Michelle's Weekly mentor 'GRAN GIVES THE BEST ADVICE!'

Having a fellow journalist in the family inspired her to tell women's stories

- Donna Fleming

Choosing the person to dedicate her first book of fiction to was easy for journalist Michelle Duff.

She selected the woman who inspired her to write, her grandmother Audrey Gordon. It's thanks to Audrey – an acclaimed former Weekly journalist – that Michelle became an award-winning reporter, focusing on hard-hitting issues, like child abuse and sexual violence, before turning her hand to fiction and her book of short stories Surplus Women.

"Grandma is my inspiration – she's amazing," says Wellington-based Michelle of Audrey, who's now 97 and living in a rest home in Palmerston North.

"She won the Qantas Media Reporter of the Year award back in 1984, which was a huge deal, and she wrote stories on subjects like abortion rights and the difficulties of being a working mother.

"When I became a journalist, I found myself doing stories on the same kind of themes, stories that highlight the lives of women and children. Grandma had done that with considerable success and I think that's always been a guiding light for me."

Michelle, 41, was only two when her grandmother left the Weekly in 1985 after a distinguished career. Audrey won her prestigious reporting award with pieces on the fairness of property division after divorce, the danger of rugby injuries and New Zealand's first IVF baby.