An outsider artist is finally embraced by the establishment
Many authors like to think of themselves as independent free spirits who operate outside of that vague nebulous org known as the New Zealand literary establishment; one of the few who really is an outsider is Auckland novelist Dominic Hoey, a dyslexic who has had nowt to do with creative writing programmes and despite two best-selling novels to his name has been treated like shit by writers festivals, kept at arm's length by the Ockhams, and shut out of arts funding. But he's now on the inside: he was granted $40,000 in the latest Creative New Zealand funding round to work on his third novel. Excellent. This guy is one of the best natural writers in the country and has also made a valuable contribution as the publisher of Dead Bird Books, an imprint which has released eight titles by writers including Jordan Hamel, Mohamed Hasan, and Laura Borrowdale. He works across genres - his poem which basically told the Ockhams to get fucked was the best poem to appear in the Spinoff these past few years, he won the Sunday Star-Times short story award, and his second novel Poor People With Money, a noir crime thriller set in Auckland and the Far North, was named in ReadingRoom as one of the 10 best works of fiction of 2022. Incredibly, yet predictably, it failed to even get on the longlist for the fiction prize at this year's Ockhams. The outsider, outside again; but the $40,000 brings him in. I emailed Dom over Easter.
How come a dyslexic ended up scoring 40 large to write a novel?
All the best writers are dyslexic.
Are you hoping the Taxpayers Union dickheads will get mad with a dyslexic for scoring public money?
Lol.
I read that you teach kids “how to think dyslexic”. What does thinking dyslexic mean?
I actually mainly teach adults through my Learn To Write Good classes. I think being dyslexic forces you to learn a technique inside and out. You don’t just pick things up like neurotypical people.
So for example when I wrote my first book I didn’t really know nothing about plot. And then I spent a year reading and teaching myself about it before I started Poor People With Money. Now I feel like I can talk about that shit for hours.
So in my classes I take all this stuff I’ve learnt and be like “Oi here’s the fundamentals of how to write, here's some simple exercises to illustrate it, now go do what you will with these tools”.
And a lot of my students have gone on to do amazing shit, win awards, slams, publish books, write dope songs, which is 99 percent them, but I like to think the courses have helped a little too.
I read that you have performed two one-person shows about your inability to get arts funding. Will you write a one-person show about your ability to get arts funding?
Only one of my plays was about arts funding, the other was about my stupid bone disease. I was at my wits end and thought rather than sit around being angry why not turn it into 45 minutes of me ranting and rolling on the ground. People seemed to like it. My new play is going to be about my best friend who died a couple of years back. It’s going to be funny though. Hopefully.
You said to Metro last year, “I still get rejected by CNZ; I still get put in the shitty spots at the writers’ festivals. I wish CNZ was like, ‘Here’s all this money’, and I actually got to talk about craft at the writers’ festivals, but they always put me in this shit that’s in a shoe shop for the urban gritty poetry night.” But now you got rewarded, handsomely, by CNZ. They did say, "Here’s all this money." How does this feel, actually? And are festivals still chucking you into shoe shops?
It feels incredible. Like it’s not an exaggeration to say this money will change my life and my career. My last novel Poor People with Money did really well, I have an agent in the States and the UK now, the book's getting made into a film, which is all really exciting. But I feel a lot of pressure to really knock it out of the park with the next book. And that’s hard to do when you’re working 50-60 hours a week and writing in bed until 3am. I had to really fight to get Poor People with Money funded. Not only did CNZ reject it twice, but it was passed over by four other funding bodies/scholarships. I think it really speaks to a wider problem within funding and the literary community* in general.
[*In a subsequent email, Dominic wrote, "Sorry one change, when I say I think it really speaks to a wider problem within funding and the literary community in general could we change '"literary community" to "literary industry", cos the community is cool, it's all the people around it who are a headache.]
If you’re poor, working class, neurodivergent, disabled or not formally educated, It really feels like you’re not part of the club. I’m sure there’s plenty of other groups who are left out too but these are the ones I feel I can speak to.
The CNZ application process for example is completely inaccessible to neurodivergent artists. I personally have to get people to help me write them. But when you get rejected so much after a while your mates are like “Fuck this.”
Considering in my experience most of the artists I know are neurodivergent, that's a lot of people who aren’t even able to even apply for funding.
In my play I said “You’ll never see your favourite movie, hear your favourite song, look at your favourite painting” because people who are from completely different backgrounds and communities than the artists get to decide who gets money and opportunities and who doesn’t. To be fair CNZ has said they are trying to fix this and met with me and other artists about it so we’ll see.
When I mentioned the festivals I was speaking specifically about the Auckland Writers Festival. I actually asked to sit down with them after the last festival when they put me on for three minutes in a bar that held 15 people while there was a crowd outside trying to get in. But I never heard back from them.
Again it just feels like this club of middle-class, university-educated people running everything and anointing who's allowed to take part and who’s not. This is one of the reasons we started Dead Bird Books. We’re actually looking at starting our own one-night festival too. We’ll probably find out it’s impossible, but gotta try right.
What can you say about the novel you will work on with the CNZ grant?
The novel is called Port (working title), a sort of paranormal thriller set against the eerie beauty of Port Chalmers. The novel centres on 37-year-old Wilhem Cole, a washed-up actor who has spent the last decade in LA, his career slowly going down the toilet as his love of heroin increases. When his father mysteriously disappears, he returns home to Port Chalmers to help support his dysfunctional family and finds out his dad isn’t the only person to go missing.
I’m also working on a novel called Homesickness, set in Grey Lynn in 1985. It starts the day after the Rainbow Warrior bombing. The main character is an 11-year-old called Obi who’s a video game savant. There’s also hidden treasure, poetry, spies and a last glimpse at Aotearoa before being swallowed by neoliberalism. This one is quite far along and will be out next year on Penguin.
Did the CNZ grant help make up for the Ockham judges stupidly overlooking Poor People with Money?
Man there’s dogs they would give that award to over me! It was a bummer to not even get longlisted though. Even my mum was pissed. But again I think it’s the little club showing their hand. So all good, we’ll start our own things. Also it’s given me a kick up the ass to move overseas. I might be moving to the States at the end of the year. Either Detroit or LA.
But look I don’t want to sound ungrateful for the grant. Again it will change my life.
Last word to you on whatever you wish to say.
I guess just that no one's making money off novels apart from Eleanor Catton and a couple of others. So why don’t we just invite everyone in? Like the silk scarf, awkward, champagne drinkers should totally be welcome, same with the masters in creative writing people and the authors obsessed with middle class ennui, but they shouldn’t be the only people allowed. Some of the best writers in this country are rappers, spoken word poets, high school dropouts, drug dealers, comedians etc.
So let's makes spaces where all these people want to come too, let's give money to the writers who don’t know the difference between all the different there’s/their's/they'res but who can weave magic out of everyday life, let's not only book people from marginalised communities for events, but make sure they’re held in spaces where those communities will attend, let's fucking celebrate all our artists and not just the ones who fit into the status quo.
Poor People With Money by Dominic Hoey (Penguin Random House, $37), almost constantly on the bestseller chart since it was published last year, and one of the favourites to win this year's Ngaio Marsh award for crime fiction, is available in bookstores nationwide.
