IT is early evening and, with her legs crossed on the sofa, a cup of tea at her side and a candle flickering in the background, Emily Perkins is tapping furiously on her laptop.
It might be the most un-ergonomic way to write but for Perkins, it allows the thoughts and ideas she has been mulling over to emerge.
"The best thing is when it kind of takes you over, and you feel like it’s just kind of writing itself. And those moments are pretty rare, but they’re the absolute best when they come."
Not that it happens like that every day. Most days there are the intrusions of outside work and family life and sometimes the words just don’t flow as easily as she would like.
Despite this, Perkins knows how lucky she is to be writing fulltime. That allowed her to finish her latest novel Lioness, which won the 2024 Ockham Award for the top fiction work — the second time Perkins has won the award, having received it in 2009 for Novel About My Wife.
"I’m super grateful. I feel like I’m sort of in my own skin," she said.
It is a fitting segue into the spotlight on mid-life, as Perkins, now in her early 50s, likes to call it.
"That’s a lot of what the book’s about, too, I suppose, is that it’s a much less scripted time for a woman.
"You’re having these physical changes, and they are often arriving at a time when your life conditions are changing, too, if you’ve had children, and they’re getting older. It’s just a very interesting time. So it seems to fit in well with writing."
Perkins finds herself motivated by questions around change — what gets in the way of change and how it may be difficult, but necessary.
"I’m really interested in big questions that might be unresolvable. That’s what I love about fiction, is that you can just explore these questions and explore ideas. And it’s not a novel’s job to be right. It’s not a novel’s job to come up with answers. But I sort of see it as it is your job to kind of accompany the reader on this exploration and invite them to accompany you in hopefully the most entertaining way possible."
Lioness also gave her the opportunity to indulge her curiosity about how class and money overlap and influence behaviour and sense of self.
"Honestly, writing about these incredibly privileged people was really enjoyable. But also, obviously, I do think it’s a troubling subject and it’s worth exploring in this country."
Perkins began her own exploration by reading New Zealand historian and novelist Stevan Eldred-Grigg’s The Rich, A New Zealand History.
"It just helped kind of confirm that a track that I was already was on was the novel and the other thing I did was keep my eyes open.
"We moved from Auckland to Wellington and I was quite struck by the difference in the way money operates in both cities."
It also confirmed how things have changed in her lifetime. From her days as a drama student, then as a self-confessed "failed actor" to aspiring author.
"That’s how I started. I was at university and I was meant to be writing essays, and I’d find myself writing stories instead.
"I think that’s still kind of a valuable feeling. We all like to do things that we feel like we shouldn’t be sometimes. It’s a really great thing to tap into, that feeling of naughtiness and something slightly illicit."
When she realised she was not making money out of acting, she applied for a Bill Manhire writing course at Victoria University.
"That was a really significant step for me because it was the first time I was finishing anything."
At the end of the year she had a short story published in a journal and had met a visiting British publisher.
That meeting proved fruitful when she moved to London. The publisher was at Picador at the time and picked up her book of short stories Not Her Real Name, which was awarded the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in the United Kingdom and the Montana First Book of Fiction Award in New Zealand.
"So it went from there."
While in the United Kingdom she also wrote for The Guardian, Evening Standard and had a long-running column in the Independent on Sunday.
Having her acting experience behind her turned out to be a good thing. She found the ability to play around and take risks in writing where she never could when acting.
"I think one of the reasons I wasn’t that good as an actor is that when I was at drama school, they used to tell us all the time, you’ve got to take risks, not worry about what people think. And I was sort of too young to be able to do that and to be comfortable with that.
"But by the time I got to the writing course, I was just more ready for that. You’ve sort of got to be comfortable with that state of discomfort, if that makes sense, and with uncertainty."
Perkins, who is married to artist Karl Maughan, went on to publish Leave Before You Go in 1998, The New Girl in 2002 and Novel About My Wife in 2008 after the family returned to New Zealand in 2005. The Forrests followed in 2012.
The gap between The Forrests and Lioness could be explained away by having a fulltime job and teenage children but Perkins said she did not want to "lay it all a the foot" of those factors.
She took a turn to writing drama and working on collaborative projects for film and drama as well.
"I was interested in exploring it, but also there was something about collaboration ... it provides the kind of structure. And I wasn’t carrying those big projects entirely on my own, whereas with a novel, for a long time you are alone with it."
Perkins adapted Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and wrote the original play The Made, both developed with Auckland Theatre Company. She also co-wrote the feature film adaptation of The Rehearsal and worked on TVNZ’s After The Party.
"I like having some company and working with people on a shared endeavour, I really enjoy that."
It is one of the things she loved about her teaching work at Victoria University of Wellington, where she convened the MA fiction workshop at the International Institute of Modern Letters for several years.
"We were working, running our classes individually, but there was this sort of shared purpose. And so that is great.
"That’s absolutely one of the reasons that I like working across fiction and drama, is to have that mix of the solitary time and the collaborative time."
Another wonderful thing about teaching was being around young people as they had "so much spirit" despite the many challenges they faced.
"It’s so much harder than when I was in my early 20s. And, you know, I just admire them enormously."
Perkins needs a lot of "thinking space" and "mulling" to be able write.
"It’s only really since I’ve left my job that I’ve been able to finish the novel and just spend more time with my writing."
She juggles writing on her own projects with working on other people’s projects, doing some advising, and the book festival work.
Talking to audiences about her work is really enjoyable, she says . While she tries to evoke an experience for a reader in her work, she believes the reader brings much of themselves to the work as well, as some of the reactions to Lioness show.
"You never quite know what people will make of things. And so I think the thing that has surprised me the most, and certainly as a good surprise, is when men who’ve read it have connected with one or other of the female characters. And I’ve just been delighted by that, because I think it maybe takes a certain kind of man to go, oh, I recognise something of myself in this woman. You know, it takes a certain kind of confidence to be open to that.
"I’ve appreciated that because a lot of people look at it as if it’s telling a very female story with very female themes. But you know as a woman, we’re used to reading things about male lives or watching things about male lives, we’ve sort of grown up in that. And yet we can still find ourselves in those stories which we’re used to doing it.
"So I think it’s just really nice to know that men can do it, that it can work the other way around."
No matter what is going on in her life, Perkins always makes time to read believing it to be essential to a career as a writer. While she loved fantasy when she was younger, these days she prefers "literary fiction". She has just started reading Wellington author Carl Shuker’s A Mistake and next on the pile is Talia Marshall’s debut Whaea Blue.
"Even if you’re in the middle of working on something, then I might just make sure that I’m reading work that’s very different. It’s crucial to keep reading as widely as you can."
Having the television rights for Lioness picked up is incredibly exciting, she says, even if it is only early days.
"I can see it. I feel like it will suit television."
Perkins, who has held the Buddle Findlay Frank Sargeson Fellowship, is an Arts Foundation Laureate and a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, has a few projects on the go but is not sure if any will ever see the light of day.
Juggling different projects keeps things interesting, she says.
"But then at a certain time, you do have to just focus on one thing and stick with that and immerse yourself in that for sure."
Heading south for the launch of the Queenstown Writers Festival is a chance to spend time in a favourite holiday spot.
"I just love it so much. I love walking around. I just couldn’t ever believe how beautiful it is."
To see:
Emily Perkins and the Queenstown Writers Festival programme launch on September 8, Te Atamira, Queenstown and September 9, Hello Ranger, Wānaka.
