He aha tērā e rongo nei au?

Last year I submitted my first ever manuscript to a publisher. I’ve self-published my books in the past so there hasn’t been a need for it. Regardless, publishing a book/s with a publishing house has always been a goal of mine - it requires a different type of discipline and skillset compared to flowing as I do, with just myself to keep me accountable to deadlines, or the lack thereof. lol. A good challenge

This award was especially close to my heart as it’s the first te reo Māori book I’ve written (Mā te whakapapa ka mārama still on ways..) aaand because it’s the ‘Te Kahurangi Katerina Te Heikōkō Mataira Award.’

The mother of Kura Kaupapa Māori.

And an instrumental pou and reason I got to grow up the way I did; immersed in te reo Māori, te ao Māori me ōnā painga katoa.

It’s a huge honour for my manuscript to have been chosen as the winner for 2023 and to be able to feed back into the puna that continues to nourish me, even as an adult and raukura many years later.

Mō te pukapuka, about the book.

When I was writing Self awareness doesn’t begin with Self, I got easily sidetracked and overwhelmed by all the topics and kaupapa I wanted to include in the book. After a two week break (on an already tight timeframe of 5 months to write and publish…) I came to the realisation that this book in particular didn’t need to be the only book I wrote. I could write more books to cover all the pūrākau, interpretations and reasons why whakapapa is amazing. They didn’t need to fit into this one book.

So I listed some ideas to store them for later and “He aha tērā e rongo nei au” just so happened to be one of them. Five years later it’s finally being realised into an actual book. A children’s book for the whole whānau, to unpack and explore how emotions feel in our bodies. Being curious as to when and why they show up for us, how they might be expressed differently in others and all of that being natural and ok.

The manuscript (and title… lol, āku whakapāha) needs some updating before it can be published so I’m currently working with Huia Publishers to get it up to standard and it may be available by the end of the year. Depending on how much work needs to be done haha but I’ll keep you in the loop - if you’d like to check it out in its current form, let me know. Please note it is fully in te reo Māori and no English translations are provided.

Tēnā tātou.

*EDIT: apparently loading up the unpublished manuscript while in the process of trying to publish isn’t the best idea. But if you’d like to check it out or talk about it, whakapā mai.