Rebecca Among the Stars

Let me introduce you to the next book in the series  Whakataukī Among the Stars, Volume III . Old truths, hard futures, and the stubborn business of staying human There is something I keep coming back to when I write this series: no matter how far into the future we go, people are still people. We still grieve. We still hope. We still make tea when things are falling apart. We still argue, endure, love badly and well, cling to each other, and try to make sense of a world that rarely feels tidy for long. That is the heart of Whakataukī Among the Stars, Volume III . This volume grew out of that feeling. Out past “the last signposts of tomorrow,” these stories are still being steered by what came before — by whakataukī, by memory, by old moral truths that refuse to go out of date just because the machinery got shinier or the sky got stranger. The book’s own opening invitation says exactly that: every voyage is still steered by yesterday, held in murmured whakataukī and old t...

How I Create a Front Cover for My Books Whakataukī Among the Stars and Old Words for New Worlds A book cover has to do a remarkable thing in a very small space. It has to catch the eye, yes, but that is only the beginning. It has to suggest a world, hint at a mood, whisper the shape of the stories inside, and make the right reader pause long enough to feel that first spark of curiosity. Before anyone reads a sentence, they see the cover. Before they know the characters, the setting, the trouble, the laughter, the ache, or the wonder, they meet that single image first. That is why I have never thought of a front cover as mere decoration. For me, a cover is a promise. When I create a front cover for books like Whakataukī Among the Stars and Old Words for New Worlds , I am not trying to sum up every story in one neat visual package. That would be impossible, and truth be told, it would likely be a mess. A cover is not meant to explain everything. It is meant to invite. It is meant to ...

As Whakataukī Among the Stars: Volume II makes its way out into the world, I’ve found myself feeling that odd mix of pride, relief, gratitude, and a little sadness that comes with reaching the end of a book’s release. This one has lived with me for a while. It has been shaped, reshaped, questioned, pushed, and carried. Now it belongs to readers, which is as it should be, but there is always a small part of me that stands at the door a moment longer before letting go. What I love most about this volume is its mood. These stories may be set among orbital communities, strange stations, deep-space routes, and futures full of pressure and absurdity, but at heart they are stories about people. They are warm, sharp, mournful, funny, hopeful, and, I think, very human. They keep returning to the same old question in different forms: what do we owe each other when life gets hard, when systems fail, when survival narrows the soul, and when kindness would be easier to postpone? That question ...

This is the last Story Spotlight from Whakataukī Among the Stars, Volume II , which feels fitting for a story so deeply concerned with what survives when so much else has been broken. If you’ve enjoyed these glimpses into the world of the book and would like to read the full stories — or sink into the others waiting between the covers — you can find Whakataukī Among the Stars on my Amazon page . Every story in Whakataukī Among the Stars, Volume II begins with an old truth and then asks what happens when people meet it in the wild, usually under pressure and often with less grace than they imagined they’d bring. “How Not To Translate” begins in a wreck. Set in the shattered remains of a crashed human ship in the Basin of Kūkupa, this story brings together two survivors of very different kinds: Esh, an alien field linguist and Listener, and Turi, a human pilot trapped in the wreck, injured, frightened, and very much not interested in being found by the people chasing him. T...

Story Spotlight: Dreaming in Māori (Cranky Auntie ship) Every story in Whakataukī Among the Stars, Volume II begins with an old truth and then asks what happens when human beings, being human beings, either honour it or make a glorious administrative mess of ignoring it. “Dreaming in Māori ” does both. Set aboard Te Rerewhenua, an old generational ship with the temperament of a loving, overworked, deeply nosy auntie, this story follows Tonrar Wilcox, an elderly woman who realises with creeping horror that she may be the last fluent speaker of Māori left aboard the ship. What begins as private rescue work — scraps of language written on wrappers, tags, paper squares, anything to keep the words alive — grows into something much larger: a reclamation of memory, culture, inheritance, and identity itself. The ship hums. The vents listen. The bureaucracy frowns. Tonrar keeps writing. As acts of rebellion go, it is a magnificent one.   The Whakataukī: ‘ Ko taku reo taku o...

Story Spotlight: The Kettle on the Edge of the World Every story in Whakataukī Among the Stars, Volume II begins with an old truth and then asks what happens when human beings, being human beings, test it under pressure. “The Kettle on the Edge of the World” asks that question at the edge of a cliff. Set in a future Kaikōura reshaped by catastrophe and adaptation, the story follows Tōne, an ageing insurance man who has spent decades quietly watching Te Āputa, a jagged coastal gap left by violent uplift and disaster. Tourists come for the view. Locals know better. They know the cliff asks dangerous questions of lonely people. Tōne has no official title for what he does. No grand programme. No heroic uniform. He simply notices. He puts the kettle on. He crosses the road. He offers tea. And, more importantly, he offers people a way back that does not make them feel small. That is the heart of this story: not spectacle, not machinery, not even the cliff itself, but the deepl...