Link to interview… https://www.wcl.govt.nz/news/author-interview-andy-southall/
Two weeks ago on a sunny Thursday morning I walked through the entrance of the newly renovated Te Matapihi Ki Te Al Nui to meet Neil Johnstone for an author interview. At 10am exactly he appeared at the main desk and took me up in the lift to the staff floor, an area of the library not open to the general public.
“We don’t let just anyone up here,” he said in a low voice. “You have to write a book to get in here. Or work for the library, of course.”
Actually he didn’t say anything of the sort. A man called Telemachus rode up with us, and we chatted about The Odyssey, the new Christopher Nolan epic, that I was going to see afterwards.
Then in one of the meeting rooms, a small recording device blinking on the table, Neil asked me the same questions as a month earlier on the Radioactive FM interview. Where did I get the idea from for the Domina Penelope trilogy of sci-fi books, which authors inspired me most, and were there any similarities between my characters’ space voyage and the film I was going to see?
“Both voyages hit a few major obstacles, I guess,” I answered. “Outer space and the Mediterranean 3,000 years ago have a few similarities. Mostly empty, but interspersed with perilous islands.”
An hour Later we were done. Time well spent as questions and answers went back and forth. You can judge for yourself, for the interview is now on the Wellington Library archives .