Not everyone knows this, but the obsidian stone in Just End It, that twelve-year-old Jessie finds at Whale Bay, is a real stone I found during the summer of 2016. I was walking along the waterline and suddenly there it was, sitting atop freshly washed sand.

In Just End It the stone is the device through which Jessie finds herself swept into the past, where she meets Hine, a moa hunter girl from long ago. While Jessie is dealing with an overwhelming amount of modern-day issues including cyberbullying (courtesy of her ex-bestie), the story of the stone unfolds.

I absolutely love this stone. It’s the perfect size to hold in my hand and the grooves cut into it make comfortable finger holds. It’s a solid and reassuring piece, glassy in places, rough and glittery in others as if it’s been tumbled in the ocean for a long time.

Whether or not it did actually belong to a Moa Hunter remains to be seen, but my imagination says it was so. I like to take the stone on school visits and talk about the power of using objects in your writing. The stories you write can come from everywhere. Even from special rocks you find on the beach.