In Conversation with J.P. Pomare (Live Recording)

Award-winning New Zealand author J.P. (Josh) Pomare (Ngā Puhi) takes the stage with Paula Browning (We Create) to share insights into IP ownership, screen adaptation rights, and building on an international profile as a writer.

Recorded live during the 30th Spada Conference, held 20 & 21 November 2025 in Auckland, New Zealand.

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Transcript

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In conversation with JP Pomare was recorded live at the 2025 Spada Conference. Very lucky. This morning, to be able to have a conversation with, JP Pomare who is, flown in from Melbourne, I believe, writes from Aotearoa And to lead the conversation, I'd like you to, make welcome Paula Browning. Mōrena koutou Ko Paula Browning toku ingoa. Nau mai Haere mai thank you for joining us for this conversation about taking IP ownership from one part of the creative system, the book publishing world. into another part, the screen industry. Award winning author, JP Pomare, welcome. Happily, I do know a little bit about IP and publishing. A and, I'm an avid crime reader, of all of Josh's novels. Now, I'm not saying that just because I'm sitting up here with him. I literally have read everything he wrote. And now having researched what we're going to talk about today, I know his next book's coming out in February and I've preordered it. So hopefully I'm not going to embarrass either of us this morning. And we'll leave some time for Q&A at the end. So keep thinking about those questions you might like to ask. So a little bit of background on the the gentleman to my right, his first novel, Call Me Evie, won the Ngaio Marsh Award for best first novel. Now, if there are any non bookie types in the room, please leave now. Otherwise, you might know that the Ngaios on New Zealand's mystery thriller Crime and Suspense Awards, run by the phenomenal Craig Sisterson. Originally from Kaharoa near Rotorua, JP has lived across the ditch in Melbourne for a while now and in what can only be described as making it look easy. He's written a book a year from 2018 to 2022, which suggests he spends a lot of time thinking about crime and murder. From 2023 to 2025, he published original work in multiple formats, with new print and e-books being joined by original audiobook titles. This is not at all typical in the New Zealand publishing industry. His 2019 novel In the Clearing was adapted as an eight part mini series by Disney Plus, and The Last Guests from 2021 has been made into a Stan original TV series called Watching You, which premiered in October this year. His 2024 novel 17 Years Later is currently being adapted for the screen, and his latest work, The Gambler as I said, is due out in February. In addition to the ANZ market, his books have been published in the UK and the US and translated into German and French. Tell Me Lies from 2020 was a number one Audible bestseller that's an audiobook platform, and was shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel and The Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction. JP has also received and been shortlisted for a number of other prizes, including the KYD Unpublished Manuscript Prize, Alan Kemp memorial Prize, and the Kingi McKinnon scholarship. It Just Goes On. His work has appeared in numerous journals and publications, including Kill Your Darlings, The Mascara Literary Review, The New Zealand Listener, The Lifted Brow, The Spin Off, and Takahe, and in 2020, JP was a recipient of the Māori Writers Residency at the Michael King Writers Center. That is a whirlwind seven years. Did I miss anything important? No no, that's pretty comprehensive, actually. I can do my research. That's one thing you do learn in the publishing industry. So there was a time before 2018 when your first book came out that you were building your writing career. What? And who shaped the writer you are today? Yeah, I think I think it's, I mean, I always wanted to write, but I think I wanted to be a journalist, actually, because, you know, you grow up in a basically in a farming community, and there's no role models really in that space for writing novels. In fact, everyone tells you you can't make money or there's no career in it, and I lost count of the number of times I was told that as a kid, my journalism teacher of all people said, it's it's a it's a hard slog and you won't make any money. So he sort of pushed me more towards journalism and in fact, I think, journalism now is probably tougher, actually. And it's getting tougher. Every year there's a real hostility towards, people who who study journalism at least, you know, so I'm relieved that I went down the path I did, but, it probably wasn't until I was in my 20s that I really thought, there's a career here. I think the people that most kind of influenced me were, at the time you know, I had read, I was reading a lot of sort of Steinbeck and Bukowski and all the stuff you kind of, you know, a slightly insolent, early 20s male would rate, but but I went on to read, a lot of stuff like Helen Garner, who's really big in Australia. I think she's probably reasonably well known here. And I was reading, you know, a lot, a lot more kind of contemporary fiction by people around my age who I thought were really impressive, lots of short stories and stuff like that. And I had this idea that it's as a kind of, this more of a sort of, I guess, an academic approach or a methodical approach. I sort of thought I was reading stuff I'd written five years ago, and I was going, this is, this is horrible. This is horrendous. But at the time I thought it was pretty good. Maybe that's happening right now. You know, maybe in five years I'll look back at where I am now. I think this this stuff is terrible, What was I thinking? And so I realized quite quickly, without any sort of outside validation, or any industry expertise, I, I wouldn't know where I'm at until someone else came in and told me so I, I really wrote a lot of short stories and just sent them out far and wide, waiting till the kind of, you know, the void responded, basically. And, you know, I recall my very first rejection letter and I say this with sincerity and honesty. The first rejection letter I got that was personalized was more exciting for me than the first publishing contract. And the reason being is it's that was a culmination of probably a decade almost, you know, at least 7 or 8 years of just spamming out my terrible short fiction, trying to get better all the time, studying the craft, reading what I should read, working hard. That was someone finally acknowledging that I exist as a writer and to keep going. And then the first time I had a short story published in a major publication in Australia, I was on my honeymoon and and and it was the happiest moment of my life. I'm still married. Impossibly, somehow. But but I was we were away, and I got this email, and I just really lost it because finally, finally, something was happening. And, that sort of when I gave myself permission to write the novels and start working on something longer. So was that the publisher that you're still with now because you've been with the same publisher for your entire career? Yeah, yeah. So I've jumped around a little bit in other territories, in the UK and US and, and France, Germany and Korea and stuff. I've had different publishers all around the world, but in Australia and New Zealand, I've had the same publisher the whole way through, I think. I think something people don't tend to realize outside of the industry is, it's not like a, it's not like a lotto ticket and you win the lotto when you get published because it's a sort of often you have an agent first, or often you've had contact with a publisher. And so you sort of work towards and it's not as sudden. For some people perhaps it is, but certainly from my experience and most people I know in the industry, it's a kind of culmination of things. You have an agent, the agent is pretty confident it's going to get published. And sure, well, my agent told me that. And then you have you start to get deals and I got a deal in Australia and then overseas and stuff. So it sort of all happens in a quite predictable way actually, by that stage. And so yeah, I am with my original publisher in Australia, but I landed with a big five publisher and they've treated me pretty well. so I’ve stayed with them. Yeah. I think that's in terms of the context of the creative industries here, the mix of the overseas organizations and the local and how they work together to build a whole ecosystem. That's a bit people often don't understand. You need the pillars of the multinationals, along with the independents and, certainly Hachette in New Zealand is a stalwart in the local publishing industry. How does your, connection with iwi, your Ngā puhi, How does that connect with your writing? Yeah. I mean, I think it's, it's interesting because I, you know, I've lived outside of New Zealand now as long as I lived in New Zealand. And I realize that it dawned on me, although I come back 2 or 3 times every year. Possibly more actually. It's still I still feel slightly adrift sometimes. You know, we, I grew up in a farming community. I was at a school where we were. We were the Māori kids. It's 150 kids at the school, and they're all dairy farmers, kids. And then I went from there. I don't know if anyone knows schools near but I went from there to Kaitao which is intermediate school, which is, I think like 1500 kids between the age of 11 and 13. And they were it was like there were men there you know, suddenly. And then I went from there to Western Heights, which is, proudly and predominantly a Māori school, is, you know, lots of lots of Māori kids. Then suddenly I was in the majority. And so I've had this real I've, you know, I've had this kind of slightly, awkward realization that I've always been somewhere, in the middle. Somehow you know, I think, and, and being in Australia, it's a lot harder to connect, to te ao Māori and, with the iwi and so I do think it informs my work and of and I, I don't force it, but certainly recognizing, the. Yeah just recognizing class and race issues in Australia, particularly my last novel 17 years later. And writing more towards that. My first novel set in Maketu And it's about a young, Australian girl interacting, with the environment of Maketu in particular. Lots of the locals. And so there's a lot of stuff, a lot of coming together. And I'm fascinated by the way in which, you know, the, the way in which the culture in New Zealand has changed and continues to change over the years and what's still left to be done, and I think 17 years later, hopefully demonstrates, yeah. Where I'm at with, with all that stuff. It was a nice the way that that story was told. The looking back and the going back. Yeah. That was, that was the beautiful way of. Yeah. Looking at how far we have come. It's funny. You know, it's funny because it's 17. I wrote it two years ago. And and by that stage I hadn't left in 17 years, basically. And so, I, I was writing the, the, the, the stuff that was happening 17 years later is all memory. And I felt like I had a pretty close, it's set in Cambridge. My dad's a a horse trainer, so it's been a lot of time in that, in that town. And I know it really well. Lots of my friends from there. And so I felt like I had a lot of confidence, in writing that stuff in 2006 or whenever it was set. But then there's narrative thread that's contemporary. It's set right now. Or was, set in 2024. And so for that stuff I really struggled and I, I remember I came back and I said to my wife, I in late stages in the edits and it wasn't working. The setting just wasn't quite, clicking for me. So I said to her, I gotta go back to New Zealand. She has. When I said, well, edit’s due next week, I think I've got to go tomorrow. And and we've got a kid, so, there's lots to figure out, but basically I got on the plane the next day, I booked a rental car, I flew over, I drove down, and my my character stays in the worst hotel motel in New Zealand. So I had to find the worst motel in New Zealand. And I happens to be in Cambridge. And so people ask, how did you find the worst motel New Zealand? I went to TripAdvisor sorted by rating scroll to the bottom and, and it was. Yeah, it did what it said on the packet basically. So you look for a motel with the concrete block walls on the inside. Yeah, pink and green curtains - It was horrible horrible Hopefully. Noone owns this joint here. But, it's called the Number One Motel. Cambridge. And I thought, oh, maybe that's the best motel in Cambridge. But it's number one as in N-O One no one should ever stay at this place. But but I came back and I discovered lots of things about the place and the sprawl of kind of these suburbs and McMansions that have taken over lots of the farmland. But I also had forgotten how dense, how thick the kind of the, Waikato fog is at that time of year. It was sensational. I went out for a walk at like 1AM And you almost have to resist the urge to pull yourself through it, you know, it's just it was just so thick and in the middle of Cambridge, which I again, something I'd forgot. Or perhaps it wasn't there when I was younger. There's this big glowing cross and it's in the fog. And so you think you've died and you know you're at the field because you're like, this is so spooky. It's almost designed, you know, to to, to cause some sort of, yeah, for fear or, you know, like a and I and I walk through the park, there's this park which it's just the perfect setting for, kind of like a horror, which is not what I was writing, but, but it really it was the most important thing to do, and it was just about connecting back with that sense of place. So sense of place and obviously the other main thing in a good story is the characters. And a lot of yours carry deep trauma that goes into, you go into childhood abuse, cult indoctrination and violation of privacy. How much of creating that amount of psychological death depth takes a personal toll? Yeah, I will just say those are across a number of works. Those aren't all the same one, you know yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think one thing I would also say is I have certainly changed from some of my early stuff. I feel like, there's one book I couldn't write as a parent, and I remember lots of people reading this and saying I was loving it, but I just had to stop. It was too much. And I was like, what are you talking about? But now I get it. And so there’s... I think I’ve I think maybe I’ve softened up now that I'm a dad or, I don't know, but I think I've definitely changed where I will go and where I won't go. And it's continues to change. And I remember someone else also pointing out all the all the kind of bad bad guys, which I don't subscribe to, but all the, all the, murderers or whatever are women in your book and it was almost like a psychological thing where I was so scared of perpetuating, like, you know, things about violence against woman and and using that as a, as a kind of, you know, as well it's, it's most of my readers are women and, and it's the same thing of true crime. I think I'd be tapping into something there if I were to make the victims women. And so I think although it wasn't conscious, I think it was some sort of psychological barrier to, to writing that I was just thinking, it can't be. it can't be the male. Not again, you know? And and so there's lots of stuff I'm, I'm unpacking about myself, I think, as I write as well. And I'm trying to think more deeply about, but then again, most of it, I think, is just purely from the ether. It's just subconscious. What what kind of terrifies me the most when you talk about surveillance? There's a book I wrote called The Last Guests, which is basically about, it's about cameras installed in Airbnbs for a network of voyuers. And of course, the moment I write it news stories come out about people who are doing this. But but for me, it was born out of this idea. We we Air BnB’d our place We had an apartment and, we just put it on Airbnb to see what would happen. Which is a hopelessly naive thing to do to, to be honest. But we just thought, oh, someone books that will go away and someone booked it. And then the money they paid us, we spent to go go away ourselves. And, we thought, you know, we'd better get good ratings So we went and bought a bottle of wine. We got some nice soap. You know, we tidied the place up. So not the number one motel then? Not the number one motel. And, we got, you know, organic milk and bread and stuff, and then we went away. Which. And the other thing you do the first time you Airbnb your place out is you find you Google the person. Of course. So you go you find their LinkedIn. You know you have look at where they've stayed. You make sure they're not, you know, perverts or something. And then after and then you accept the booking, they come and say they were a couple from Adelaide older couple who were coming over for a wedding. So perfect. Anyway, I came home, the bottle of wine, was about 25 bucks, which was a lot for us back then. And we came home and about a glass was missing from the bottle. And I remember we were cleaning up and pulled it out of the fridge and I was like, I held it up to my wife and go - do you reckon we can drink this? So and it was sort of like, this is what my mind does. I just remember thinking, why not? What's the worst that could happen? They’re quite sophisticated types, they wouldn't have drank from the bottle had they drunk from the bottle. What are the chances they’re sick, you know. And so I'm doing all this calculus and suddenly, you know, I thought, that's not the worst thing that could happen. Well, what if I've got the keys cut and they're going to come back and kill us, you know? Or what if they've installed cameras all throughout the house and they're just watching us, you know? So, so suddenly - Um, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the inside of the mind of a crime writer. It's a it's a miserable way to live, actually. Just constantly catastrophizing. But but, but that's sort of where it comes, I think when we talk about the psychological place, people think you must be really dark and stuff, but I think part of it's just being, paranoid, frankly, you know. So from a reader's perspective, and I use this hashtag a lot in social media, particularly when I'm reading New Zealand crime writers. Books. Your books have been described as unputdownable. It's a great word, which I can attest to. What's the secret? Is that what you reveal is it what you withhold? Or is it something else? Yeah. Not a real word though is it? what's the secret? I, you know. You literally cannot put it down. Yeah, yeah. No, I get it. I just don't think we should use it. No. So. Well, I think I think the key. It's the same with film, you know? I think it's the hook. It's the hook. It's. But when you. So when you write. I've been talking to screenwriters and I think, you know, you... prose is so unforgiving. I think so, screenwriters. It's sort of like direction and, voice is less important, although, you know, it is a factor. But with writing, in fiction and prose, so much of it. Think of all the boring books you've read that were actually really good. And I say boring, like nothing happens, but you're captivated because the voice of the characters are strong, or you’re taken by the beauty of the prose of poetry, whatever. Think about how bad those would be as movies and often lots of them have become movies and they're bad, bad movies, right. And and the I think of like ‘Small Things Like These’, which I don't know if anyone's seen that? It was a Claire Keegan novel. It was awesome. It's really short. And the film was okay. Pretty good. Cillian Murphy or something. This name has gone anyway, so it's. That was about as good as a novella can be. But the movie was like, okay, but so much of the interiority and stuff, you needed the best actor to demonstrate that. Whereas on the page. You can you can explore the interior world in much greater depth. And I think the challenge of making things gripping is and and to be unputdownable or whatever is, you know, you have to one you have to have prose that's competent and clean and just frankly, not bad. You just have to have prose that people can stay with. But at the same time, you I think these days you're not competing with other books. I always think of it that way. When I'm writing, I'm thinking I'm not competing with other books. I'm not even competing with film and TV. I'm competing with it. All these, really, Frankly, I think intrusive attention economy algorithms that can capture someone in two seconds and hold them for an hour. How can I beat that? How can I actually compete with that? What do I need to do? And it's not about coming down to their level in terms of being sensationalist or anything like that. It's just about thinking constantly on every page. Would the reader stop reading here? Have I given them an opportunity to leave the story? And I'd say the same thing when I watch, I don't watch a hell of a lot of TV, which is probably disappointing for everyone here. But but I think I think it's the same thing with TV. And I think that's what frustrates me of stuff that drops one every week. I'll often watch the first 1 or 2 and then not not come back. And that's because I've been given an opportunity to stop, you know, and it's the same. I think that's what makes something gripping is is as I write, I'm constantly interrogating each moment, each beat and saying, is this an opportunity for the reader to to leave the story? So, I've read that your wife is your first reader. Not anymore. Not anymore. You've stopped that? You don't let her anymore? She stopped that, unfortunately. Fortunately, No, she she wants the end product now. I think she used to come into the room really early, but. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. It's all good. I was going to ask if she ever told you to get rid of a character and whether you did it or not. She's. It's funny because she comes in, this is why she comes in at basically the proofread stage now is because she'd come in the first draft and she'd be almost doing line edits, you know, and I'm going No no no no no, you're you're structural at this stage. You just tell me what you know. Does it work? So she she is, here and her mother who, who, who is also an early reader for me. They're both really valuable because everyone else who has input is, is either a writer or an editor And so they're not the people I want reading my books. The people I want reading my books are the people who read four books a year on holiday, right? If you can capture them, you're going to get everyone else who reads a book a week or whatever. So. So I'm trying to target the people. Well, when I say target, it's not never as calculated as that. I'm conscious of, capturing the attention of the people who are not reading a lot of books. And so, my wife and my mother in law really valuable, I think for that. Paige will come in sometimes and I'll tell her the idea of a story, and she goes ahhh nahh that would never happen. And I'm like, it's crime fiction. You know, we have a little bit more room. And then she’ll read it, and then if she sees it after she reads it, that's when I'm take, take note. But if I, if she says it before it's it's about execution for me. Do I get away with it is what I'm asking. And it's the same thing, you know, I’ll have a Cop, read something, or I'll talk to them about it. And I'm not saying, is this what happens? I'm saying, could this happen? Right. Would you accept this? Would you suspend disbelief for this? And it's great. When you won the Ngaio Marsh for ‘Call Me Evie’ in 2019. That was sort of a breakthrough. How did that change things practically in terms of agent interest and, publishing deals? Yeah. And also your own confidence in your work. Honestly, it it's, it didn't change much, I think. I think in terms of milestones, the thing the game changers for me, actually, probably the film and TV stuff, much was much more of a sort of validating. You speaking to the writer. Yeah. You know, so, so it's the Awards stuff's kind of interesting because no one outside the industry cares or knows, and it's so, I've, I say this as someone who's been shortlisted for any number of Awards and haven't won many. It's just so subjective. And, and I don't I don't want to invest too much of my emotional energy into that stuff. And, you know, even back then, I didn't think too much about it. I was probably more interested in, I mean, it seems like it was a breakthrough, but it probably wasn't in so much as it was just sort of validating a little bit. For me, it's a bit of a confidence boost. I think the film TV stuff's been much more significant. And it probably hasn't had as as bigger effect on sales as I might have hoped for, but it certainly has helped. with reputation The front list sells better. Definitely. Now, the backlist still sells reasonably well, but now each book seems to have a bit of a boost. And there's more talk about it. And yeah, and also my options are a bit higher now, which is always great. So I think that stuff's been much more significant for me. So in order to, to build that, are you under pressure or do you choose to do social media newsletters, podcasts, Substacking? Is there pressure on you to do more of that? Yeah. You know, one time the, the head of marketing at Hachette flew down to take me out for lunch, and I go, well, this isn't a free lunch. The something's happening. And she sat me down and we’re eating and She goes - Josh, do you know, you've got events on your website for events in 2019. And I was like, oh, I have I? And, and I sort of knew this. And so my, my, basically my author website hadn't been updated since like my second book. And so she sort of went through and was like and also, you know, you know, you can you can actually schedule posts on Instagram so you don't even have you can just do them all for an hour for once a week, and then they'll just go out every day. And I was like, yeah, I do know that. I do know that. But but that they're constantly telling me to do this stuff and I think it's nonsense. But, but I think if you've got a following, it's easy to get published and easy to get on. But if it's for me, my response always, it feels so unnatural to me. And I don't. I think if it means my books are 1% worse, I would rather make the book better. And I say I tell that it's probably bad advice now, actually, but I always say that to writers. I'm like, if your books are going to be better by you not spending two hours a day on Instagram, talking to a camera to your like 11 followers, write the book. Write the better book. And and I think that's changing. Unfortunately I think so many influencers are getting book deals and writing these crap books. And so maybe that slightly change and I am feeling more and more pressure. Definitely, to do the social stuff and I think if I have something to say, I'll generally will put something on social media, but more often than not I actually don't. So there's something else I'm always interested about with with authors and their work, is the ones who choose to narrate their own audiobooks and those who don't. You didn't. Was that intentional? Like, wouldn't there's no way they would let me. There's just no way they would want to have accents in there. So that's just never going to work. And two, I, I respect the competency of, of other creators. Right. I wouldn't write a kid's book. And, and so there are people who who, who this is their work. This is their art, is they’re voice actors and they’re gonna do a better job than me. I do have some friends who have done it, and I cringe, because I think they're up. I think you're not doing you’re doing yourself a disservice, frankly. So yeah, I have no interest in that. Although I did have a cameo in one of my shows, and, so I might be an actor now, actually, might might be a bit of a late pivot for me too. So I so it's go down the, the rabbit hole that we heard a little bit about yesterday then. If you obviously value the, the work of other creatives, artificial intelligence, Have you got a view? I think there's so little money in publishing that we I can't see why they would continue to invest in training these algorithms to to write books. More than you know, if you look at accounting makes sense. Film and TV unfortunately make sense. Graphic design makes sense because these all cost so much, but they also so valuable. Whereas I think I think it's slowed right down in terms of the development of the AI for, for poetry, prose and writing. Because, it's it wouldn't be I would imagine it's a really big target for these greedy kind of AI developers. I just can't. But but in saying that, you know, I don't I'm not so naive to think it's not inevitable. I just think that the horizon for this stuff, in terms of writing novels, in terms of engagement, people don't want to read that stuff. Right. So brand authors, if you found out James Patterson had written a book by AI, I think that would be even his career over. Honestly, I think I don't think people want it. And I think, you know, in New Zealand recently, two books were excluded from a prize for using AI on the cover. So even, you know, even some even that it's not. I wouldn’t say it’s the most egregious breach of consumer trust, but it's still something that people value so highly is human created stuff. And I had this thought that it's a little bit like, at first I was doom and gloom, and I thought it's like how many people buy their shoes from cobblers now, right? Like you don't you don't, you don't. It's something that sort of you seek out if that's what you really value. But you're happy for your shoe to be made in a factory or whatever. And I sort of thought that would be the case with books. I thought, well, if people there will be a small market and people pay a premium to have a book written by a human or whatever, but but I think actually the opposite is true. I think there's, I think if you're if you're publishing a book a day on Amazon, which some people are, you're in trouble because your books are crap and AI can write crap books, but I think right now they can't write quality fiction, fortunately, and hopefully it'll be a while before it can. Amen to that, hopefully we've got that on record. I'm going to use it as a quote. IP. When did you first learn about managing your own rights? I don't know anything about it. My agent is very, very good with the stuff. And, you know, you write a book and everything outside of it being published feels like a cherry on top. And so, I always viewed film and TV stuff. If it were to ever happen for me, it would help me sell more books. Now I see it as something separate and something, really powerful. And I have a growing interest in being closer to these projects. I don't know if I'd be happy to be in the writers room or something. I don't know if I would ever want to be much closer than that. But it's always view adaptions as cousins, not siblings, you know? So the is like a common ancestry, but they're not the same thing. There's they're separate thing. And managing the IP, I, I think I just view it as we make more money and it gives me more time to write books. It's really probably callous and cold way to, to look at it, but but it's just true that, it, it's really enabled me to focus on what I think I do best, which is write books. And my agent in Australia, my film agent in LA they do all the stuff for the rights. I trust them completely to do the right thing by me. And, they're constantly telling me, oh, you know, we've got this person or this person's interested. I have no idea. I just have to grin and be ‘oh it’s amazing’. And I just don't know who any of these people are, what they do. But but it is really. Yeah. It's really it's own own thing. And it is still a cherry. The cherry on top for me, it's still, you know, additional income and and a bit more exposure and that sort of thing. It must have been fun the first time, though, when the, In The Clearing was picked up by Disney Plus. It must have been good to get that phone call. I didn't, you know, it's funny, like they took me out to Wine Bar and, the production company that had it, and they said, oh, this is, I think her name's Deb from, Disney Plus. And I go, oh, hey, nice to meet you. Deb. And she, she goes, and so there's nice wine, but she goes, go grab any wine you want out of the fridge. I go, okay. So I was like, grabbed like a Sharpley or something. And came back and we're having a wine. And then, Jude Law, who's, who's head of production company. Sorry, Jude, not Jude Law, Jude Troy, said she goes, oh, they've, Disney have, agreed. I have taken on the option to produce, to to to produce the clearing and I didn't. I was so idiotic and naive. I was like, oh, that's cool. It's really cool. And I didn't know what that meant. And so after we have this wine and they kind of like getting photos and stuff and I'm like, oh, this is a bit weird. And, and I called my agent after and I said, oh, I just had this. The weirdest meeting. What is this? And she goes, did I say it like, did they say green, greenlit, or green light or anything? I could not, I, I don't think so, I don't know. And so of course she calls Jude straight away. And then she calls me back because, oh they're making I'm like, what do you mean? Why didn’t they say that? so, so and and. Note to self - clarity when talking to authors if you wanna do a deal. I think the NDA should have probably clued me up a bit more. You know, before I had a sip of my my nice chardonnay they just whip out an NDA for me to sign, which I hadn’t done before. But it was like that the whole way through. You'd go, another time they took me out and they said, oh, we've got, Oh, we've got. So I just want, to tell you we've got Theresa Palmer and we've got Guy Pearce. And I was just going and I was like, good. Yeah, really good. And then I text my in-laws and go do you guys know Guy Pearce? I’ve Googled him. He's an Australian actor. And then I said, oh, you know, and and because I'm just such an idiot, I, I didn't realize how big a deal it was, you know? And, I just sort of thought about them. The money, actually, I was like, this is really cool. And then. But then when you. I think when I went on set, I had like a really, chills, you know, you see a scene from the book that these really famous people were acting and, and how many just the industry of it. There's like 100 people. And again, as someone who had been on on a film set before TV set, I just recognize how competent everyone you know, it's just people come in, everyone's moving. Everyone knows what they need to do is someone walking around like four different duct tapes on his belt and some carabiners and I’m like geeze This is incredible. And I just remember thinking, this is from my little book. You know, and that was surreal. And then we went to the premiere, which was a bit of a big deal up in Sydney. It was again, it was I was just sitting in the. So I had a cameo on that actually, and we had to go get costumes. We got fitted out and and my daughter I was like, oh, I want My family on it. I was like, yeah, we can do that. So my daughter had to get like. And it's all set, this scene was set in the 70s. So they put all this stuff on us do the makeup. We're out there all day. I had to get a form for my daughter to be on set, signed and all stuff. Anyway, you go out there, we were there for like six hours or something and like, go oh there’s two extras This is their big break. They walk on, they go, you two to the back and My heart just breaks. But they put us in. We were going to be seen. And, anyway, at the premiere, me and my wife watching the cameras panning, and we leaning like, here we go, here we go. And then just cuts to the next scene and we just looked at each other like, what the fuck? You know, but but I remember the first scene, I was just weeping because and, and, and that was because, Yeah, that that was much more significant. I think, in The Last Guest stuff, because it was the first one and, it was big and loud and exciting and. Yeah. So, yeah. So you haven't been involved in any of the scripts so far? No they send them to me and I just, just mark as read, because I wanted to watch them without I want to watch them fresh and also, yeah, I'm busy guy. So I've consulted they come in and they point out all the plot holes and say, what were you thinking? I don't know, I wrote this book five years ago. But but yeah, I, I've, I've got a growing interest certainly in screenwriting a little bit, but I don't yeah, I don't know if I want to be that close to. And also it's that thing these people are experts like screenwriting is is a separate thing and separate expertise. And I have enough friends of screenwriters to acknowledge that, that, that they've all had authors who have tried to interfere or who have who've taken it personally. When you've made wholesale changes or whatever to their work. And I don't really want to be that person. And I think there's a chance I would become that person if I'm reading these scripts and having my own input. So 17 years later is now with Made Up Stories, the production company behind Big Little Lies, The Last Thing He Told Me and The Anatomy of a Scandal, that's pretty elite company. Yeah. Does this deal different from the others? There's more money. So that was good. That was exciting. Yeah. No, it's she's she's a real force. Bruna. We went out for lunch, and, I was blown away by how normal she was. Actually, she's a really lovely woman and, really friendly. My experience in general with people who are close to the Hollywood side of the industry is the pretty. They tell you about all the credits and stuff, and they really this it feels like they've got a point to prove, which there was nothing like that with her. She's really lovely. It is a bigger, it's a probably a big it's a bigger deal. Definitely. People seem to be more excited about this, than the other stuff. And, and it's moving quickly with them. It feels like she's just pulling people in really quickly, whereas I feel like the other ones, it was slower and and, they were pitching themselves much harder. I feel like whereas Bruna’s is sort of just kind of feels like she's going along and, and yeah, it just feels like a, a different kind of thing with her. So it seems like they get the books are getting picked up sooner. Does that mean that the one that's due out in February has already been picked up? Well, it's funny because it's a sequel. So we it's it's with the company that has the first one and that's showing a bit of promise. And and they're pretty, pretty excited about that. So I think, I think it's sort of with them and it's annoying because, you know, it's new IP is I see now is really valuable, full of stuff. Whereas I've never written returning characters, it’s the first time and I don't know, I, you know, I, I don't I just always I never want the film stuff to influence my actual approach to writing, what I choose to write about and so on and so forth. But but it's really hard to ignore the fact that, even just the option fees there is another thing for me, you know, to keep me going. And the potential just having IP that that's in development or with companies that that are out there trying to get it made, that's really exciting. And that doesn't I don't think that happens with sequels because someone's already got the original. They've got the character in that original story. So yeah, it's not we haven't had that conversation, but my agent said it will likely go to, the same company as the first one. So that taking original IP and or keeping the IP and then finding new homes and things for it. Do you think there's a growing appetite for perspectives from this side end of the world to global audiences? Yeah. I mean, that feels like it feels like feels to me like that's the case. My observation as someone who, again, I'm really outside this industry and I don't watch enough TV to really have my finger on the pulse of that sort of stuff, but I feel like I'm seeing a lot more Australian content, a lot more Australian and New Zealand books being being adapted for international audiences. I don't know what it was like in the past, but I assume there was a time where, New Zealand books would be adapted for New Zealand audiences by New Zealand companies, whereas now it feels like New Zealand books can be adapted by Australian or Irish or whatever international companies for international audiences, that feels like an interesting kind of shift. And hopefully it's a trend that continues. I know holding the streamers accountable and stuff like that. Again, have no real expertise in any of this stuff. But that, again, is my observations been, in Australia having forcing them to make more local content has been a really good thing, for the local industry. And we're seeing a lot of books being picked up and adapted. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, if somebody has a role in the wider creative ecosystem, wearing the branding today, We Create for those of you who haven't heard of us, government relations for the entire industry, everything from architecture to fashion to publishing music and everything in between. Looking from that perspective, looking to the different parts of the ecosystem to see where original IP sits, that might translate into other formats, is something that we look at all the time, but just bringing it back to you, Josh, before we wind up and ask Ask for some questions from the floor. Has this success changed what you're willing to write? Does the writing still come from just from you rather than outside influences? Yeah. I mean, just going back to that thing with the stuff with sequels and writing returning characters, putting that aside, I think I have always tried to write in a cinematic way so that I don't the fact that it's happened without me thinking too much about it twice now, possibly for a third time, means I have to remind myself don't to think about it because you didn't think about it before and it worked, you know? But in saying that, I think, I am more conscious of pitchable content, if that makes sense. And I'm more conscious. And this is just because I think these books also work. But I know there are some people whose agencies, like a guy in the States who's got a few people in Australia, and I'm friends with one of them, and, he's telling them what to write, and he's trying to pitch movie deals before they get book deals, which I think is just so backwards you can't think that way. Because as I'm beginning to realize, film stuff's so much harder and it's so much more unpredictable than books, I don't write a book at the moment unless someone's already paid me to write it, right, and it's definitely going to get published. Whereas with the film stuff, even if someone options it, even if even if the stars attached and you've got a director and writer, you can get all the way to the finish line and it still doesn't happen. So I think thinking about it and writing for that is, is is it's never going to work for you. And I and I have the friend who, who has this agent who said, oh, you got to write this. And she wrote it, and the book wasn't very good and it didn't sell very well. And the film stuff hasn't happened. Constraining creative freedom doesn't work. No, but but like, if you tell a kid to draw something, they they’re paralyzed by everything they can draw. But if you say draw something red, they’ll draw an apple or a fire truck, so I don't, I don't. I believe that some are putting some constraint and but but it has to be your choice. So if I say I want to write something that's set across one day, that's me. That's not a high concept. I'm not thinking, oh, this could be a film. That's just that's me entertaining myself and writing. You know, within this kind of forced constraint. Whereas if someone says, well, you got to write a story about, a kid who gets kidnaped on a train and dad, and if someone tells me what to write, the book's going to be crap, because, I'm not going to surprise myself in the writing process, right? I'm not going to. It's I'm not going to be, seduced by the potential, the story, because it's already feels like it's already happened in my head. I'm not exploring and learning. as I write, I've been told. Told what to write. And. Yeah. And so, you know, it's I think just with because people aren't I constantly you know, how like, you know, how did you get this, how have you had a couple of things made? And I think it's the most important thing is actually the simplest thing. And that's just to write the best book you can. I think there's an appetite for crime fiction. It's an evergreen kind of thing for film and TV as well as books. So I think that does help. But frankly, just writing the best book you can is so much more important than going trying to predict what the film market's doing, let alone the book market. You know, it seems insane to me that people actually think that that's a good way to go about and and it may work for someone. I don't know anyone it has worked for. That said, I've got to I've got, you know, another friend, Candice Fox, who only writes standalones because she believes that gives them more opportunity to be made into film and TV, and all her fans are just big, and her sales have come down a little bit, and her fans are begging for for follow ups to earlier work and she won't do it because the film and TV stuff is so attractive and so lucrative for her that, she'd rather do that. And I just think that's why don't you become a screenwriter? Why are you writing novels at all? Yeah. So that takes us back to the authentic conversation we were having on the first panel this morning. Thank you. Josh, opening the floor. Questions from anybody, obviously to Josh. Not to me. I guess, hi. Thank you for that. I'm curious about your process you talk about at the beginning, it was a lot of short stories honing your craft, sending those out. Now you're doing a book a year. How do you maintain that? And how did you work up to that level of pace? Yeah, it's it's probably I think it's actually averages out a book every sort of 18 months. But I've written a couple of, novellas for audible, which were subsequently printed to my publisher just, in off years where I didn't want to write a book they’d published them. I think, but from the outside it does look really hyper productive. But there's two things. One, when your first book gets published, certainly for me it was about two years between when I got my book contract to when it came out. And so you've got this big run up and I and I'd heard about second book syndrome or Sophomore Syndrome, whatever, where the second book's really hard to write because you're so concerned with how the first book's going and you want to and you're reading reviews and it's kind of contaminated your process. So I actually wrote my second book a long time before my first came out, which gave me this kind of momentum, I think. But nowadays, something that has slowed me down is a kid. It's really annoying to, to be a dad all the time... You’re not allowed to say that. she's she's amazing. But, that that did slow me down for a bit. I think the thing is, you're not waiting. And film people are really good at this. They just sort of hustle and and authors are like, you know, so melancholy sometimes and, like, waiting for something to happen. But one thing that actually having a kid has helped me with, with this is I used to really take it for granted. How I had this time. I quit my job as soon as I got my first book deal, and having this endless these days was just as open and vast as, you know, the sea. And I could just. I could just explore. And if something went wrong, I could go back. Whereas now I think having a kid, I'm like, cool, I've got an hour. I'm going to write for every minute of it. All right. So I think I think, I’ve trained that muscle a little bit is being I can, I can write on planes. I used to be really self-conscious about the person next to me reading my screen. Now I just don't care. But, you know, I can write. I can go to the pub, have a beer or two, and then go home and write. Write. And I can write when I'm, touring and doing events. And I never used to be able to do that. And I think part of it is, recognizing it as a real privilege to, to be writing full time and to be in a creative, industry, which is an a world that's been pretty hostile, I think, to, to creative industries. The last sort of little while. So I think, I think it's just something that I've built up as a muscle and, and just recognizing that, if I view it as a job, I'm still working less, I feel like, than most people, you know, it's I'm doing I'm probably writing for 3 or 4 hours a day. I'd much rather be doing that then digging a ditch or something. Right. So I just have to kind of get in that mindset that it is work as well. Anybody else? I think just pick someone. I pick myself. Have you recognized the creative talent in your daughter yet? Yeah. She's she, she honestly, she's she's an amazing swimmer. She's a I know it's not creative. I, I'm really like. Her mum was a competitive swimmer and her grandma was a competitive swimmer So it's feels inevitable. She loves swimming. I think that's that's her thing. But she also loves drawing and, And, you know, who knows what sort of market there will be for that in 15 years or whatever, but, but yeah, I do see I do see it. It's kind of inspiring, actually, the freedom with which kids can create. Yeah. And like, the best thing that's happened to me since I started writing book is having her, actually. But but also I've had I've toured with her a bit and she just I'll be telling the worst anecdote in the world, and she's just sitting in the in the row, like with all the old women who go to literary events. And she's just like watching this little five year old. And it's incred - like, that keeps me. I just makes me happy when I'm talking. So, Yeah, she's a good little kind of pseudo publicist. Yeah. You don't want to narrow their creative fields when they're five. Like, you don't want to narrow their sports either. Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like you to join me in thanking, JP for his time this morning? Thank you. And for. Those of you who haven't been on your phones and done it already, The Gambler is out in all good bookshops in February 2026, and as I said, mine's already preordered. Thank you. Thank you. Paula. Magnificent filling in there at the last moment. And thank you. JP, really, really inspiring actually to, to see a kind of, classic example of a successful Kiwi artist, and that you, work so hard on your craft, and have that strong work ethic. But also just vibes. Just vibes. Right. Love it. For, for those of you who are wondering, the Number One motel in Cambridge costs $150 a night. And get excited. They've got a conference room, so Spada 2026. Here we come.