Kerry Lee: Anna Crichton’s Dear Virus

Anna Crichton likes to call herself a bit of an explorer, but as a five-time winner of the Canon Media Award, that’s a bit of an understatement.

Returning home to New Zealand, she soon started regularly contributing to the New Zealand Herald, North and South, Metro magazine, along with a Ponsonby News front cover.

Recently Anna’s been busy promoting her new work ‘Dear Virus,’ a book that was inspired by the recent COVID-19 virus and the changes that the world underwent with the sudden and temporary absence of people and the disruption to our daily lives it tended to cause.

It’s a collection of 60 illustrations that Anna drew during her time in lockdown. Originally posting them onto Twitter and Facebook, she eventually decided to compile them together into one book.

When I asked Anna about her inspiration, she explained that a lot of it came from observing nature; not just the environment in New Zealand and where she lived in Titirangi, but the nature she experienced during her travels overseas.

“I live amongst some beautiful trees out near Manukau Harbour; the book’s front cover has the two main characters sitting on a log, which is an actually where I’d sit to get my inspiration.”

Rather then trying to make any political or environmental statements, ‘Dear Virus’ instead chooses to focus on the opportunity that the lockdown gave us. It was a chance to stop and take a break from our normal routine, and it helped us to rediscover the simple pleasures that we may have taken for granted. That might have meant a quiet walk in the garden to self-reflect, or a chance to spend some quality time with your family.

“It was really about trying to find beauty in the world during the lockdown. Hopefully, people come away with a bigger appreciation of the world around them and don’t go back to forgetting it.”

‘Dear Virus’ is currently available at The Woman’s Bookshop, 105 Ponsonby Road. For more information about Anna and her new book, ‘Dear Virus’, please visit www.annacrichton.com