Photography: Sea Drift photography.
Visiting New Zealand in 2002, Manhattan-born author Jessica Howland Kany thought she’d do a bit of cycling, some trail running and make a few friends, then return to the States when her visa ran out –but fate had other plans.
“My mother always encouraged her three daughters to be adventurous, so I spent my twenties in a frenetic fashion, moving all the time, living in crazy apartments with 10 roommates and doing random jobs that had nothing to do with my degree in English lit,” says Jessica, 54.
“Although writing stories was totally my thing from the get-go.”
One such adventure in her twenties saw Jessica visit her sister in Jackson, Wyoming, where on a whim she accepted a job at the local newspaper.
“Jackson is the gateway to Yellowstone Park and working at the Jackson Hole News was the first job where I used my degree,” says Jessica.
“But living in an expensive ski town, I needed to take on other jobs, including one at the library, where I had my first taste of working with books.”
After a few years juggling gigs, Jessica’s next move took her to Hawai’i.
“I was working in a tiny library in Lahaina,” tells the intrepid bibliophile.
“I had the best apartment and bicycle commute. Then 9/11 happened and within a year, I sold my bike, quit my job and boarded a plane to New Zealand.”
An unexpected adventure
Which is how Jessica found herself on the Otago Central Rail Trail.
“But the weather wasn’t great and I was lonesome,” she says.
“So I rode to Dunedin with my tent, then through the Catlins towards Bluff.”
Once onboard the Stewart Island ferry, with Jessica’s bike lashed to the freight deck, the locals chuckled when they heard the American planned to cycle around their island.
“I didn’t know there was only 26km of road and by lunchtime on my second day, I was done,” Jessica laughs.
Then she met Stu
Having braved the unpredictable Foveaux Strait, the keen runner decided to stay and explore the island on foot too.
“My first week, I pitched my tent at the campsite in the centre of town and at night, I played pool at the pub,” Jessica says.
One night, a local fisherman asked Jessica if she’d ever fed a banana to a deer.
“Being a bit tipsy, I thought that was a Kiwi euphemism for some sort of hanky-panky,” she recalls.
But when she went to Stu-the-fisherman’s house, she discovered he had an actual deer named Stroppy who loved to eat bananas. Jessica stayed at his place for several months and the pair began to fall for each other. But when her visa expired, she returned to Hawai’i.
Jessica shares, “A few months later, he came to visit me in Lahaina and said, ‘I think I want you to come back.’ And I said, ‘I think I want to come back too.’”
A life on the island
That was more than two decades ago and since then, Jessica has built up a CV that traverses just about every job on the island.
“I’ve worked at the South Sea Hotel, which is the most beautiful pub in the world. I’ve served in the Post Office and I’ve been the island librarian,” says Jessica, who also spent 17 years editing the Stewart Island News.
“I never could’ve imagined many years after first arriving that one day I’d be laying out a two-page obituary in honour of a deer.” Stroppy died of old age in 2014.
By her side every step of the way has been her husband of more than 20 years, Stu-the-fisherman, 50.
A return to writing
“We are total opposites, but we have a lot of laughs together and we’ve both always known what we wanted to be. Fishing for him and books for me. “I wrote a lot when we were first married, then we got pregnant in 2009 and I was side-tracked in the best possible way,” says Jessica, who is now mum to teenage sons.
“When our youngest turned six, my husband suggested that I start writing again.”
Jessica went on to publish her first novel, the critically acclaimed A Runner’s Guide to Rakiura, followed by second book Parrot Heaven.
There is plenty of humour in her prose, reflecting a life where a bookworm from NYC marries a Rakiura fisherman and somehow – with kids and deer, fishing and writing, and a whole lot more – it all makes sense.
Parrot Heaven is available at selected bookshops or rakiurabooks@gmail.com Follow Jessica on Instagram @jessicahowlandkany_author
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