Small Town Girl, Small Town Bookshop

What is your favourite book? I read mostly to expand my understanding of the world and for general self-improvement so for this reason I'm a bit of a flake when it comes to having a favourite book. My favourite tends to be the last great thing I've read and as of right now that's 'Stolen Focus' by Johann Hari. If you feel your focus and concentration skills have degraded in recent years, this book is for you!

What do you currently have on the bedside table? 'A Swim in a Pond in the Rain' by George Saunders. Based on a class the author teaches at Syracuse University in the USA, this book breaks down a series of Russian short stories to explore how great writing works and how the mind itself works while reading. I appreciate that this might not sound like a lot of fun but in the hands of George Saunders it's remarkably entertaining.

What attracted you to Shepherdess? I grew up rurally, but with a massive lack of respect for how good I had it! Now I'm old and wise enough to know that a connection to a piece of land - whether literally your own plot or to a greater region - and to a community within it is the foundation for a good life. I was visiting a favourite Aunt and Uncle in Tasman when I picked up my first copy of Shepherdess in a lovely deli in Upper Moutere. It initially caught my eye as a courageous niche for a magazine and when I finished it on my flight back to Greytown I found myself instantly wanting the next issue to read more stories about regional New Zealand.

What is the greatest challenge and reward of running a small business? I'm probably my own greatest challenge, with the ongoing delusion that I can do 10 times as much work as there are hours in the day! The greatest reward is the ability my business gives me to make meaningful contributions to my community - for me this includes a couple of well paid jobs, the ability to make donations to local causes and to help fund cultural events in the South Wairarapa region.

Tell us about what drew you back to the provinces. My husband and I were living in Wellington and decided we wanted a holiday house in either Central Otago (where I'm originally from) or Hawke's Bay. On a whim we stopped in at an open home in Greytown and fell head over heels for the property that is now our home. The Wairarapa offered us all of the things we thought we wanted in the other regions - wide open rural space, lots of safe places to walk and cycle, a network of small villages and room for a big garden. At that time Greytown had the added bonus of being close to Wellington so we'd be able to visit more often. It didn't take long for us to realise we weren't just looking for a "weekender". The turning point came one Sunday when we returned to our apartment; in Greytown we'd walk down the street on the weekend and strangers would say a friendly hello but this particular Sunday we got into the lift at our apartment and it suddenly dawned on me that we were standing right next to our own neighbours and everyone was ignoring each other. So we sold our apartment and moved our lives to South Wairarapa.

If you didn't own a small town country bookstore, where would you be and what would you be doing? Nationality issues aside, I'd be a Park Ranger at Redwood National Park in northern California.