Interview with Tihema Baker

One more visit from an author with a story in the Pacific Monsters anthology published by our friends at Fox Spirit Books and edited by Margrét Helgadóttir. We always love hearing from authors, and Tihema Baker was kind enough to answer a few questions about his writing, culture and literature in Aotearoa New Zealand, translation and childhood fears. Read on, and then go check out his fabulous published work.

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Tihema Baker is a young Māori writer, belonging to the iwi (nations) of Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga, Te Āti Awa ki Whakarongotai, and Ngāti Toa Rangatira. He grew up and lives on the Kāpiti Coast of Aotearoa New Zealand. He currently works full-time at Parliament in Wellington as Private Secretary to the Minister for Crown/Māori Relations. He is the author of Watched, a YA novel about teenagers with superpowers, which was a finalist for Best Youth Novel at the Sir Julius Vogel Awards 2015, and earned a finalist position in the Best New Talent category at the same awards. He also has a short story published in Huia Short Stories 10 called “Kei Wareware Tātou”; which won Best Short Story in te reo Māori (the Māori language) at the Pikihuia Māori Writers Awards 2013. He is on Facebook as Tihema Baker - Author, and blogs at Tihema's Dilemmas.

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TFF: Could you tell us more about the Patupaiarehe people who appear in your Pacific Monsters story? What would usually happen when the human characters like those in your story “Children of the Mist” meet them?

Tihema Baker: Accounts vary between iwi and regions, but I guess the fairly common threads between them all are that Patupaiarehe are an ancient people who inhabit the mountains and forests of Aotearoa New Zealand and are believed to have done so since before Māori arrived somewhere around 1000-1200AD. Sightings of them are almost always at night or under the cover of mist, and they are characterised as fair-skinned and -haired, which is where we get the term “Urukehu” from; in older times fair-skinned and -haired Māori were believed by some to be the offspring of human-Patupaiarehe relationships and they were referred to as Urukehu, literally meaning “red-haired.” Similarities between accounts probably stop there; I’ve heard stories of Patupaiarehe being giants, or walking on legs like rabbits’. In some stories Patupaiarehe were kind to humans, showed them how to hunt and fish, and even fell in love with them—and vice versa. In darker stories Patupaiarehe weren’t kind to humans at all, bewitching them with cruel magic. Wherever the truth lies, I think any encounter with them should be treated with respect.

Is there a tradition of Māori science fiction, fantasy or horror (books, films, or other media)? Does Māori literature influence New Zealand culture more widely very much?

I’m not aware of a real tradition of Māori speculative fiction. In my personal opinion, there exists in Aotearoa New Zealand a hierarchy within Māori literature, and Māori speculative fiction is at the bottom. Our big name Māori writers—and I do not say this to undermine them in any way—are not typically speculative fiction writers. I’ve personally found it difficult as a Māori writer to find support for my speculative fiction writing and I believe this to be because the genre is not taken seriously by the Māori literary community at large. As an example, my sci-fi novel Watched was a Best Youth Novel finalist at the Sir Julius Vogel Awards for science fiction, fantasy, and horror, yet the publisher—our leading publisher of Māori literature—declined to take on the sequel. It’s not a criticism but just the reality I’ve experienced as a Māori writer of speculative fiction.

Do you think that any kind of story could be told to children or young adults or are there limits?

I thought for a while about this. My first reaction was yes, there are limits. But then I thought about my childhood/adolescence and remembered that I was reading things I probably wasn’t supposed to years in advance. I don’t mean that in an arrogant way; I mean it in the way that, as children typically are, I was hungry to “know” things. At times, that hunger for knowledge led me to things that my parents probably would have preferred I come across at a later stage in life. I guess my point is that I think we sometimes underestimate the ability of young people to understand what we do as adults or grasp certain concepts. That doesn’t mean I think we should tell all sorts of gruesome stories to children, but just respect their ability to understand, to show empathy. I think it’s about how you tell a story, not necessarily the story itself.

Do you translate your own stories from Māori to English? How different do they feel to you afterwards?

I don’t actually write primarily in te reo Māori. The reason for this is, while I have a decent understanding of the language, I’m still far from what I would consider to be fluent. When I write I need to be able to express myself as fully as I can, and unfortunately my proficiency with te reo Māori is just not yet at a stage that allows me to do that. What I will say, though, is that I often have to translate things from Māori to English for colleagues in my day-to-day work. I find te reo Māori to be a very poetic, metaphoric language, and one of the beautiful things about it—like any other language, I assume—is that ideas are often expressed in ways they just can’t be in English. This can make translating from Māori to English challenging when there just aren’t the words to describe a fundamentally “Māori” idea, or when the depth of that idea or word is lost in English. I think in those instances the Māori word should just be left as is—there are plenty of phrases in other languages that English has adopted because they need no translation, so maybe we should do that for Māori phrases more often too!

Could you give an example of such an untranslatable word?

A good example is the word “mana”—common translations would be “authority”, “prestige”, “respect”, or even “power”. Those single words don’t convey the depth of the concept, though; in my view (and I stress I am not an expert, and my understanding may be very different from those far more knowledgeable than I am), one can have great mana but not necessarily respect, or have great mana but no authority. It's relative, and one person's mana may always trump another's depending on the circumstances and/or the relationship between the two. Mana is inherited but it can also be bestowed—and removed, sometimes irrevocably. It's a spiritual concept just as much as it is societal, and there are different expressions of it; mana wahine describes the mana specifically held by women, while mana whenua refers to those who have mana over land or a certain geographical area. Land itself can be perceived to have mana, as can water. I’ve just written a paragraph and I’m still probably miles away from giving it an accurate description! But when you understand the meaning that the word "mana" encapsulates, you also understand why it can't be translated.

If you could choose a superpower for yourself, which one would you pick?

I get asked this all the time and I’m afraid I have a very clichéd answer! I would love the ability to fly. I don’t care how: gravity- or wind-manipulation, shape-shifting, I’ll take anything that gets me airborne.

Illustration by Eugene Smith,
for “Children of the Mist” (Pacific Monsters)

What is the oldest memory you have?

My oldest memory is of my mum. I must have been about three years old; I walked into my bedroom, where I think Mum was sitting on my bed, folding clothes, and went up to her for a cuddle.

I don’t think I’ve shared this before but I actually have another very early, bizarrely vivid memory from around the same age. It was the moment I realised my own mortality. I just remember sobbing to my mum with the realisation that one day, inevitably, I was going to die and I didn’t want to. She did her best to console me by saying that I had a long, happy life ahead of me before then. She also said that everybody dies, and one day she will too. That didn’t make me feel better. I don’t know why that memory is so clear; maybe that was a life-defining moment, or maybe I was just a weird kid. Probably both.

What is your favorite progressive SFF movie or TV show?

Black Mirror has to be one of my favourite shows, hands-down. It often makes me feel uncomfortable, makes me think about our society and our future, and makes me confront things about myself I probably don’t want to. But that’s the great thing about it. It makes me think. Any piece of art that makes someone question their understanding of the world (and in some episodes, reality!) is great, in my opinion.

Can I also branch out a little bit; I’m a gamer, too, and I believe video games are quickly becoming a powerful art form in their own right. In terms of progressive SFF games, it’s hard to go past the Mass Effect series (or anything from Bioware, really). It’s one thing to have a well-written story supported by excellent characters and engaging gameplay mechanics, but another when that story is dictated by the player, who can customise their character however they wish, pursue romances with characters of any gender, both human and alien, and whose actions have consequences that carry across games. It’s a series that forces players to make choices, and live with the effects of those decisions on themselves and others. There hasn’t really been another video game experience that has stayed with me in the same way that my character and my decisions in that game have.


What are you working on next-what can fans of your writing look forward to?

My immediate priority is getting my second novel, the sequel to Watched, published. I have a completed manuscript so now it’s just a matter of finding a publisher. I’ve also just started work on the third and I’m really enjoying it! Aside from that I have some other ideas I’d like to dedicate more time and research to; a historical novel exploring the relationships between my three iwi in the 1800s, and I’d also love to write something fantastical set in space.

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You can find Tihema’s story “Children of the Mist” in Pacific Monsters, and his novel Watched from Huia Books.

Interview with Iona Winter

It’s a monstrous season… as well as our Making Monsters in the works, our friends at Fox Spirit recently brought out the fourth in their series of horrific Books of Monsters, Pacific Monsters, edited like the rest by Margrét Helgadóttir. To celebrate, we’re inviting a few of the authors from the latest volume to visit the TFF Press blog and talk to us about their stories, their monsters, their writing, their fears, and other things from their part of the world. First up this month, we were delighted to welcome Iona Winter, author of the short story “Ink.”

Iona Winter is of Māori (Waitaha/Kāi Tahu) descent and lives in Otago, Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2016 she was awarded the Headland Frontier Prize, and performed at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. In 2017 her fiction was anthologised with Bath Flash Fiction, Nottingham Peacebuilders, Pacific Monsters, Elbow Room, Centum Press, and Ora Nui. Her writing has also appeared in numerous publications including: Flash Frontier, Reflex Fiction, Elbow Room, Headland and Corpus. Iona is passionate about representing Aotearoa in her creative work, writing hybrid forms that highlight the intersection between written and spoken word. Overlaying past, present and future, the traditional and contemporary, she creates a melding of the worlds we inhabit. You can find Iona on her blog, as @waitahaiona on Twitter, and on Facebook.

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The Future Fire: Tell us a bit about ‘Ink,’ your story for the Pacific Monsters anthology?
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Iona Winter: ‘Ink’ is about Tom who, after getting a tattoo of an extinct eagle on his chest, has frightening experiences, in the way of visions and serious health issues.

The story explores his journey with the mythological and supernatural aspects of Pouākai (the extinct Haast Eagle), and the impact upon both him and his whānau (family). It’s a tale of whakapapa (genealogy), wairua (spiritual elements), utu (vengeance) and connects mind, body, spirit, prophetic dreams, mythology, and tohu (signs).

In a way I see ‘Ink’ as about nature getting back at us humans for disrespecting the ecological order. It speaks to the loss of old traditions and knowledge, and the impact upon us in modern times when we don’t listen.

 

Is there something unique and culturally specific about writing speculative fiction as an Aotearoan and/or as a Māori author?
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IW: For me, it’s important to weave mind, body, spirit (including the supernatural), whenua (land and environment), tūpuna (ancestors), past and present​, because nothing is left out or happens in isolation from a Māori perspective. That said, not everything is spelled out and the reader is required to do some exploring too. It’s a bit like sitting in the wharenui (meeting house) and listening to our elders kōrero (talk)—sometimes you have no idea what they were talking about until some time later when everything falls into place. It’s holistic, but not necessarily linear.

I often receive a flow of words when I am out in nature, and whenever I have periods of time disconnected from Papatūānuku (Mother Earth) I notice my writing becomes stagnant. We are blessed to have such beautiful landscapes in Aotearoa, and writing often comes from my interaction with the environment. I take loads of photos, snapshots, and those inform my writing too.

Some of what I write might be classed as ‘speculative’ with understated terror, supernatural and inexplicable knowledge about events. But I don’t consciously write in a way that limits myself to one genre, because each piece takes its own shape while I am writing. I’m not sure if this is the case for other Māori authors or not, but being tuned in and conscious of all the elements seems to work (most of the time) for me.

Were you scared of something when you were a child?
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IW: I was terrified of the dark, probably because my grandfather told me awesome kēhua (ghost) stories. But ​I was also scared of things that other people couldn’t see. Being of Māori and Celtic whakapapa, with seers on both sides of the whānau, it has meant that (at times) I am open to seeing, hearing and feeling stuff that other people don’t. It freaked me out as a kid, but thankfully I had my grandfather and mother to help make sense of it, and in my thirties spent many years learning from tohunga (traditional healers).

I understand you’re about to start a PhD in creative writing. Can you tell us a bit about what you’ll be researching for that?
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IW: My topic is Pūrākau Mana Wāhine: Traditional Women’s Knowledge as passed on orally and between generations, with Indigenous Māori and Celtic women. It will take a bicultural approach, utilising feminist theory and Indigenous methodologies, and will reassert the legitimacy of Indigenous women’s lore, and the modern resurgence of traditional knowledge.

I’ll be exploring similarities between Indigenous Māori and Celtic women’s stories (of traditional lore) in fictional narratives, and create a contemporary body of fiction as the creative part of my research.

I’m looking forward to reimagining how originating cultural traditions, and the tension between these narratives and dominant paradigms in contemporary fiction, influence narrative voice.

Tell us about one of your favourite underrated authors?
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IW: I love Norma Dunning’s Annie Muktuk and Other Stories. The similarities are striking between Māori and Inuit ways of referencing ancestors, landscape, relationships, spirituality, mythology, and the social cultural political issues we face as tāngata whenua (Indigenous people). Her representations of trauma, love and grief with clever narrative twists are fantastic, as are the acts of revenge. She writes of sacred ancestral knowledge, informed by ancient spirits.

I also love that Norma Dunning is an older writer, in that she returned to creativity later in life, as many of us do after raising kids and having day-jobs to make ends meet.

I read that Norma Dunning put her stories in a drawer, so as not to have them colonised or rewritten from a western perspective—an issue which I believe many Indigenous authors face.

Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, we have shocking stats for published Māori writing—about 6% per annum of the overall writing published. I think this says a lot about how marginalised traditional Indigenous styles are, but it does create room for kōrero so we can support each other proactively, and get our writing out there in the world—thereby challenging the paradigms of what constitutes marketable writing.

I can’t help but wonder how many drawers are stuffed full of wonderful writing.

Who is your favourite mythological heroine?

IW: I’d say it’s a tie between Hine-nui-te-pō and Airmid.

Hine-nui-te-pō stands in the darkness welcoming those who have passed over, and she is the Goddess of night, death and the underworld. She holds memories of past lives and stories. Māui (one of her descendants) attempts to desecrate her tangata whenua (womb), the most sacred part of us women, to gain the secret to eternal life. After being woken by a Pīwakawaka (fantail bird) who laughs at his ridiculous idea, she snaps Māui in two with her thighs!

Airmid is the Goddess of the Healing Arts and belonged to the Tuatha De Dannann, the ancient people of Ireland. After experiencing trauma, violence and desecration she takes back her power and uses it for healing others via her medicinal herbs. She creates life from death, honouring natural cycles, and the position of women hearers being revered in Celtic society, independent from men. Basically a feminist!

Both women are of the earth, connected to it, and are powerful. I was taught that you can’t have the dark without the light (and vice-versa).

Do you have any other stories or books forthcoming? What can fans of Iona Winter look forward to?
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IW: I regularly submit short fiction to publications and competitions, so there’s bound to be more of that. Last year I was lucky enough to be published in several anthologies, and have a few other stories published online. I write poetry and blog regularly, and have two collections of short fiction out in the ether—I’m waiting patiently to hear if they are picked up for publication.

Thanks for joining us, Iona. Best of luck with the collections, and with the PhD!

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You can find Iona Winter online, or buy the Pacific Monsters anthology from Fox Spirit.