Contact

Contact can be an inspiring thing. It's a gift for the giver and the receiver. A friend gave me the poem If by Rudyard Kipling when I was a teenager with a broken heart. It was priceless. I still know it off-by-heart. More than two decades later, my writer friend Alice Pung from Melbourne made me a Ramona Punzel doll out of felt to cheer me up when I was having a bad day. When I went to Iowa to take part in the three-month International Writing Program, I was stunned to find a team and city of people who were determined to celebrate everything about writing and writers and they were happy to share beautiful thoughts about us and our writing. It was divine. It was a gift I treasure. It's also a gift I would like all New Zealanders to spread. So make contact with someone. Tell somebody something good that makes their day, or tell them they make a difference in your life. These gifts are special.