A New Zealander in Europe. Writing about motherhood and identity; captivated by trees and seasons; reading voraciously. Published in Takahe, World Literature Today and Kapohau / Turbine. Get in touch on Instagram, Twitter or Goodreads, read my work on Medium.

Michaela Anchan
 
 
 
 
View fullsize Wandered round some gorgeous French villages yesterday, getting inspiration for our rug hooking pieces. I’m working on a fabulous old hessian sack, creating a stone house and other details from the day. Progress so far at the end 😍
View fullsize Thrilled to be back at the spectacular @closmirabel to spend a week learning rug hooking with the brilliant @grahamhollick. Will share some progress reports as I go!
View fullsize Absolutely thrilled to get my hands on this brilliant new memoir by my very talented and articulate and clever friend @fixedgeometries. We were in the same MFA program together and I’ve been lucky to read some excerpts of this in the past and
View fullsize I’m in beautiful Leukerbad, in the Swiss Alps for the @literaturfestival_leukerbad over the next couple of days. Thought I’d go for a bit of a hike today after a long day of multiple trains yesterday, and stumbled on an absolute stunner o
View fullsize Beautiful moody Hamburg this morning
View fullsize More progress! Happy to see cross that 70K mark today! Rounding out a few chapters.. I think this first draft will be about 75k, then a huge amount of editing to do. I already have a three page list of things I need to go over the manuscript and adju
View fullsize Back home now. But this was a favourite photo of the week: a day writing, followed by a walk in the afternoon sun on the way to a book launch at @curiousfoxbooks. I’m always so jealous of the English literature and writing scene in Berlin- seem
View fullsize In my happy place. Four days in Berlin to work my butt off and forget about family commitments and schedules. Reading, writing, eating and a bit of book shopping and perhaps even an art gallery visit. But mostly, writing. Oh and first night dinner ha
View fullsize TFW you start a new book and the first page is just so good and dense and lovely you don’t know how you are going to face pages and pages of it. Also, I’m an absolute sucker for the font and layout of these Vintage International books. Th
View fullsize Two days and a night down in beautiful Jena and Weimar, following the stories from Andrea Wulf’s great book about the figures of the Romantic period there. A great trip trip with perfect, summery weather. Goethe’s house, Schillers house,
View fullsize Eastbound, by Maylis de Kerangal Read this beautiful slip of a novel over two short flights today. It’s been on my to-read list since rave reviews last year and I’m so glad I finally got to it - and a travel day was the perfect setting f
View fullsize A quick few days in Berlin again this week and I could resist a revisit to this incredible exhibition at @kraftwerkberlinofficial . A sound and light total sensory experience- I could have stayed for hours. So creative and mesmerising and absolutely
View fullsize Progress.. am trying my best to speed up the crawl to the end of draft 1. Keep focusing on ‘shitty first draft’ and ‘just get it done’.. but by god it’s easy to get lost in research wormholes. These little Post Its remin
View fullsize After the cemetary I mooched on over to @abatonkino to see this excellent doco. Beautifully told - what a gift to have so much old footage and audio and letters from her life. A story of a family, of creativity, mental health, the music industry, act
View fullsize Went on a side quest today.. a little research walk to my favourite cemetery, AKA the 4th largest cemetery in the world AKA Ohlsdorf Cemetary- just a few stops north on the local train. We are still deep in winter, with just the first glimmer of buds
View fullsize Absolutely adored this. Has been in my TBR list for a while and after a recommendation from @fixedgeometries I pushed it straight to the top. The audiobook is beautifully narrated, I was lost for hours in the voice of the character of Valeria. She i
View fullsize Went to a lovely event at @felixjud.bookstore tonight in celebration of Virginia Woolf’s birthday, and couldn’t resist this treasure of a book. The full edition of Mrs. Dalloway, along with notes, maps, illustrations, photos, and commenta
View fullsize In my happy place again.. my favourite Airbnb in Berlin for the week, doing lots of writing, reading and editing, walking the streets and eating alone while giggling at podcasts. The Annie Lord and Bea Setton books are helping me remember what life i
View fullsize A fantastic week in moody Tromsø at the top of the world. Spectacular. Homeward travel day turned epic with a three-flights to get home turned into five flight (Tromsø-Oslo-Copenhagen-Stockholm-Hamburg) after a cancellation mid journey.
View fullsize A quiet long distance train to write, read, listen and think is 1000% my happy place. On the way home from a quick trip to Berlin to see the brilliant and very funny Tig Notaro.