Pip Adam is a novelist, short story writer and reviewer currently based in Ōtautahi whose works include The New Animals (2017), Nothing to See (2020) and Audition (2023). She is a recipient of the New Generation Award from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, and the country’s most prestigious award for fiction, the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize for The New Animals.
What an average day looks like
I always laugh at how writing is portrayed in the movies!
There always needs to be an element of paid work in my day. I do care work and support work, so that’s a really nice time for me because it is a time that I’m not thinking about myself. I find it incredibly fulfilling and fun.
Other things that I’m doing for money at the moment are sometimes writing reviews, a little bit of teaching, and also I’ve just finished a commission for Pyramid Club, which was really fun. What I love about the paid work is that I come into contact with things that I wouldn’t necessarily come into contact with if I was just concentrating on writing. It feeds the writing work, so it’s actually an important part of the writing.
What I’m trying to be is slightly less judgmental and slightly less focussed on output, so I have this idea that writing can be everything. Sometimes it can be watching a movie, putting narratives together, sometimes it’ll be reading a book, sometimes it’ll be going for a walk, sometimes it’ll be physically writing. I have a really close friend called Emma Hislop, we have a document that we write in each day and say what we’ve done that day towards a writing project!
What her arts practice entails beyond writing
With me being someone who writes something as conventional as novels, I think that sometimes I feel like I can be defined by that capitalist product. But I think that my practice goes wider than that. I think the final product is one outcome of the practice, but there are other outcomes, which are often harder to track down.
I make a podcast called Better Off Read, which is really important to me, having conversations with people and capturing those conversations. I’m really into audio.
I read a lot, and I think that reading can be quite an active thing as well. I spend a lot of time in communities talking to people. On the little form that you fill in when you come in from overseas, I’d say “writer”, but I think my practice is a little different from that.
What support she has in place
I’m really lucky that I have a partner, Brent, who has a full-time job and takes care of the lion’s share of our financial needs, and he also writes songs. I also live with my son, Bo, who is an artist as well. And I’ve got my dog, which is really important to me as well!
I rarely go a day without talking to other writers or artists. It might be a quick DM, it might be sending memes to each other. I think that’s really important as part of my support network. There’s probably about 10 or 15 people I talk to on a rotating basis throughout the week.
I definitely can’t do what I do without quite a few people.
How she handles audience responses to her work
There is no separation of me as an audience member and me as a creator – or audience – of my own work. We’re all in this big mélange together. I’m always appreciative that people will be patient with my work. People are kind, as well. Even people who don’t like my writing, it seems like they appreciate that my work is there even if it’s not for them. I think that’s a beautiful, beautiful thing to have.
What I love about New Zealand, at least in my experience of it, is that the arts is a very broad church. There seems to be a very cool flow between artists and audiences, and an appreciation that creativity goes broader than writing a novel or painting a picture, which I really love.
The barriers for her work
It’s weird being a writer because the tools of the trade are quite cheap. This is also one of the great things about being a writer. I went to film school early on and very quickly realised, with my first funding applications, that the type of film I wanted to make wasn’t going to be funded. It wasn’t going to fit into any commercial place.
I went back to writing because all I need is a notebook and a pencil. It’s odd for me to talk about barriers because I realise the privilege I have as a writer. I’ve gone to some amazing theatre recently. The best thing about theatre is you need other people, and the hardest thing about theatre is you need other people.
And yet there is still a financial component. When I was in my early 20s, working two or three jobs, there was mental health stuff, and it was hard to eke out time, space and energy to write.
How she balances writing work with other paid work
What paid work enables me to write? I still haven’t quite cottoned on to that. That is probably the challenge I will take to my deathbed, trying to work out what perfect job will give me a sustainable writing career.
Also, it’s about keeping the faith. Nobody’s waiting for the next book by me. That can be really hard as well. It’s that strange thing where you’re saying, “I want to take up time! Here I am!” There’s so much going on in the world that it’s hard to justify spending time on reading.
What systemic changes would make her working life easier
The tricky thing is that sometimes I put the arts on this pedestal. “How are we gonna get money for arts?” But having worked as a hairdresser, having worked in retail, and other places… these are jobs that are just as important as an arts job. The structural changes that will look after everybody are the structural changes that will produce more art. Especially if we’re paying attention to the most vulnerable in our community, I really believe that.
The longer I’m alive, the more I realise that the hardest jobs, the jobs I’ve needed the most skills for, the jobs that have taken the most energy, tend to pay the least. I think capitalism is a mistake, colonisation is a mistake. My dad always tells me that I’m an idealist and that I need to be sensible, but I think a really radical change needs to take place structurally, for everybody.
Her biggest fear for writing
I’m really worried that we will get to a point here where the only people who can afford to write, the only people who are able to write are people with masses of money from somewhere else – I suspect inherited or land wealth – because the real cost in writing is time.
As we all work more and as workers rights are cut back the time to write becomes the privilege of the wealthy. That concerns me almost more than anything else. I think it gives us this homogeneity of story. And I just don’t think that’s a good idea because the stories we tell seem to form perspectives about the world we live in.
What excites her
I’ve had some beautiful things happen in my writing career, but I think the things that have been best for me are really quiet, solo, moments where a sentence has revealed itself or a problem in a plot has sorted itself out, or I’ve been allowed to imaginatively solve a problem.
I’m extremely lucky for that because the prizes come and go, the funding comes and goes, the books come and go, the favour comes and goes, but enjoying the making? I’m just so grateful for that.
To know what I want to do is the biggest gift of all. It’s a massive gift to know that this gives me pleasure.
