May 17, 2025 • 12 mins
Dominic Hoey's been regarded by many as a champion of the underdogs - and his latest coming-of-age story is no exception.
1985 tells the story of Obi, a child growing up surrounded by poverty in a dysfunctional family, who goes on an adventure to save the family home.
It's since been touted as a future New Zealand classic - with Dominic described as one of the best natural writers in the country.
"When you're talking about poverty and crime and violence and all the things that populate my books for some reason - I think it's important to make people laugh as well."
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
EDB.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Dominic Hooey is a champion of the underdog. He's the
best selling author of playwright, poet, former rapper and slam
poet champion. Dominic's new book, nineteen eighty five is a
coming of age story about Obie, a child growing up
surrounded by poverty and a dysfunctional family who goes on
a bit of an adventure to save the family home.
Nineteen eighty five has been touted as a future New
Zealand classic and Dominic described as one of the best
(00:35):
natural writers in the country. But this success has been
a long time coming. Diagnosed with dyslexia at thirty, Dominic
largely taught himself to write. He's now giving back through
writing courses, doing incredible work helping those with dyslexia and
other learning disabilities. And Dominic Houey is in the studio
with me now.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Good morning, Kyonda.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
So good to have you here. I hope you don't mind.
But much earlier in the show, when I was mentioning
you were going to be here, I compared you to
Trent Dalton, the author and The reason why is because
you do both write about underdogs, often children living in
poverty and dysfunction, but you do it with such empathy
(01:14):
and fondness that as a reader you get drawn into
the story and you know, really feel for these characters.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, I think it's like because that's still the world
that I'm kind of adjacent to in, you know what
I mean. And I think there is so much sort
of beauty and humor in that world. But I think
if you just watch the news, you know, you sort
of think it's all crime and awfulness. But you know,
in any community there's lots of love, you.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Know, humor. How important is that too when you're dealing
with often quite sort of dark things.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah, I think it's the best way because I'm a
performer as well, and I find that if you get
up in front of the audience you make them laugh,
they'll go any with you after that, you know. And
I think it's the same thing, you know, when you're
talking about you know, poverty and crime and violence and
all the things that populate my books. For some reason, yeah,
I think it's important to make people laugh as well.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I think you're too young to have grown up in
Auckland in the eighties.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
I did think it did. I'm a little bit younger
than the protagonist, right.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Okay, so is that why it is set in Auckland
ninetyeighty five? That familiarity?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, So, like I wanted to see it in central
Auckland because that's just what I knew, you know, greatland
and stuff. And I found that there were a lot
of people sort of talking about that time, and I
was like, well, not that they're wrong, but I was like,
I want to put my two cents into that. And
also I guess like there was all this historical stuff
going on then. It was just before Roger Nomics. The
Rainbow Warrior had just blown up, you know, we'd had
to spring Bock to us. So I sort of wanted
(02:36):
to take all that historical stuff and then have a
sort of family drama coming of age going in the
middle of that.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I loved it because of that familiarity. You know, even
if you weren't in Auckland, as you say Rainbow Warrior,
there were all these things happening, and it is great
to be able to get sort of involved in a
novel where things are familiar. Isn't it a familiar time
and place.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, I feel like setting is so important to me,
like when I'm reading a book, like I have to
really be taken there. So yeah, and I just I
don't know, it's something I really worked on because I
don't think it necessarily came naturally to me. And this
one I did a lot of research, you know, I
went to the library, I interviewed a lot of people
that were around at that time because I was quite
young in eighty five. I think I was seven, all right,
so you know, I talked to older people. And it's
(03:18):
funny because my memories. I was like, I know what
it's like and need to talk to people and they're like, man,
that wasn't like that, or are you talking about That's
the problem with memory, isn't it Exactly?
Speaker 3 (03:25):
It's tricky. We kind of all remember things how we
want to remember.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
It totally, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
And I think even I've found out with my other
novels because I am running about specific times and places,
people who often pop up and be like, well, that's
not you know, that's not my experience, and you have
to remind them that it is fiction at the end
of the day, you.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Know, absolutely, And was it fun to revisit that era,
not not just the not just the locations, but all
the just what we were doing. I mean, it was
it was a time where kids we did wander the
streets because we weren't on screens the whole time. We'd
hire five VHS's from the local video store. There was
just something I got quite nostalgic reading this for a
(04:04):
sort of a slightly simpler time, even though I got
well and it was a quite a complex time.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Totally. Yeah, and I think that it was.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
It was definitely fun like going back to that and
like trying to remember all those things and again just
speaking to people and being like, what do you remember
about that time? And yeah, I remember hiring the VHS
says that was a big thing. You know what was
it like ten videos for five dollars or whatever?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
You know, No, it's great. The book has been described
as outrageous Fortune meets the Goonies, But don't I don't
think you'd even seen the Goonies hit you before you
started writing this.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
I thought I.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Had, and I think I'm imagining another film. And then someone,
my partner at the time, was like, this is kind
of like a social realist Goonies and I was like,
and we watched it. I was like, I've never seen this.
What am I thinking about?
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
And look, the book focuses on working class, poor parts
of society. Is this also something you know? These themes
come from your background as well?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, so we grew up Like the book's not auto
biographical in a sense that it's not about my life
per se, but I grew up in that community, Like
we grew up in that social class. There's a couple
of things in there. And there's one character, the character
Mad Sam is based on a real person who was
called Mayor Tom who's past now. So that's the one
real person that's snuck into the book.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
How does where we grow up in the community we
surrounded and shape us?
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I think it has such a huge influence, you know,
Like I always think. I always wonder like because I
feel like I would have been a writer anyway. But
I feel like if I'd grown up in like a
middle class and you know environment and gone to like
a proper school and university and stuff, I would be
writing very different books, do you know what I mean?
So I often wonder about that, you know, because I
think I just always wanted to write for some reason,
(05:39):
which is weird because I was dyslexic. So but would
they be you, I don't know that. Yeah, that'd be different.
I don't know if maybe i'd be running like crime
fiction or something.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Tell me about your dyslexia. How does that impact your
writing process?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Well, I think, like you said at the top, like
I had to teach myself because I couldn't. I went
to UNI briefly, but you had to write by hands
in an exam. I can't write by hand and I
can't spell without you know, technology, so I couldn't do university.
So I couldn't do a master's of what. So then
I had to go away and be like, oh right,
I'm gonna have to teach myself. And so that was tricky.
But I think also like I understand like grammar and
(06:14):
stuff now, but I did it for the longest time,
so I would just I'm very loose with the way
I use words, but I mean that's ideal for poetry,
not so great for ESASA.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
It's interesting because I don't feel like the book is loose.
I feel like every word is considered.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Oh no, I mean it is, But I mean I
guess just like some of the way I put words
together is grammatically incorrect. And even with the one of
the editors, they were like, oh, you can't say that
in this, and I'm like, what do you mean?
Speaker 4 (06:36):
It's so beautiful.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
You mentioned before that maybe writing this sitt of the
setting and location didn't come naturally to you, but I
think dialogue does.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, dialogue and character I think are too things. I
don't know why, but I've always just found that really easy.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yeah, how was it for you growing up learning to read?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
So I didn't learn to read too.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
I was like about eight, and then my family moved
for a year to a little village could Warrington outside
did need it, And by the time I came back
to Auckland a year later, I was like reading it
to eighty or thirteen year old nine amazing or you
or whatever it was happened.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
I don't know. I guess their schools a bitter down there.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
There's a teacher there. It needs to thank you.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Isn't that interesting though, because when you write, do you
often think about trying to write for people that maybe
aren't great readers?
Speaker 4 (07:22):
One hundred percent? Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I mean, like I have short chapters, short paragraphs, you know,
have like title hittings at the start of chapters.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
And I can't count them.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Many people that have come up to me in the
street or emailed me and being like, I haven't read
a book or I haven't read a book in ten
years and you got me back into it or got
me into it, and which is just so humbling, you.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Know, So that's quite a conscious effort when you're writing.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Definitely, yeah, because I think like so much of them,
So many of the people in my life are neurodivergent
and stuff. So if I didn't write for them, you know,
who am I running for?
Speaker 3 (07:50):
How does that make you feel when people come up.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
And tell you that, Oh, I was maybe cry before.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
To be honest, I was at a bar a while ago,
and this guy comes up to me and he's like, oh,
you're Dominique, and he's like, my son had never read
a book, and he read your book and gave it
to his friends and now they all read books and
they want to you know, some of them want to
be writers.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
And ius just I actually started crying.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I was just like because I think when I was
growing up, like I didn't really have that moment so
much so to be able to be there for someone
else is pretty incredible.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
You know, I do know how that feels. And it
unless you are I am a parent of it, and
you're a divergent child, and unless you have watched them,
you know, struggle and things and then you see that
moment of breakthrough, it is momentous in that moment to
break through totally, it's extraordinary.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
It's just something that a lot of other parents take
for granted totally.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
And I think, you know, even for me being able
to remember the moment I learned to read because I
was so old, you know, I think it's quite special.
And I guess that's what makes reading and writing quite
a special thing to me.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
So tell me a little bit about learn to write good.
I have to read that. Learn to write good.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, so that's my running program I started about ten
years ago. So when I was learning to write, I
always was like, I just want to go somewhere which
is really relaxed and it's open to you know, everyone,
where you just learn craft. And it just wasn't really
anywhere like that. And so I head in the back
of my mind is like, if I ever get good
at this I want to be that person. And so yeah,
I run courses primarily online and it's just like a
(09:14):
crash course and like how to write poetry, how to
write pros. Yeah, and a lot of my students are
going to do really amazing stuff and I think, you know,
it's just like giving them that confidence as well, just
being like, you know, like I'm dyslexic and have no
education and I'm doing this. You can do it too,
you know.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
It's so important that confidence. So is it for dyslexic
people or anyone with a learning disability.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Just anyone in general, like you know, so like often
because there's no sharing in it, so often we'll have
people that are like professional authors, you know, and someone
that's never written before, but no one knows who's who,
you know as well, So it's like, yeah, it's a
really cool environment.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Do we need to change the approach to teaching dyslexic children?
Do you think have we have we correct you?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I don't really know what's going on in school, so
but I imagine it's probably not great, you know, from
like the kids that I work with don't really seem
that supported. And I think even just getting the test
there's like thousands of dollars, you know, and it's like
who's got that? So yeah, I think that just understanding
as well, that if you support these kids early on,
they're potentially going to do really incredible things, you know,
(10:15):
And I think the sooner that you can get them
past that sort of shame around being neurodivergent, the faster
they're going to get to doing those amazing things.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
No, I completely agree with you. How important do you
think is it to have to hear different voices in
the literary literary world, you know, such as yours and
neurodivergent ones.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
And I think it's so important, you know, I think
that you know, obviously, the Masters of Credit writing programs
are important and lots of great people come out of them,
but those only work for certain people, right, And if
all our writers are coming through the same programs, I mean,
taught by the same people, they're going to write the
same books. And I think it's that's another reason why
you know, I started learning to write good and I
have my own publishing house could did good books that
(10:55):
do in my mate Sam, and that's why we started
those things, to bring up those voices.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
You know, you've got an event at the All Can
Writers Festival's that I do in a moment. I've got two,
I got yeah, two, You've got right in Auckland.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Yeah, there's at one o'clock, and then there's one at
five point thirty which is called Somebody Saved My Life,
I think, which is a bunch of writers and we're
just telling little stories about times people saved our lives.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Fantastic. It's such a fantastic event. There's writing about such
a specific place like Auckland and things, and especially at
that particular time you chose, it has changed so much
and as I've already mentioned, it made me feel a
bit nostalgic. Gentrification. Can it be a good thing?
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Not in my experience.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
You know, I think that obviously progress and like investing
in neighborhoods, but there's no reason why. I mean, you know,
like these poor neighborhoods are full of smart, you know people,
entrepreneurial people, Like why not give them the money? Why
not like build up these places of infrastructure, because you know,
it's not only bad for the people that originally live there.
It's like the rich people that move in, like they
end up in a soulless place, you know, and it's
(11:57):
so it's sort of like everyone loses, and I think
all you got to do is walk for girl and
ponds to me now to kind of experience that.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
No.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Oh, look, Domic's so lovely to have you with us,
And thank you so much for the book. I thoroughly
enjoyed it.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
I told you that so much.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
I picked it up on Tuesday and then I didn't
put it down to large finished it. So really enjoying it.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Thank you so much, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Dominic's latest book, nineteen eighty five, is out now, and
as he mentioned, you can also catch in this afternoon
at the Auckland Writers Festival.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks. It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
EDB.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Dominic Hooey is a champion of the underdog. He's the
best selling author of playwright, poet, former rapper and slam
poet champion. Dominic's new book, nineteen eighty five is a
coming of age story about Obie, a child growing up
surrounded by poverty and a dysfunctional family who goes on
a bit of an adventure to save the family home.
Nineteen eighty five has been touted as a future New
Zealand classic and Dominic described as one of the best
(00:35):
natural writers in the country. But this success has been
a long time coming. Diagnosed with dyslexia at thirty, Dominic
largely taught himself to write. He's now giving back through
writing courses, doing incredible work helping those with dyslexia and
other learning disabilities. And Dominic Houey is in the studio
with me now.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Good morning, Kyonda.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
So good to have you here. I hope you don't mind.
But much earlier in the show, when I was mentioning
you were going to be here, I compared you to
Trent Dalton, the author and The reason why is because
you do both write about underdogs, often children living in
poverty and dysfunction, but you do it with such empathy
(01:14):
and fondness that as a reader you get drawn into
the story and you know, really feel for these characters.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, I think it's like because that's still the world
that I'm kind of adjacent to in, you know what
I mean. And I think there is so much sort
of beauty and humor in that world. But I think
if you just watch the news, you know, you sort
of think it's all crime and awfulness. But you know,
in any community there's lots of love, you.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Know, humor. How important is that too when you're dealing
with often quite sort of dark things.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah, I think it's the best way because I'm a
performer as well, and I find that if you get
up in front of the audience you make them laugh,
they'll go any with you after that, you know. And
I think it's the same thing, you know, when you're
talking about you know, poverty and crime and violence and
all the things that populate my books. For some reason, yeah,
I think it's important to make people laugh as well.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I think you're too young to have grown up in
Auckland in the eighties.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
I did think it did. I'm a little bit younger
than the protagonist, right.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Okay, so is that why it is set in Auckland
ninetyeighty five? That familiarity?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, So, like I wanted to see it in central
Auckland because that's just what I knew, you know, greatland
and stuff. And I found that there were a lot
of people sort of talking about that time, and I
was like, well, not that they're wrong, but I was like,
I want to put my two cents into that. And
also I guess like there was all this historical stuff
going on then. It was just before Roger Nomics. The
Rainbow Warrior had just blown up, you know, we'd had
to spring Bock to us. So I sort of wanted
(02:36):
to take all that historical stuff and then have a
sort of family drama coming of age going in the
middle of that.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I loved it because of that familiarity. You know, even
if you weren't in Auckland, as you say Rainbow Warrior,
there were all these things happening, and it is great
to be able to get sort of involved in a
novel where things are familiar. Isn't it a familiar time
and place.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, I feel like setting is so important to me,
like when I'm reading a book, like I have to
really be taken there. So yeah, and I just I
don't know, it's something I really worked on because I
don't think it necessarily came naturally to me. And this
one I did a lot of research, you know, I
went to the library, I interviewed a lot of people
that were around at that time because I was quite
young in eighty five. I think I was seven, all right,
so you know, I talked to older people. And it's
(03:18):
funny because my memories. I was like, I know what
it's like and need to talk to people and they're like, man,
that wasn't like that, or are you talking about That's
the problem with memory, isn't it Exactly?
Speaker 3 (03:25):
It's tricky. We kind of all remember things how we
want to remember.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
It totally, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
And I think even I've found out with my other
novels because I am running about specific times and places,
people who often pop up and be like, well, that's
not you know, that's not my experience, and you have
to remind them that it is fiction at the end
of the day, you.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Know, absolutely, And was it fun to revisit that era,
not not just the not just the locations, but all
the just what we were doing. I mean, it was
it was a time where kids we did wander the
streets because we weren't on screens the whole time. We'd
hire five VHS's from the local video store. There was
just something I got quite nostalgic reading this for a
(04:04):
sort of a slightly simpler time, even though I got
well and it was a quite a complex time.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Totally. Yeah, and I think that it was.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
It was definitely fun like going back to that and
like trying to remember all those things and again just
speaking to people and being like, what do you remember
about that time? And yeah, I remember hiring the VHS
says that was a big thing. You know what was
it like ten videos for five dollars or whatever?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
You know, No, it's great. The book has been described
as outrageous Fortune meets the Goonies, But don't I don't
think you'd even seen the Goonies hit you before you
started writing this.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
I thought I.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Had, and I think I'm imagining another film. And then someone,
my partner at the time, was like, this is kind
of like a social realist Goonies and I was like,
and we watched it. I was like, I've never seen this.
What am I thinking about?
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
And look, the book focuses on working class, poor parts
of society. Is this also something you know? These themes
come from your background as well?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, so we grew up Like the book's not auto
biographical in a sense that it's not about my life
per se, but I grew up in that community, Like
we grew up in that social class. There's a couple
of things in there. And there's one character, the character
Mad Sam is based on a real person who was
called Mayor Tom who's past now. So that's the one
real person that's snuck into the book.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
How does where we grow up in the community we
surrounded and shape us?
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I think it has such a huge influence, you know,
Like I always think. I always wonder like because I
feel like I would have been a writer anyway. But
I feel like if I'd grown up in like a
middle class and you know environment and gone to like
a proper school and university and stuff, I would be
writing very different books, do you know what I mean?
So I often wonder about that, you know, because I
think I just always wanted to write for some reason,
(05:39):
which is weird because I was dyslexic. So but would
they be you, I don't know that. Yeah, that'd be different.
I don't know if maybe i'd be running like crime
fiction or something.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Tell me about your dyslexia. How does that impact your
writing process?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Well, I think, like you said at the top, like
I had to teach myself because I couldn't. I went
to UNI briefly, but you had to write by hands
in an exam. I can't write by hand and I
can't spell without you know, technology, so I couldn't do university.
So I couldn't do a master's of what. So then
I had to go away and be like, oh right,
I'm gonna have to teach myself. And so that was tricky.
But I think also like I understand like grammar and
(06:14):
stuff now, but I did it for the longest time,
so I would just I'm very loose with the way
I use words, but I mean that's ideal for poetry,
not so great for ESASA.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
It's interesting because I don't feel like the book is loose.
I feel like every word is considered.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Oh no, I mean it is, But I mean I
guess just like some of the way I put words
together is grammatically incorrect. And even with the one of
the editors, they were like, oh, you can't say that
in this, and I'm like, what do you mean?
Speaker 4 (06:36):
It's so beautiful.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
You mentioned before that maybe writing this sitt of the
setting and location didn't come naturally to you, but I
think dialogue does.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, dialogue and character I think are too things. I
don't know why, but I've always just found that really easy.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yeah, how was it for you growing up learning to read?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
So I didn't learn to read too.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
I was like about eight, and then my family moved
for a year to a little village could Warrington outside
did need it, And by the time I came back
to Auckland a year later, I was like reading it
to eighty or thirteen year old nine amazing or you
or whatever it was happened.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
I don't know. I guess their schools a bitter down there.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
There's a teacher there. It needs to thank you.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Isn't that interesting though, because when you write, do you
often think about trying to write for people that maybe
aren't great readers?
Speaker 4 (07:22):
One hundred percent? Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I mean, like I have short chapters, short paragraphs, you know,
have like title hittings at the start of chapters.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
And I can't count them.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Many people that have come up to me in the
street or emailed me and being like, I haven't read
a book or I haven't read a book in ten
years and you got me back into it or got
me into it, and which is just so humbling, you.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Know, So that's quite a conscious effort when you're writing.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Definitely, yeah, because I think like so much of them,
So many of the people in my life are neurodivergent
and stuff. So if I didn't write for them, you know,
who am I running for?
Speaker 3 (07:50):
How does that make you feel when people come up.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
And tell you that, Oh, I was maybe cry before.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
To be honest, I was at a bar a while ago,
and this guy comes up to me and he's like, oh,
you're Dominique, and he's like, my son had never read
a book, and he read your book and gave it
to his friends and now they all read books and
they want to you know, some of them want to
be writers.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
And ius just I actually started crying.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I was just like because I think when I was
growing up, like I didn't really have that moment so
much so to be able to be there for someone
else is pretty incredible.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
You know, I do know how that feels. And it
unless you are I am a parent of it, and
you're a divergent child, and unless you have watched them,
you know, struggle and things and then you see that
moment of breakthrough, it is momentous in that moment to
break through totally, it's extraordinary.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
It's just something that a lot of other parents take
for granted totally.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
And I think, you know, even for me being able
to remember the moment I learned to read because I
was so old, you know, I think it's quite special.
And I guess that's what makes reading and writing quite
a special thing to me.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
So tell me a little bit about learn to write good.
I have to read that. Learn to write good.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, so that's my running program I started about ten
years ago. So when I was learning to write, I
always was like, I just want to go somewhere which
is really relaxed and it's open to you know, everyone,
where you just learn craft. And it just wasn't really
anywhere like that. And so I head in the back
of my mind is like, if I ever get good
at this I want to be that person. And so yeah,
I run courses primarily online and it's just like a
(09:14):
crash course and like how to write poetry, how to
write pros. Yeah, and a lot of my students are
going to do really amazing stuff and I think, you know,
it's just like giving them that confidence as well, just
being like, you know, like I'm dyslexic and have no
education and I'm doing this. You can do it too,
you know.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
It's so important that confidence. So is it for dyslexic
people or anyone with a learning disability.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Just anyone in general, like you know, so like often
because there's no sharing in it, so often we'll have
people that are like professional authors, you know, and someone
that's never written before, but no one knows who's who,
you know as well, So it's like, yeah, it's a
really cool environment.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Do we need to change the approach to teaching dyslexic children?
Do you think have we have we correct you?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I don't really know what's going on in school, so
but I imagine it's probably not great, you know, from
like the kids that I work with don't really seem
that supported. And I think even just getting the test
there's like thousands of dollars, you know, and it's like
who's got that? So yeah, I think that just understanding
as well, that if you support these kids early on,
they're potentially going to do really incredible things, you know,
(10:15):
And I think the sooner that you can get them
past that sort of shame around being neurodivergent, the faster
they're going to get to doing those amazing things.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
No, I completely agree with you. How important do you
think is it to have to hear different voices in
the literary literary world, you know, such as yours and
neurodivergent ones.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
And I think it's so important, you know, I think
that you know, obviously, the Masters of Credit writing programs
are important and lots of great people come out of them,
but those only work for certain people, right, And if
all our writers are coming through the same programs, I mean,
taught by the same people, they're going to write the
same books. And I think it's that's another reason why
you know, I started learning to write good and I
have my own publishing house could did good books that
(10:55):
do in my mate Sam, and that's why we started
those things, to bring up those voices.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
You know, you've got an event at the All Can
Writers Festival's that I do in a moment. I've got two,
I got yeah, two, You've got right in Auckland.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Yeah, there's at one o'clock, and then there's one at
five point thirty which is called Somebody Saved My Life,
I think, which is a bunch of writers and we're
just telling little stories about times people saved our lives.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Fantastic. It's such a fantastic event. There's writing about such
a specific place like Auckland and things, and especially at
that particular time you chose, it has changed so much
and as I've already mentioned, it made me feel a
bit nostalgic. Gentrification. Can it be a good thing?
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Not in my experience.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
You know, I think that obviously progress and like investing
in neighborhoods, but there's no reason why. I mean, you know,
like these poor neighborhoods are full of smart, you know people,
entrepreneurial people, Like why not give them the money? Why
not like build up these places of infrastructure, because you know,
it's not only bad for the people that originally live there.
It's like the rich people that move in, like they
end up in a soulless place, you know, and it's
(11:57):
so it's sort of like everyone loses, and I think
all you got to do is walk for girl and
ponds to me now to kind of experience that.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
No.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Oh, look, Domic's so lovely to have you with us,
And thank you so much for the book. I thoroughly
enjoyed it.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
I told you that so much.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
I picked it up on Tuesday and then I didn't
put it down to large finished it. So really enjoying it.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Thank you so much, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Dominic's latest book, nineteen eighty five, is out now, and
as he mentioned, you can also catch in this afternoon
at the Auckland Writers Festival.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks. It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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