New Zealand Writers
BATT, Tanya
Told with great charm and panache, Batt is enchanting.
BATT, Tanya Robyn (1970-) writes fiction and non-fiction for children. She is also a storyteller, performer and teacher.Tanya Batt was born in Auckland, but her first home was in a caravan on the slopes of the Southern Alps, Glenorchy. When she was four she moved with her family to Australia where she lived until she was 14. As an adult Batt spent time in Snowdonia, Wales. She now lives in Auckland.
Batt's writing career is best seen as a part of her life as a performer. She has published four books of fiction for children – The Fabrics of Fairytale (2000), The Terrible Queue (2001), A Child’s Book of Faeries (2002) and The Faery’s Gift (2003). Of these Batt has recorded The Fabrics of Fairytale (2000). She has also recorded Faery Favourites (1999), Mermaid Tales: A Sea of Stories (2001). In her books of fairy stories Batt retells fairytales from cultures as diverse as Armenian, Swahili, Chinese, Swedish, and Jewish.
Batt also writes non-fiction for children. Her programme We Can Keep Safe (1995) was done for the Auckland Sexual Abuse Help Foundation. More recently she has published Imagined World (2001), a drama resource for teachers.
Batt is a professional storyteller who uses her huge collection of costumes to visit schools, libraries and festivals worldwide, telling stories. In Auckland and as a part of her life as a performer, Batt runs a school of dance and drama called Imagined Worlds www.imagined-worlds.net.
LK
Updated InformationA Child's Book Of Faeries (2002), collected and retold by Tanya Robyn Batt and illustrated by Gail Newey. Faeries and humans have long been suspicious of one another and this bewitching collection of stories, poems and snippets of faery lore will show you why.
Dance Upon a Time (Playcentre Publications, 2004) provides foundation ideas and thinking to assist teachers and other adults to work independently and creatively with children in the dance or movement medium.
Tanya Batt is available to talk to students of any age. Topics she is prepared to discuss are storytelling, and the relationship between oral and written storytelling. She would prefer to talk to small groups of less than 30 and she is able to run workshops.
Please note, Tanya has her own business, providing Storytelling professionally. If you would like her to visit your school or kindergarten for this purpose, you will need to contact her directly through her company Imagined Worlds.
Kapai: Kids' Authors' Pictures and Information
Where do you live?
Well you might ask!! A lot of the time I live out of a suitcase, as I spend a large part of each year touring both in NZ and overseas. When I am in New Zealand, my Battmobile (my wild and whacky x-Batman story car) is my wardrobe on wheels. The great thing about travelling is that you get to live in all kinds of fabulous places. I lived in Australia, New Zealand and the UK and have visited Ireland, Kenya, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, America, France, Spain, Greece, Malta, Turkey, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Holland, the Czech. Republic and Estonia.
What books do you read?
I love reading and read all kinds of different books. I especially like reading folktale collections from different parts of the world; and I have a small library of books about faeries. I read picture books, non fiction and even enjoy reading the dictionary – there are so many interesting words out there!!
Who is your favourite author?
Well it wouldn’t be fair to choose just one. Stories and writers are a bit like clothes – you have different ones for different occasions. Some of the adult writers whose work I admire are Angela Carter, Jeanette Winterson, Barbara Kingsolver, Arundhati Roy, Peter Carey and of course, Tolkien. I read lots of Enid Blyton when I was younger and still have many of her books. As well as old favourites such as C.S. Lewis, J.M Barrie, A.A Milne and Kenneth Grahame, I read a lot of contemporary New Zealand and Australian writers and all of the P.Pullman’s, J.K Rowling’s and J. Marsden’s series.
How do you think up your ideas?
I eat lots of chocolate, go for long walks, talk to interesting people, try to remember to listen and make sure I do at least one really wonderful wild thing every day.
What is the best thing about being an author?
The best thing about being an author is making story magic! It’s the same kind of magic that happens when you read or tell stories. It’s about the fabulous imaginative adventures you have. It’s about opening all those secret doors; it’s about playing with and in words and worlds.
What sorts of pets do you have?
I have a goldfish called Obstreperous or Mr ‘O”, he’s the world’s most animated and most ‘babysat’ goldfish. In fact he’s not really a goldfish but a small boy who is under enchantment. I’m looking after him until he changes back. I also have ‘passing’ pets which include ants, spiders, a weta and monarch butterflies.
Favourite Colour?
An impossible question. Choosing a favourite colour would be like giving a golden apple to only one goddess (find out what happens in that story!!) I love colour and my clothes are very colourful. I especially like red, blue, purple, pink, orange, yellow and did I mention green??? Favourite food
I’m half mermaid and eat a lot of sushi. If I had to eat the same meal for the rest of my life it would be fresh fish, rice, vegetables and tropical fruit and maybe a bit of chocolate. I love spirulina banana smoothies.
Favourite Movie?
My favourite movies of all time are the Star Wars films – Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. If I wasn’t an author I think I’d like to be a super hero or a Jedi Knight! I first saw Star Wars when I was six years old at the Drive-In in Australia. Every time I see the Toy Story films I laugh louder than everyone else. I really enjoy animated films. Picnic at Hanging Rock and Grease also rate very highly.
Favourite Game?
This should read favourite games – because I love playing games. Board games, card games, playground games, ball games, party games…whatever! I have parties just so you can play games! Some of my favourite games include Twister, shadow squash (you have to try and stand on the ‘shadow head’ of the other person,) hide and go seek, memory games and loud, raucous singing games.
What is the most fun thing about being an author?
Well aside from the story magic which I talked about before, I love meeting other writers and illustrators and talking to them about what they love reading. In fact talking ‘stories’ with anyone is pretty good fun. The other really fun thing is that you get to do something you love for a job. That’s the best fun yet!
How do you make books?
Ideas are the seeds for books. But making a book is like growing a garden and there are lots of steps along the way and lots of people who work together to ‘give life’ to the book – illustrators, editors, publicists, designers, publishers, printers – just to name a few.
Where do you go for your holidays?
Well I sort of have my holiday along the way as I travel a lot with my work. Work and holidays mixed up – life tastes good like that! I love going to the beach though – so any chance I get I take my boogie board to the sea, make sand castles and go for long walks. Some of my favourite places in New Zealand include the Hokianga, Punakaiki and Auckland’s west coast. I don’t much like crowded places. I like being outside and finding really unusual places to stay – castles, monasteries, railway stations, on boats, in caves … just to name a few.
What was the naughtiest thing you ever did at school?
Hmmm, well what should I tell you? Our class locked our teacher out of the classroom one afternoon. That was pretty naughty!!
Some Questions from Secondary School Students
How did you get started?
Well I have written in one shape or form ever since I’ve been able to pick up a pencil. Right from a young age I kept a diary and was a big letter writer. The first writing I ever had published was my poetry. But my published writing really came from the work that I do as a performance story teller. Writing stories seemed a complimentary activity to telling stories. And the reason I love telling stories so much is that I was brought up in a family where my parents read and told me lots of stories.
Who inspired you when you were getting started?
I had a wonderful English teacher when I was in High School who encouraged me to write. In fact when I think about it, I was lucky enough to have many people along the way who responded positively to my writing and encouraged me to stick with it. Writing for me when I was younger was a very personal thing and I didn’t have a strong desire to be published. It was my way of making sense of the world. My first book was in fact a storytelling show. I was approached by a publisher to develop it into a written collection.
What advice would you give an aspiring young writer?
I remember a piece of advice I received and am still trying to act upon. That was to value and write from your own experience. Write what you know about and what comes from your heart…might need to be a little tempered but the heart is a good place to start.
Is it difficult to make a living writing in New Zealand?
My writing is one part of the work that I do. I imagine you have to sell a lot of books or write a lot of books to make a living in New Zealand. I’m lucky I have an overseas publisher because it enables my books to reach a wider market, and some of the books have been translated into other languages.
What were you like as a teenager?
I was a strange mix of things. When I was fourteen I came back to live in New Zealand with my Dad and his family. I used to spend a lot of my time wandering about in fancy dress and other strange clothes I had created. I went to four different High Schools, so sometimes it was quite different, always being the ‘new’ person. But some of my best friends today came from that time. I wrote lots of ‘highly emotive’ poetry and caused my father’s hair to turn grey permanently.
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