Marion Day
Marion Day lives in the beautiful Marlborough Sounds. She has several published books, one of her greatest achievements being Injun Joe, The Legend of Smoking Joe Collins (The Halcyon Press, 2013). Blood Brothers, a second successful biography, was also published by The Halcyon Press.
Marion has won adult and children’s story competitions, including being shortlisted in the annual Joy Cowley Awards. One of her pre-teen stories was included in the ESA’s New Zealand textbook for secondary school students. She has had children’s stories published in anthologies. Another success was as winner of the New Zealand Rural Women’s/MPI short story and photographic competition, which saw her in Parliament to accept an award.
Marion also had the honour of having her poem ‘Heightened Tones’ included in Bird Words: New Zealand Writers on Birds (Random House) in October 2017.
A series of nature picture books began with Spiny Sebastian Starfish, followed by Black Shag, The Little Feijoa Tree, Kōwhai Kids, and Pepe & Tute. Published under the imprint of AM Publishing New Zealand, each book is supported with information pages. Along with her more humorous picture book Skiddies, all featured on Country Calendar.
Marion’s stunning coffee table book, Passion – Living, Feasting and Writing Deep in the Marlborough Sounds, was published in 2019 and Grab ya Boots! We’re Going A-Hunting followed in 2021. This anthology of adventure short stories and poetry for 10- to 12-year-olds was co-written with her son and children from throughout Kiwiland.
In November 2021, the limited edition of Injun Joe was released. Reprinted by demand, this revised edition was limited to 350 copies, each signed and numbered; the majority of copies were presold. The new, larger hardcover book has many new stories and 200 more photographs. The book is presented in an elegant suede-feel slipcase.
2022 is going to be an exciting year! Dobby, the remarkable story of a dog who became lost for seven days in the snow-clad mountains of the Southern Alps/Kā Tiritiri o te Moana, is beautifully illustrated by realist artist Emma Gustafson. Dobby will be in national bookshops April. And Kiwi and international illustrator Richard Hoit will begin illustrating Elton the Skycrane, a series of four picture books. Elton is heavy-lift and firefighting helicopter - the third biggest in the world! Connie, a smaller helicopter, and Flaps the aeroplane bomber will join Elton in his adventures.
The Cuba Press will publish Marion’s first Young Adult novel, Pipi.
Genre:
- Adult Fiction
- Biography
- Children's Fiction
- Non-Fiction
- Young Adult
Skills:
Branch:
Top of the South
Location:
Picton
Publications:
Passion - Living, Feasting and Writing deep in the Marlborough Sounds
Passion – Living, Feasting and Writing deep in the Marlborough Sounds takes the reader on a cultural journey, paralleled with the past, sweeping across land and interior sea, soaring above mountains into dynamic skies, fossicking around the garden and into the depths of author Marion Day’s heart and community. It gradually reveals Marion’s lifestyle as it wends its way through a pathway of living, feasting and writing in a small, semi-isolated area of outstanding beauty in New Zealand.
The moment Passion is opened, there is a liveliness throughout its pages while it showcases the central aspects of life within Clova Bay – one of the three main bays making up the Pelorus/Te Hoire Sound, the biggest of the Marlborough Sounds.
This canvas of ink dances its own tune. Each section awakens to a veritable feast of past and present, photography, recipes, poetry, short story and diary entries.
Living on the doorstep of a unique inland sea formed at the end of the last ice age and surrounded by mountains which grow from its depths, this back-to-nature pictorial journal highlights Marion’s and her partner Steve’s everyday living – one Marion considers quite normal, but perhaps is not!
Thorough research has linked past to present, allowing Passion to hold its own as a social history book where the reader is drawn into Marion’s own passions, how she breathes and what she does in order to reside happily and with freedom in a remote place of considerable natural significance.
A comprehensive index allows easy, fast cross-referencing of this bounteous book that will take pride of place on any coffee table, and can be picked up at any time over a flat white or glass of celebratory Moet.
In Passion, Marion’s penmanship also shows how she feels about life and the landscape surrounding her; sometimes thoughtful, other times whimsical, benevolent and sometimes a little sentimental. All contribute to a unique book, one that will appeal to a wide variety of audiences.
Marion is an accomplished author, writing over a variety of genres.