All About our Interview Subject Author - Paul Thomas

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DEATH ON DEMAND, by Paul Thomas (Hodder Moa, $36.99), released February 28; Thomas will be part of the “New Zealand Crime” session, chaired by Craig Sisterson, in Wellington on March 11 during Writers & Readers Week in the New Zealand International Arts Festival; he will also be appearing at library events in Hamilton, Dunedin, Mosgiel and Christchurch during New Zealand Book Month. Click here for details

Paul Thomas is a novelist, scriptwriter, journalist and sports biographer. Thomas has also worked as an editor, public relations executive and a consultant. He is a prolific writer who has written numerous novels, select sports biographies and a collection of short stories. As a celebrated crime writer, Thomas is known for the comedic and satiric qualities of his books as well as an ability to depict crisp realism. Paul Thomas is based in Wellington.


Some Bio - Thomas, Paul (1951- ) is a novelist, scriptwriter, journalist and sports biographer.


Thomas was born in Harrogate, Yorkshire. He was educated at the University of Auckland. Before turning to writing full-time Thomas worked as a journalist, editor, public relations executive and a consultant.

A prolific writer, Thomas’ novels include Dirty Laundry (aka Old School Tie, 1994), Inside Dope (1995), Guerrilla Season (1996), Final Cut (1999), The Empty Bed (2002) and Sex Crimes (2003). Inside Dope was the winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Novel 1996.
Although Thomas has been celebrated as a crime writer, he is always ‘a writer of wild, blackly comedic thrillers’. Critics agree that much of what defines Thomas as a writer is his sense of the comic and the satiric. In Writing Gothic Matilda: The Amazing Visions of Australian Crime Fiction, Michael Pollack and Margaret MacNabb write about Thomas’ early novels, ‘These comic novels leave the reader laughing, that’s for sure. The sparkling dialogue, absurd situations and all the crackling one-liners are pure entertainment. But there is always the shadow of doubt falling over the page…After reading Paul Thomas… one never reads a newspaper or watches a television newscast with the quite the same degree of innocence again.’

With The Empty Bed (2002) Thomas’ work shifts, becomes less funny and more ‘real’. Writing in the Evening Post Juliet Ashton argues that ‘Thomas doesn’t put a foot wrong in this bleakly brilliant depiction of a marriage unravelling… That makes the book sound very grim. But in fact it’s a compulsive and acerbic read.’ Crime Factory claims with this novel ‘Thomas turns to a more classic style of crime writing’ and at the same time ‘there are elements of the psychological novel, now raised to an art form.’

In addition to his novels, Thomas’ short stories have appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, Metro, The Eye, Australian Penthouse and The New Zealand Herald. He has written the screenplay for a number of television movies, including Ihaka: Blunt Instrument. He has also adapted his novel Inside Dope for the screen.

Best known as a fiction writer, Thomas began his writing career as a journalist and a collaborator on a number of sporting biographies including, Christmas in Rarotonga (with John Wright, 1990), Running on Instinct (with John Kirwan, 1992), Straight from the Hart (with John Hart, 1993), Change of Hart (with John Hart, 1997) and A Whole New Ball Game (2003).

Sex Crimes is a collection of blackly humorous stories which explore the unpredictable and sometimes fatal consequences that can occur as a result of the pursuit of sex. 'A master of plot, pace and the killer one-liner' Marele Day.  Paul Thomas participated in the 2004 Book Council WOW (Words on Wheels) tour of the deep South.  Work in Progress (2006) was published by Random House New Zealand.  Paul Thomas lives in Wellington.

Still time to come up to Womad for the day or overnight.

The weather's perfect here at Womad, the artists are talented, the people are nice, the food is delicious and the vibe is great!

First Aid Kit - International Festival of The Arts - Telstra Festival Club, 8 March 2012

Klara and Johanna on Stage in Wellington

*Also published on www.grooveguide.co.nz , March 2012

When Swedish folk duo composed of sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg hesitantly took the stage last night there was good reason. Johanna fumbled with her guitar cord for a few moments and restarted the first number “This old routine’ twice before she was fully comfortable on the stage. They later apologized, explaining that they’d only just touched down, with sodden luggage and nothing to wear. Apparently Klara’s keyboard had to be aerated with a blow drier before it was fully functional. The quiet, appreciative 200 strong crowd smiled on through all this like admiring parents - compassionate and understanding. And soon the early hiccups were forgotten as the girls soon took over their stage with beautiful lilting harmonies and hook laden folk and country. Eyes widened on “Emylou”, which lists all their favourite Nashville heroes but frowns were stead fast on “In the Hearts of Men”. The rapport with punters was a little clunky as Klara and Johanna took turns to make various observations and notes of introduction in their perfect American influenced accents.



The shy, staccato innocent presence was gradually winning us over. Songs were dedicated to local family members, to Richard Dawkins (“Hard Believer”), early career band champion Fever Ray (“a cover – “When I grow up”) and the weather, who played a special part by appropriately howling around the tent during the lullaby lament “Ghost town”. With the addition of local references in the same song the audience finally warmed and smiles appeared like Christmas tree lights on faces around the room. All in all the repertoire was delicate and trippy, sparsely played with just guitar, keys and a pared down drum kit operated by an anonymous goati-ed, long haired player. If fact the fourth band member of the night appeared to be the girls’ long waist-length tresses, cut in 70’s styles, swishing around and at times curtaining off their faces, adding an additional layer of mysterious removal.



For a show the audience knew little of they were an appreciative bunch, especially by “Lion’s Roar”, the title track from the new album and the show’s closer. Many leapt to their feet and stomped and clapped te band back on for a one song encore: “King of the World”, a rousing folk manifesto of self awareness. For a festival show, this appearance seemed fairly pedestrian yet I’m glad I got the chance to see this duo and look forward to many more releases from them in the future. Here’s hoping on their next tour the sun shines on the baggage!

This week on the Adventures of the CoffeeBar Kid

This week, it's a WOMAD Special.  We have an exclusive interview with guitarist and songwriter and earthquake survivor Paul Ubana Jones.  After what seems like an age Paul is finally at WOMAD this year 16 -18 March at New Plymouth.  Also appearing is Harrison from Grounation, another great band coming to WOMAD this year.  Plus plenty of music from bands cong to the event. 

For more info: http://www.taft.co.nz/womad/womad-home.html

And finally we play some music from Kimmo Pohjonen (the avant garde accordianist who appeared on Saturday and Sunday at the Internationational Festival of the Arts)

Click: http://festival.co.nz/festival-club/kimmo-pohjonen/

See you at 7.30 PM on Thursday only on Groove 107.7FM

So Brilliantly Clever - Peter Graham Awa Press $42.00

"On June 22, 1954, in the depth of a southern winter, teenage friends Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker went for a walk in a park with Pauline's mother. Half an hour later the girls returned alone. Honorah Parker lay in a sea of blood on a lonely track. She had been savagely murdered. In this mesmerising book, lawyer and true crime writer Peter Graham tells the whole story for the first time, giving a brilliant account of the crime and ensuing trial, dramatic revelations about the fate of Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker after their release from prison and their strange lives today, and a penetrating insight into the crime using modern psychology."

Nearly 60 years after the fact, former lawyer Peter Graham dissects New Zealand’s fascination with the Parker-Hulme murder.

June 22, 1954, Juliet Hulme (15) sneaks a half-brick from her Ilam home into her shoulder bag before heading to the home of close friend Pauline Parker (16). Once there the pair slip the brick in a stocking and hide it in the bag again. They have a ‘pleasant lunch’ with Pauline’s family, before taking the bus with Pauline’s mother, Honorah, up Christchurch’s Port Hills to Victoria Park.

On the Adventures of the CoffeeBar Kid on Thursday Night -

My guest tonite is Marina Lewycka writer of several well known novels, including her latest 'Various Various Pets Alive and Dead.  Also Larry Love from Alabama 3 and the usual assortment of new music and chaos.  The Adventures of the CoffeeBar Kid - Thursday nights from 7.30 - only on Groove 107.7FM.

My guest tonite is Marina Lewycka, whose new novel Various Pets, Alive and Deadis due out shortly. 

Lewycha was born in a refugee camp in Kiel, Germany after World War II. Her family subsequently moved to England where she now lives. She graduated from Keele University in 1968 with BA in English and Philosophy and from the University of York with a BPhil in English Literature in 1969. She began, but did not complete, a PhD at King's College London.

She currently works as a lecturer in media studies at Sheffield Hallam University.

Lewycka's debut novel A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian won the 2005 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic writing at the Hay literary festival, the 2005/6 Waverton Good Read Award, the 2005 Saga Award for Wit; it was long-listed for the 2005 Man Booker Prize and short-listed for the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction^. The novel has been translated into over twenty-nine languages, including Romanian, Bulgarian, Dutch, Russian, Norwegian, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish, Finnish, Portuguese, and Catalan.

Lewycka said in a 2008 interview that she would have been happy to write a sequel to A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian after the initial book's success but was advised against doing so. Instead she wrote her second novel Two Caravans, which was published in hardback in March 2007 by Fig Tree (Penguin Books) for the United Kingdom market, and was shortlisted for the 2008 Orwell Prize for political writing.  In the United States and Canada it is published under the title Strawberry Fields.

Lewycka's third novel We Are All Made of Glue was released in July 2009.
In 2009, she donated the short story "The Importance of Having Warm Feet" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Lewycka's story was published in the 'Earth' collection.

Later the same year, she donated a second short story, "Business Philosophy", to the Amnesty International anthology Freedom: Short Stories Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In addition to her fiction, Lewycka has written a number of books giving practical advice for carers of elderly people, published by the charity Age Concern.