Arts Laureate Emily Perkins is a writer of novels, short stories and plays. She has also taught at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington’s International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML). Perkins’ latest novel, Lioness, is her first since The Forrests.
How did your parents’ personalities shape your own character?
My mum just turned 80, and one of her biggest influences would be the value she placed on reading. As I got older, I was amazed to meet people who’d been told off for reading, because their parents felt they should be outside doing something, or being useful in some way. So I’m very lucky I was encouraged to read.
And your father?
Dad died when he was 57, when I was 28,
