S3E3: Caroline Barron
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In this episode of Bad Diaries Podcast, Tracy talks with writer Caroline Barron about diaries, speaking your truth with kindness, and the power and particular melancholy of nostalgia.
Caroline is the author of two wonderful books – a memoir, Ripiro Beach, and a novel, Golden Days – and in this episode of the podcast, we talk about how both of these books use and connect with diaries. We talk about Caroline’s decades-long and very consistent diarykeeping practice, and we look at her latest project, My Year of Rereading, and how her diaries from the 1990s gave this 2024 project a starting point and a structure.
Caroline Barron (Te Uri O Hau / Pākehā) is an award-winning New Zealand author. Her first book, the memoir Ripiro Beach, won the 2020 New Zealand Heritage Literary Award for Best Non-fiction Book. Her debut novel, Golden Days, was published in 2023 in Australia and Aotearoa. She has a journalism degree, a Masters in Creative Writing from University of Auckland and, from the early 2000s – when she was only in her twenties – she owned and ran Nova, a leading model and talent agency.
As well as being a writer, Caroline is active throughout the New Zealand book ecosystem as a manuscript and funding assessor, reviewer, story coach, writing teacher and presenter.
Find Caroline on her website.
In this episode:
Caroline’s first book, Ripiro Beach (2020, Bateman Books)
Caroline’s debut novel, Golden Days (2023, Affirm / Hachette NZ)
Caroline’s latest project, My Year of Rereading – see Caroline’s website or follow on Insta @myyearofrereading
Leather-covered diaries by Deadly Ponies
Novel: Possession by A.S. Byatt
Novel: Monkey Grip by Helen Garner
Novel: The Spare Room by Helen Garner
Rachael King's review of Golden Days, 2023, Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books
Facebook group (private group) The Lost Nightlife of Inner-City Auckland
The etymology of nostalgia – derived from the Greek, nóstos (homecoming) and álgos (pain)
Novel: Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Novel: The Bone People by Keri Hulme
Novel: The Famished Road by Ben Okri
Novel: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Novel: The Secret History by Donna Tartt (this 2022 piece from BBC revisits The Secret History 30 years after it was first published)
Novel: Titus Groan, the first novel in the Gormenghast series by Mervyn Peake
Novel: Door to December by Dean Koontz
Novel: Songs of Enchantment by Ben Okri
Novel: I'll Take Manhattan by Judith Krantz (here’s a piece in LARB, revisiting I’ll Take Manhattan in 2018)
Novel: Women by Charles Bukowski
Novel: Illusions by Richard Bach
Novel: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind
Novel: If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor
Film: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994, dir. Stephan Elliott)
Priscilla the bus was found!
Priscilla sequel in the works, with original director and cast (oh, sadly not Terence Stamp — RIP Terence)
Guy Pearce’s basenjis
Novel: Wonderland by Tracy Farr
BookHub — bookhub.co.nz — is a collaboration between Booksellers Aotearoa NZ and New Zealand’s independent bookstores. It doesn’t compete with existing independent bookshop websites; it enhances and supports their online presence
Extras:
Find Caroline at her website
Kate Duignan reviewed Ripiro Beach in 2020 for Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books
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Bad Diaries Podcast is recorded and produced in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, on the iwi lands of Taranaki Whānui, and Ngāti Toa Rangatira. Seasons 1 & 2 were also recorded in Naarm Melbourne, Australia, on the lands of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to Mana Whenua, and to Elders past, present and emerging, of these lands.
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