Author's hard work in print

Receiving her first business cards labelled "Michelle MacKinnon, New Zealand Author", was an exciting event last week for the former Feilding resident.

But more importantly, it was the same day she received the first copy of her newly published book Escape from Eden.

MacKinnon will be familiar to Feilding Farmers' Market customers where she sold jams, chutneys and cheese when it first opened.

She also lists her skills as beekeeping, hobby farming, accounting, marketing, alternative medicine and voluntary counselling.

She is a general and obstetric nurse, and an archery champion, but writing has been her passion since she was about 14.

She has written, but not published, a number of novels for teens and adults. About 15 years ago, she unsuccessfully submitted a manuscript to an English publisher, and never tried again.

This year, determined to become a published author, she studied for a one-year graduate diploma in creative writing at Whitireia Polytechnic. This involved spending one weekend a month in Wellington.

The course offered the chance to complete a novel to publishable level, so before the course started, she had written the first 20,000 words of a novel. Her first novel was judged "a racy good read", but she was told she could do better than limit herself to the light style of that story.

During the course, she completed three novels, five children's stories, two short stories and other articles, all while caring for her husband, four of her seven children and a nine bedroom home in Palmerston North.

"I'm a compulsive writer," she said. "If I could, I would spend all day at the computer."

Escape from Eden is the result of that course. The book was accepted and published before the course finished.

MacKinnon's mentor for the book was international author and past winner of the Katherine Mansfield BNZ Short Story Award, Daphne Clair de Jong. She described the book as "a riveting story with a ring of authenticity".

"This book gives unique insight into the intimate day- to-day life of a closed religious community. What happens when a member leaves for life the 'real world' is explored with rare understanding," de Jong said.

Although the characters and the sect at the centre of the novel are fictional, for some years MacKinnon was involved with religious groups that had similarities to the Eden community.

She has taken snippets from her own experience and those of others, and with a good dose of imagination, has written about the difficulties faced by people who question or decide to leave that lifestyle.

Woven into this setting is a romance and tragedy.Escape from Eden will be available in Manawatu bookstores soon. The launch date has yet to be announced.