Between broadcasting, writing, and coping with the needs of the media and her family, new Sargeson Fellow Karyn Hay has answered a few questions for LeafSalon.

LeafSalon Karyn, NZ audiences know you mostly for your broadcasting background - Radio with Pictures, all those years ago. Where have you been, and what have you been doing since RWP?

Karyn How long have you got?

LeafSalon What was it that made you move into writing?

Karyn The frustration of not writing got too much.

LeafSalon What's the background/inspiration of Emerald Budgies? Why do you think it caught the judges’ eyes?

Emerald Budgies is fiction, although I do think of it in terms of 'being sick'. Now that I've thrown up I can clean up the mess (or get somebody else to) and leave the building (never to return). Don't know why it caught the judges’ eyes. Have to ask a judge.

LeafSalon What are your literary influences in NZ? Elsewhere?

Karyn Somerset Maugham. Not that I write like him.

LeafSalon Quite. Why did you come home? And what's it been like to be here?

Karyn I think I must have a bit of gypsy in my blood. Never seem to settle. It's been easier in terms of the daily supermarket/school routine, but Europe still calls me back.

LeafSalon So, the biggie: what are you going to write?

Karyn A second novel … doing a rewrite at the moment.

LeafSalon What's been your inspiration/direction for this novel?

Karyn Do you mind if I don't answer this right now?

LeafSalon Any lesbo sex? - Joke! No but seriously? And drugs?

Karyn No lesbo sex. Minor drug action.

LeafSalon And have you got a publisher's contract?

Karyn Yes and no. Have a London agent waiting for me to finish this book.

LeafSalon How did you find the working through the process of applying for and then getting the Fellowship?

Karyn This came to me as if in a dream. I grew up under the Te Aroha mountain so I have always been familiar with Sargeson's home territory. My father gave me a book of his short stories in the late 60s when I was nine or ten. I feel very connected to Frank Sargeson for a lot of reasons. The day that Graeme Lay (Secretary of the Sargeson Trust, and writer) rang me to tell me the news I had just been to the supermarket (the supermarket looms large in my life) and Fabian, who is 4, popped a red pepper in the empty supermarket trolley. 'We have to have this,' he said. As red peppers are rarely on my shopping list I took it as a sign.

[This has significance, as the red pepper is the 'symbol' for the Fellowship. Sargeson grew them in his home in Takapuna and Kevin Ireland takes the seeds every year and grows another crop.]

LeafSalon Buddle Findlay good?

Karyn Can't say enough kind words about Buddle Findlay. Lovely people.

LeafSalon What's the apartment like?

Karyn Parisian in its feel. Ivy around the windows. It’s always throwing up little secrets from previous authors.

LeafSalon Any ghosts?

Karyn Yes.

LeafSalon Are you inspired or terrified by your illustrious forebears?

Karyn I don't compare myself to who has been before, I'm just thankful to be there myself.

LeafSalon What's the process of writing like in such a role-specific environment? Conducive to writing, or writer's block?

Karyn No writer's block. To have some free time to write is a blessing, I take advantage of the moment.

LeafSalon Your day job at Channel Z: is that a line of direction for your writing or just paying the bills? Still inspired by music/musicians?

Karyn Both. It's nothing to do with my writing but I still enjoy radio, although it is very early. Musicians? I alternate between Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Eagles of Death Metal. Vivaldi, incidentally, is the first classical CD I have ever purchased. Unfortunately I still have no idea what 'season' I'm in because the liner notes are written in Italian, so I'm trying to guess which is 'Summer' and which is 'Winter'. Still haven't cracked it.

LeafSalon What's your typical day? (Get up at 4.30, line of coke, rock and roll etc?)

Karyn Yeah, big line of coke, crack open the Jack Daniels.

LeafSalon You’re a busy woman, I’ll let you go. Thanks for talking to LeafSalon, Karyn.

Karyn Pleasure.