Author Archives: ashleighlou
Helen Garner’s hair.
‘Went and had a little haircut.’—Helen Garner, 1986 I keep thinking about Helen Garner’s hair. Her short, scraggy, square hair. All through the three volumes of her diaries there are small (but somehow … immense) moments when she thinks of … Continue reading
New Year’s paragraphs
On Christmas Day a fly was bothering us outside near all the food. My niece Iris ran inside and got the fly swat and presented it to my brother JP, who said, ‘No, we don’t do that outside.’ ‘Yes, otherwise … Continue reading
Wicked form
I remember the boy and I standing in a trailer in his driveway. He was staring at me, waiting for me to answer his question. ‘Hug,’ I finally said. It was a bad option, but it was the least bad … Continue reading
Bad News
In the morning there was a Linden treewhose whole body looked on fire.Its branches had grown in a desperate way.It came closer, knowing I’d be trying to write something laterand that I would almost certainly want a tree in it. … Continue reading
Passersby
Sometime around 2008 I met my writing teacher at lunchtime and started complaining that I didn’t know what I was doing with my writing. I was scared to keep going in case it got worse. So far, every page looked … Continue reading
Transcription errors in a conversation with Kris Sowersby of Klim Type Foundry
Unknown Speaker 31:54: A friend of mine, she wrote her first book by opening a book of chickens. Unknown Speaker 32:32: Animals initial animals. Unknown Speaker 14:17: She’s got my lower jaw. A lot of bone. Unknown Speaker 47:30 The pretentious line is to say … Continue reading
Rehashing (iv)
I promise I won’t keep doing this too much longer. Maybe one more after this. But here’s one more rehashed newspaper column from the past, this one from June this year, which still feels like a long enough time ago … Continue reading
Rehashing (iii)
Today’s rehashed column is from August 2019, just after Ronnie Van Hout’s sculpture Quasimodo was installed on the roof of the Wellington City Gallery. The Hand I’m going to look at the Hand in Wellington’s Civic Square for the first … Continue reading
Looking at a house
Hundreds of dolphins are in the Cook Strait. Dolphins and dolphins. The water is leaping with them. I look and look. Their bodies gleam and fizz, silver and white. It’s more dolphin than water. I will remember this crossing forever. … Continue reading
Send in the clowns
A while I wrote something about clown collars for Metro magazine, but a month later Metro folded. I thought I’d post this here anyway – something from the Before times. I remember being a bit nervous about this piece because … Continue reading
EYELASHROAMING 