Zoë Rankin

Zoë Rankin grew up in a village in Scotland. She studied international relations and Arabic before going on to qualify as a primary school teacher. She spent many years traveling in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, and eventually settled in New Zealand. She has always been passionate about writing as well as spending time outdoors and exploring by bike, often with her two small children, who are equally adventurous.

Rankin's new novel is The Vanishing Place.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

When my manuscript was still in working draft form on my computer, it was titled The Wilder Child. This first title idea was inspired by the opening hook of an unkempt child appearing from the bush (vast areas of dense New Zealand forest). But something about it didn’t hit quite right. My New Zealand publisher and I went back and forth, over a few months, until we settled on The Vanishing Place. At one point, a character in the novel says, ‘this is the vanishing place,’ a statement which holds true on a number of levels. The New Zealand bush has this ability to swallow you up, to hold tight and never let go. It is a place where secrets and people can truly disappear. I think, as a title, The Vanishing Place evokes questions and intrigue and creates a sense of unease in the reader.

What's in a name?

The fictional village where the story is set is based on a real settlement on the West Coast of New Zealand called Haast. However, as I am not from Haast (a remote community of three hundred people) I didn’t feel comfortable using the name. So, instead, I chose the name Koraha which is a Te Reo Māori term for wilderness. This name, therefore, means a lot as it alludes to the heart of the novel.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

I think my teenage self would be very unsurprised that I wrote a novel set in the middle of nowhere surrounded by trees. I have always been drawn to smaller, more remote, locations. I have also always been a habitual overthinker, so my teenage self would absolutely recognise the internal struggle and sense of stubbornness and self-doubt that lives in the main character, Effie.

As a teenager, I was fascinated by the role that our childhoods might have on who we are as adults – in those experiences, some remembered and some not, that live deep inside of us and continue to shape our lives. When I was sixteen, I did a school project, exploring whether evil is something that we are born with, or if it is something that is thrust upon us by circumstance. This question is very much at the heart of The Vanishing Place.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I find the endings hardest because I have no idea what they are going to be. For me, the opening arrives as this clear, gripping, image. From there, I follow the characters into the pages, nervously watching and waiting for an ending to reveal itself. However, having said that, while the opening sentence of chapter one didn’t change from that first sentence I wrote, the prologue did get added in later.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

When I was seventeen, I was living in Uganda doing volunteer work, something that I had dreamed about doing since I was eight-years-old. But I became very ill and consequently I was sent home by a doctor months earlier than planned. This sense of failure has lived in me ever since, and I think it could be why I now live in New Zealand, as far from my Scottish home as possible, as I was desperate to prove myself. The main character, Effie, reflects this part of me, in that she carries the weight of her childhood events, things that haunt her.

Effie also loves the outdoors and she has a connection with both New Zealand and Scotland, like I do. So, although Effie is not based on me, there are definite parallels between our lives and personalities.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My writing was inspired by my dad’s love of the outdoors, and his role in the mountain rescue team throughout my childhood and the stories that he told me about the rescues.

At the moment, in New Zealand, there is a huge story in the news about a man called Tom Phillips, who had been hiding in the bush for four years with his three children. This story is close to the hearts of many New Zealanders and, while The Vanishing Place, is not linked to this real-life tragedy at all, the fact that Tom Phillips was able to evade the efforts of police for so many years, illustrates just how dense and vast the New Zealand bush is.

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--Marshal Zeringue