Latest news with #KirstyPowell
RNZ News
16 hours ago
- General
- RNZ News
How a motorbike trip sparked a novel set on the Otago
Two years ago, twenty-four graves were exhumed from a property in Lawrence, including one that contained a woman and a young child. The Androssan Street cemetery had been in use since the early days of the goldrush, when Gabriel Read first discovered gold in Otago in the early 1860s. Author Kirsty Powell has imagined the story of the woman in child in a new book called The Strength of Old Shale. Many parts - and characters - in the book are real. She's woven in the stories told to her by Wally Dalziel, a friend she met on motorcycle trips in China, Peru and Turkey. Wally's ancestors worked the goldfields for years, finally buying the farm he continues to run even now. Kirsty's first novel The Strength of Eggshells won the 2020 New Zealand Booklovers Award for best adult fiction. To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
Otago Daily Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Author's new book a spotlight on gold rush
Author Kirsty Powell in her old-shale shawl, on her way to her Lawrence book launch last week. PHOTO: NICK BROOK A new novel mining Clutha's heart of gold was launched in Lawrence on Saturday. The Strength of Old Shale by Kirsty Powell, sweeps from the stony slopes of Gabriel's Gully to link the lives of two young women like fine crochet — though a century and-a-half apart. As rural, tough Ariel shelters from the greatest trial of her life by burying herself in her work — graveyard archaeology with the University of Otago — Shetland Island horse-whisperer Isobel escapes her old-world ghosts to take up a contract with 1860's gold-rush lifeline Cobb & Co. Real-life characters inhabit many of Powell's people as these two worlds collide with the unearthing of a mother and child's remains, wrapped in Shetland lace, in a forgotten Lawrence burial ground. "It's fun to bring history to life through fiction," Mrs Powell said. "There's so much to New Zealand's story. "If you can put it into fiction which moves along to keep a person interested ... you're learning history by osmosis. "That's what I like." Familiar faces from modern locations also walk lively through Powell's brisk plots, a major factor in choosing Otago's historic gold town for her launch as well as setting. "The first seed for The Strength of Old Shale came from long evenings yarning with my old buddy Wally Dalziel on motorcycle trips to Turkey, Peru and China," she said. Kirsty Powell was one of the guests invited by Walter Dalziel to his Century Farms celebration in Lawrence over the same weekend. His Shetland ancestors jumped ship more than 150 years ago to begin a new life in New Zealand and appear in the pioneer part of the story. Renowned Otago archaeologist Peter Petchey roves through the background like a vintage four-wheel-drive. Now living in rural South Auckland, Powell began her writing career under the guidance of Witi Ihimaera, Anne Kennedy, Robert Sullivan and Eleanor Catton. Fresh off the press this month, The Strength of Old Shale is the stand-alone, southern sequel to her North Island based debut novel The Strength of Eggshells which won the 2020 New Zealand Booklovers Award for Best Adult Fiction. Digging down to the adventure and determination of the pioneer spirit, Ariel needs the strength to face her real-world fate.
