How I write:

Alan Samson is a former journalist and journalism academic with Massey University. A fruitful Covid lockdown saw the completion of two books: Me. And me now: A 1970s’ Kiwi Hippie Trail Adventure; and, Wars Apart: WWII letters of love and anguish from Cairo to Christchurch.

The former is a travel memoir from his two years of backpacking escapism across Asia at a time for the region of unprecedented conflict, the latter, the troubled wartime love story of his parents told through a long-lost treasure trove of personal letters and photographs, interspersed with historical context. In a time of goslow, both books have been selfpublished through Amazon.

Which book do you wish you’d written and why?

Nothing, And So Be It by Oriana Fallaci. The Italian correspondent’s reporting of the Vietnam War and the massacre of student protesters before the 1968 Mexico Olympics, where she was shot, gave me a career path to dream of. It was a hero worship to be dashed 30 years later when she published The Rage and the Pride, an outpouring of vitriol against Muslim immigrants.

What is your guilty pleasure reading list?

Should a former journalism lecturer admit to this? Poetry! From Eliot to Yeats to Thomas to Tagore.

What book do you go back to time and time again to re-read?

A draw between Not in the Log, by Main Royal (real name, Walter Mouldey) and Please to Remember, by Stewart Kinross. Great feel-good short stories from this part of the world.

Which authors would you want in your book club?

Towering Australian author Patrick

White; Oriana Fallaci (before her bitter years); Vietnam War chronicler William Prochnau; Salman Rushdie and Jawaharlal Nehru (to discuss the rich cultural maelstrom of the Indian subcontinent); Sarah Helm, author of the chilling If This is a Woman: Inside Ravensbru¨ck; and also George Orwell. A bit of a theme emerging there! Oh, and please, Joan Didion.

What kind of books do you like to read for enjoyment?

I have an eclectic, almost serendipitous approach to reading, deriving enjoyment as it lands. At present I am reading Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Greeks and

Romans, only because Kindle offered a very good deal on the Harvard Classics. I am loving it!

Can you share a piece of good advice you’ve received about writing?

In the memorable words of a former Dominion newspaper chief reporter: ‘‘Just do it’’!

Do you read physical books or digital ones? Why?

I never understood this debate.

Print vs electronic is not an ‘‘either/or’’ for me. I own both in quantity and enjoy both. Though I do love my bookcase!

What’s your writing routine? Do you have a certain time of day you like to write?

After a self-imposed morning task of picking up rubbish around my local Orakei Basin, I rarely start writing before midday. Beyond that, I simply work all hours.

What books have made you cry? It’s been a long time . . . probably Paul Gallico’s The Snow Goose. This story of Dunkirk deeply affected a young me and still does.

What book did you read as a child or teen that had a profound effect on you?

As a child, my mother (gently) force-fed me the works of Dickens and there is no question that this was the start of my love of reading.

What advice do you give to writers starting out?

It’s a cliché, but find a subject you are invested in and interested in. Also, to have a wide and general interest in life, in society – in everything.

Which book had such an impact on you that you bought it for your friends?

Aldous Huxley’s Island. Intrigued and swayed as a young man by his vision of a truly peaceful society, I rushed to the shops, bought 10 more copies and gave them to my friends – and my mother. Such idealism.