Frances Manwaring
Becoming co-owner and managing director of creative agency Moxie in 2010 was a natural extension of a career focused on helping great ideas reach the world. Other career highlights include co-founding several businesses including a pioneering technology start-up and holding senior management and governance roles in four countries across several sectors.
I’m an essayist at heart. I love entertaining people through my eclectic observations. Writing has always been part of my repertoire and I’ve written magazine articles, Sects & the City, a column on business networking; The Anger of Princes; a novelette about the final days of Anne Boleyn (degree in Medieval History explains this interest); and created an exhibition and short book, Food Futures: The Face of Tomorrow. A few years ago, I ghost-wrote an autobiography for NZ’s top real estate agent. Most recently, I’ve launched a book drawn from my professional practice, Brands with Moxie: Eight Steps to a Winning Brand.
Originally from the Scottish Highlands, I was London-based for 14 years before moving to New Zealand in the mid-nineties, and I now live in its wild and windy capital, Wellington. I believe, like Sophia Loren, mistakes are one of the dues one pays for a full life.
What authors did you dislike at first but grew into?
Marcel Proust springs to mind. His Remembrance of Things Past (A La Recherche du Temps Perdu) three volume monster opus defeated me for years. Given the place it holds in literature, I really wanted to read it and tried at least three times without getting any further than about halfway through first volume. Finally, about a decade ago, I must have been in the right headspace because I then couldn’t put it down. I also didn’t much like Dickens earlier in my life. It took a while to warm up to the extraordinary vista of the books and the insight they bring into the world around him at the time.
Do you try more to be original, or to deliver to readers what they want?
Not really — my style is pretty much what it is. I do try quite hard to make my writing pacey and varied, through clever word play.
What is it about your chosen genre that you love?
I like entertaining people. Writing essays and opinions allows me to combine my intellectual curiosity, interest in history and love of words to comment on stuff that interests, challenges or makes me smile and share my perspective; hopefully challenging readers to see things through a different lens.
What was the first book that made you cry?
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell — it still does!
Have you Googled yourself? Did you find out anything interesting?
There aren’t many people with the same family name as me, or at least spelt the way mine is. I found out early in the internet era that I share it with another writer, the late Frances Manwaring Caulkins, a 19th-century American historian and genealogist, the author of histories of New London, Connecticut and Norwich, Connecticut. Annoyingly, she came up first. Nowadays, being on LinkedIn, Facebook, WordPress et al has solved that problem.
Are there any secrets in your books that only a few people will find? Can you tell us one? Or give us any hints?
I wish!
Did you ever consider writing under a pseudonym? Why?
I thought about writing as Caroline Franks because of my ‘confessional’ style and content. I was concerned that any references I might make would be difficult for people in my life. Caroline is my middle name, and Franks was my paternal grandmother’s family name. Ultimately, I decided the only people who might twig would be people who know me well, and therefore it wouldn’t matter which name is used.
How did publishing your first book change your writing process?
I understood the benefit of having the right support team — editor, illustrator, publicist, distributor, printer etc.
How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?
I’m in the middle of my next book and have drafted the outlines of another two. Unless anything untoward happens, these will all be finished over the next couple of years.
The one that got away was a satirical drama serial about the America’s Cup, which I had to abandon because the rules of racing changed before I was halfway through. I didn’t have the fortitude to start again. However, I did love the story and its characters. I’m considering dusting this off and giving it a different focus … after the other three are done, of course!
Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones?
I’m pretty new to this, but I will read reviews—I think you need to know what people are saying. But, one has to be phlegmatic—it’s always going to be a case of not being able to please all the people all the time. Reviewers are entitled to their opinions, and although it can be disappointing if they don’t see it the way you do, many good books have succeeded and been much loved by readers and viewers despite poor reviews. I try to keep that in mind.