Gina Mercer
Gina Mercer enjoys a three-stranded career as a writer, teacher and editor. She has taught creative writing and literature in universities and communities for nearly 30 years. She was Editor of Island from 2006-2010. Spinifex Press published her first novel, Parachute Silk, in 2001. She has published two academic books, one of which was a critical analysis of NZ writer Janet Frame called Janet Frame: Subversive Fictions (UQP, 1994). She has published five collections of poetry: The Ocean in the Kitchen (Five Islands Press, 1999); Night Breathing (Picaro Press, 2006); Handfeeding the Crocodile (Pardalote Press, 2007); and Seasoned with Honey (with 3 other women poets, Walleah Press, 2008). Her latest and fifth poetry collection is all about birds: Weaving Nests with Smoke and Stone (Walleah Press, 2015).
Gina Mercer
Molly and Finn are passionate friends – and have been for over twenty years. They write to each other about lovers, risotto, mothering, and the many pleasures of the body. They write feisty letters – gossiping outrageously, arguing fiercely, exchanging present intimacies and past secrets. Finn, at Molly’s insistence, tells of her past love affairs in delicious detail. But there is one story that Finn cannot bear to tell. That is, until outside events force this secret from her. There are contradictions and difficulties within this friendship, yet it survives. It billows out – as tough, beautiful and necessary as parachute silk to a pair of skydivers.
2001 | ISBN 9781876756116 | Paperback | 200 x 130 mm | 209 pages