Michele Powles and Renee Liang: Birth of a book

But when writers Michele Powles and Renee Liang were pregnant with their second children, the opposite happened. The pair knew of each other through writing events but weren’t friends. When pregnant Michele heard that Renee was also pregnant, she suggested the Auckland alumnae collaborate on a writing project.

“We’d both said we regretted not writing stuff down during the first pregnancy,” says Renee, a writer and paediatrician as well as a researcher and lecturer at the University of Auckland.

“People take photos to record their child’s progress, but as writers, it made sense for us to do it in a literary way.”

The writing took place over several years and while the subject matter is commonplace having two talented authors express it the way they do is not. It’s part prose, part poetry, sometimes tinged with sadness but always infused with humour. When their eldest child turned five, they stopped writing and printed what they had. “We got a large space and laid it all out on the floor. And then we realised we had most of a book,” says Renee.

They sent the collection to Lisette du Plessis who agreed to publish it. Says Renee: “It’s the kind of book people can dip into, a page or a thought at a time. When we look back, we realise how much we had forgotten. We’re so glad we did it: now we get to share it.”

When We Remember to Breathe: Mess, Magic and Mothering Magpie Pulp, e-book $7; paperback $25