Charity Norman – Who Do You Think You Are? An introduction to characterisation.

5:30pm to 7:30pm, Thurs, 6 November

Without characters, there is no story. But how to breathe life into them? In this workshop, we’ll be thinking about ways to create complex, real characters. We’ll share some ideas to help us know them better than they know themselves – to think their thoughts, to know their secrets, to see and hear them. How does the narrative voice fit into all this? And how can we manage the challenges of revealing character while maintaining pace?

Ex-barrister Charity Norman was born in Uganda, raised and worked in the UK, and moved with her family to Aotearoa New Zealand in 2002. Eight novels to date include BBC Radio 2 Book Club choices, Richard and Judy and World Book Night titles, finalists in the Ngaio Marsh and Australian Ned Kelly Awards, and have been translated into various languages. Remember Me won Best Novel in the 2023 Ngaio Marsh awards; her eighth, Home Truths, has been shortlisted in the Ned Kelly and Ngaio Marsh awards. Charity was recently named by The Listener as among the ten bestselling New Zealand authors of the past decade. She lives by the Tukituki river in Hawke’s Bay, with her husband and two warring cats.