silver was The Sea Cook, the original title of Treasure Island, changed by the publisher
This episode includes sounds released under Creative Commons licenses from Freesound.org
Thanks to Freesound users: JasonElrod, exert.com.au, aUREa, Dann93,S.Dedalus
Better off Read 