It’s taken Helen Laidlaw nearly ten years to research and write her book about the Wadi Wadi people, the First Nations who once lived in the area on the South Coast now boarded by Kiama and Gerringong. On Wadi Wadi country – From the mountains to the sea, explores a little known part of Kiama history. But it’s a story well-worth telling.Putting a face, and a history, to the name“I come from a line of old ladies who like to make cakes,” remarks 85-year-old Laidlaw as she rummages around in her kitchen and brings out a lemon and blueberry. With the cake at hand, she sips her coffee and begins talking about the book, which traces the lives of several local First Nations people. Their destinies, still mostly unknown – both to indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, are deeply intertwined with that of Kiama and the surrounding areas. “It’s about stitching pieces together, and I’ve managed to stitch these families together,” she says.Just the other day Laidlaw spoke to a descendant of the Longbottom family, who had read the book. There’s a whole chapter on them as well as the Dixon, the Weston/Johnston and the Pike families.“It was hidden from them. You see, people didn’t know,” she says, referring to a time not too distant when one’s Indigenous heritage was never openly discussed. For the relatives, and there are quite a few around, Laidlaw wanted to make the people real as opposed to just being a name. “So many were valued by the rest of the clan,” she emphasises. With a keen interest in indigenous history and the Pacific, Laidlaw, a former university librarian and teacher who’s also worked in Tonga, set out to capture these stories before they are lost.“Aboriginal people have been treated quite badly. That’s why they’re all so excited about this book. Because it details their stories,” she says.Laidlaw included the line, From the mountains to the sea, three years ago when she named the book. It comes from the Wadi Wadi/Dharawal language place name for Illawarra (or Elourera, Allowrie), which means “where the mountains meet the sea.”“We’re all equal”When asked what she hopes readers will take away from the book, Laidlaw goes quiet. Then she says softly, “Surprise.”“Because I think Australia is a racist country, still. Anyone who has grown up with Aboriginal people knows that it is.” Her father, the headmaster of Bomaderry Public School, immediately desegregated the school when he began in 1947.“He was respected for it,” Laidlaw says. “Because he was a strong Christian, he just quoted Saint Paul in the Bible, we’re all equal.” Laidlaw says that she thinks the town of Kiama has wanted to acknowledge its Aboriginal heritage for some time.The younger generation, such as her grandchildren, embraces it while she finds that outdated views about Indigenous people still exist among some of the older generation.“But surely they realise, well I make that point in the book, that in 1917 these guys went off and got shot for being Australians,” she states. “They didn’t get recognised and they didn’t get a vote for fifty years.”One Jimmy CarlsonThe book, which spans from the first settlers to WWII to the Kiama tornadoes in 2013, came about through six degrees of separation.“I have lived in Kiama for over 40 years and thought I knew most of the important things about town and yet, page after page, left me gasping as I found new and fascinating things about the town and the surrounding area. It is a book that everyone who lives in, and cares about, this area should devour.” - Bruce ElderJulie Farquhar Nicol, a teacher at the Noogaleek Children’s Centre, an Aboriginal preschool at Berkley – and also Laidlaw’s good friend – enjoyed talking to Jimmy Carlson, an Aboriginal Elder, who drove the bus for the children’s centre. One day, while chatting about Carlson growing up in Kiama, they realised that the small farm cottage where he used to live in the 1930s was close to Laidlaw’s house in Willow Gully.Tucked away in a beautiful corner of Kiama, featuring native vegetation and still frequented by echidnas, wallabies and ringtail possums, Willow Gully holds a rare area of original sub-tropical rainforest, unique for this area.Laidlaw invited Carlson over, who then in his seventies, began sharing memories of his parents and grandparents along with photos and newspaper clippings. Carlson’s grandmother was a Dixon from Crooked River, and before too long, Laidlaw found herself trying to find out everything she could about the family.“I discovered one of his grandmother’s brothers came and lived here. There’s a whole chapter on that crazy guy,” she says. In the process of researching, she discovered several other local Indigenous families and their ties to Kiama’s past and present.The “queen of research”Laidlaw became intrigued by some of the descriptions, such as that of Captain Brooks (Muhhag), a local poet and singer. “Someone described him, very impressed, he didn’t look like a lot of others. He was so dark with aquiline features. Suddenly, you got a picture of somebody that you wouldn’t have otherwise. That’s why it’s all been included in the book” she says.As far as stories go, she found the most amazing ones to be about King Mickey and Queen Rosie. “She was such a character,” Laidlaw notes.Queen Rosie, the last surviving member of the Illawarra tribe, also features on the front cover of the book. The Sydney Morning Herald took the black-and-white portrait of Rosie, smoking a pipe, in 1927.Laidlaw is upset that her English publisher chose to cut some of the images out because they weren’t clear enough.“I tried to explain to them, these were people who didn’t have anywhere to store photos. And the ones I got, of Aboriginal people, were miraculous,” she says.Because the photos depict Indigenous people who have passed away, Laidlaw received permission from their relatives to use them.“Jimmy is now in his 80’s, and the photo is of his mother as a child. It’s remarkable that they were still available,” adds Laidlaw. It’s raining hard now, streaming down the windows, on her house in Willow Gully – a special space where this truly remarkable story began.Book launchDate: Sunday, 28 JulyTime: 3pmPlace: Kiama Uniting Church Hall, Manning StreetTo be launched by Julie Farquhar-Nicol (former teacher at Noogaleek Aboriginal Preschool). Followed by a glass of wine, nibbles and book sales & signing.Date: Saturday, 17 AugustTime: 2pmPlace: The Kiama Library, hosted by the Kiama Historical Society.To be launched by Bruce Elder (author of Blood on the Wattle). Followed by a glass of wine, nibbles and book sales & signing.

From Greek mythology to rock music, fairytales to family drama, the South Coast Readers and Writers Festival has it all, including an insider’s look at the publishing business for aspiring scribes trying to break into the industry.The festival, at Thirroul Community Centre from July 13-14, features award-winning local novelist Helena Fox, lawyer-turned-author Bri Lee discussing her debut as a fiction writer, legendary Australian music writers Stuart Coupe and Jeff Apter and journalists Caroline Baum, Malcolm Knox and Mitch Jennings.The jam-packed weekend, with more than 22 sessions, will cover genres including poetry, literary fiction, suspense, biography, memoir, historical fiction and First Nations writing, said festival director Sarah Nicholson.Dr Nicholson, who is head of the South Coast Writers Centre and a University of Wollongong academic, said 60 percent of writers talking at the festival are locals. “We are excited to showcase more than 40 authors, poets, academics and journalists, who will cover everything from the literary classics to the pressing issues of current affairs," she said."It will be a weekend filled with captivating stories, thought-provoking discussions, and inspiring conversations. We encourage people to come along and discover some of the local literary talent hiding on the coast."Australian historical fantasy author Kell Woods, Emma Darragh, who has a PhD in creative writing from the University of Wollongong, and Illawarra Mercury journalist Mitch Jennings will debut new books at the festival.Established award-winning writers including Catherine McKinnon, Kirli Saunders and Helena Fox will also host talks. Dr Nicholson, co-author of Heroines An Anthology of Short Fiction and Poetry, will discuss her writing in the ‘Crimes of the Cross’ session. The festival will be held in the Thirroul Community Centre for the first time this year. “It’s close to a public transport hub and gives festival guests easy access to Thirroul’s great cafés,” Dr Nicholson said.“We’ve partnered with Wollongong City Libraries to present two free Young Readers and Writers sessions in the Thirroul Library and Collins Booksellers will also feature festival books for sale.”Dr Nicholson said the festival is a community event, with organisers giving it a rebrand in its third year to include readers in the title.  “We renamed ourselves the South Coast Readers and Writers Festival so that it is clear to the many readers in our community that this festival is for them,” she said.“This isn’t a festival only for writers. It’s a festival with writers that is designed for readers. It’s a place for book lovers to hear writer’s insights, to learn about and find new books, and to hear about the process behind their creations.”Ge the program and tickets here - https://southcoastwriters.org/festival

Kell Woods knew she wanted to be a writer from a young age. The voracious reader and self-confessed nerd spent all her spare time either reading books, or writing them.“If you asked me what I wanted to be at eight, I would’ve said an author, I was one of those annoying kids that read too much and probably talked too much,” laughs Kell.Fast forward a decade or two and the Jervis Bay local has achieved her dream, releasing her debut novel After The Forest in October. Set in Germany’s Black Forest in 1650, the historical fantasy reimagines the story of Hansel and Gretel, blending fairy tales and folklore to create a “gritty, real and dark story that is also really beautiful”.Kell will join a host of other talented writers at this weekend’s South Coast Readers and Writers Festival to discuss her novel and her journey to becoming a published author. “I’m so excited to be a part of this festival,” says Kell. “I’m going to be talking fairy tales with Melbourne writer Michael Earp, who I recently joined at the Supanova Comic Con and Gaming festival last month. We had so much fun together at Supanova so there will be lots of laughs this weekend.”Kell studied English literature, creative writing and librarianship at Macquarie University and worked as a reference librarian for 13 years. She was always surrounded by stories, whether sourcing them, reading them or writing them. Five years ago Kell began devoting “serious time and focus” to writing, completing After the Forest in 2020. Then the real hard work began: picking up a literary agent and finding a publisher. “I finished the book and started pitching to agents during COVID, so a lot of agencies were closed and weren’t taking submissions,” says Kell. “Most Australian agents weren’t interested in fantasy at all, I didn’t get very far in Australia.”Kell tried her luck overseas and sent through first chapters of her book to agents in the United States and United Kingdom. She was picked up by UK agent Julie Crisp and offered an acquisitions deal with US publishing powerhouse TOR books.  “I had to go out of Australia to get published in Australia, which is funny,” says Kell. “Now there are a lot more fantasy books out there, thanks to ‘romantasy’ books like Fourth Wing and A Court of Thorns and Roses.” “I was at the beginning of that wave of popularity, so it was really good timing for me. Luck and timing often play a big part in whether or not a book gets published and I was writing the kind of books publishers wanted at the time.”Kell is now paying that good fortune forward, sharing industry insights and secrets to success with advanced English students from high schools across the South Coast, including Kiama High.“It’s been such a privilege to have the opportunity to work with high school students, to show them that what they are learning is relevant to their future professions,” says Kell. “It’s linking the curriculum with real jobs in the industry and I’m more than happy to share insights and learning with the next generation of creatives.”The question and answer sessions with industry professionals like Kell are the brainchild of Shoalhaven Head Teacher Careers, Shanna Fuz.“I love helping students to develop their own skills and employability,” says Shanna. “Nothing gives me a greater thrill than students discovering what motivates them to develop their perfect career, and then help them create experiences that link to that.”Kell held writing sessions at Kiama, Nowra, Ulladulla and Vincentia High Schools (Vincentia also happens to be Kell’s alma mater) and Shanna organised for each student to receive a signed copy of After the Forest.Kell Wood with Kiama High School student Olivia Cunningham“Hopefully I provided some inspiration,” says Kell. “I really wanted these kids to know that anything is possible, even if you go to a small high school on the South Coast like I did.” One of the Kiama High School students in the workshops, Olivia Cunningham (pictured), was doing work experience at HarperCollins when my book was being worked on and she was involved in that which is very exciting.”  Kell is putting the finishing touches on her second novel, Upon A Starlit Tide, which combines elements of The Little Mermaid and Cinderella and will be available early next year. She will take part in the South Coast Readers and Writers Festival Modern Fairytale session on Saturday July 13.

Don’t worry about ordering a book on Booktopia as it has entered voluntary administration.The company has appointed Keith Crawford, Matthew Caddy and Damien Pasfield from McGrathNicol to oversee a restructure or sale of the business.The company also owns Angus & Robertson."The Administrators are undertaking an urgent assessment of Booktopia's business while options for its sale and/or recapitalisation are explored," the statement said."The shares of Booktopia Group Limited (administrators appointed) will remain suspended from trading during the administration process. Shareholder updates will be uploaded to the ASX platform as required."The statement called on interested parties to "urgently" contact the administrators.The embattled company has been struggling financially for some time.Booktopia had the expense of transitioning to a $12 million robot-enabled warehouse facility.Using robots and Ipack Solutions packaging technology, the warehouse was intended to distribute more than 12 million units each year.But, in its half-year results for the period ending December 31, 2023, Booktopia posted a 22 per cent fall in revenue.The company had been suspended from trading on the ASX since June 19, following mass redundancies.Chief executive David Tenke resigned in June, while founder and director Tony Nash stepped into the role of executive director and sales director.Booktopia was founded in Sydney in 2004 by Steve Traurig and Simon Nash.It was listed on the ASX in December 2020 at an issue price of $2.30.From a high of $3 in August 2021, the company's share price crashed to $0.17 in June 2022.

From Greek mythology to rock music, fairytales to family drama, the South Coast Readers and Writers Festival has it all, including an insider’s look at the publishing business for aspiring scribes trying to break into the industry.The festival, at Thirroul Community Centre from July 13-14, features award-winning local novelist Helena Fox, lawyer-turned-author Bri Lee discussing her debut as a fiction writer, legendary Australian music writers Stuart Coupe and Jeff Apter and journalists Caroline Baum, Malcolm Knox and Mitch Jennings.The jam-packed weekend, with over 22 sessions, will cover genres including poetry, literary fiction, suspense, biography, memoir, historical fiction and First Nations writing, says festival director Sarah Nicholson.Dr Nicholson, who is head of the South Coast Writers Centre and a former University of Wollongong academic, says 60 percent of writers talking at the festival are locals. “We are excited to showcase more than 40 authors, poets, academics and journalists, who will cover everything from the literary classics to the pressing issues of current affairs," she says. "It will be a weekend filled with captivating stories, thought-provoking discussions, and inspiring conversations. We encourage people to come along and discover some of the local literary talent hiding on the coast."Australian historical fantasy author Kell Woods, Emma Darragh, who has a PhD in creative writing from the University of Wollongong, and Illawarra Mercury journalist Mitch Jennings will all debut new books at the festival. Established award-winning writers including Catherine McKinnon, Kirli Saunders and Helena Fox will also host talks. Dr Nicholson, co-author of Heroines An Anthology of Short Fiction and Poetry, will discuss her writing in the Crimes of the Cross session. The festival will be held in the Thirroul Community Centre for the first time this year. “It’s close to a public transport hub and gives festival guests easy access to Thirroul’s great cafés,” she says. “We’ve partnered with Wollongong City Libraries to present two free Young Readers and Writers sessions in Thirroul Library and Collins Booksellers will also feature festival books for sale.”Dr Nicholson said the festival is a community event, with organisers giving it a rebrand in its third year to include readers in the title.  “We renamed ourselves the South Coast Readers and Writers Festival so that it is clear to the many readers in our community that this festival is for them,” she says. “This isn’t a festival only for writers; it is a festival with writers that is designed for their readers. It’s a place for book lovers to hear writer’s insights, to learn about and find new books, and to hear about the process behind their creations.”The full festival program and tickets are available here

Award-winning historical fiction writer Dell Brand hosted a book launch for her most recent work, Wylde Oates, at Kiama Library.Wylde Oates is Dell’s 13th book and fans helped her celebrate its success with an afternoon tea at the library. Those who attended heard how Dell came up with the idea for the book, set in Scotland, Sydney and Port Macquarie in the 1800s, while travelling through the British Isles with her late husband John. “John and I visited New Lanark Cotton Mill when we were in Scotland, and I like to write about places I’ve been to,” explains Dell.The book follows the journey of Tom Wylde who lands a job at the mill as a 14-year-old. Tom’s life is on track - he has a job and is set to marry his childhood sweetheart Bella Oates - until his temper gets the better of him. Convicted of a serious crime and sentenced to prison in the colony of NSW, Tom tells Bella to forget him. When Tom arrives in Sydney he begins work for Governor Macquaries in Parramatta before landing a job at a textile factory in Botany. “He hasn’t heard from Bella,” says Dell. “And once he receives his ticket of leave and is a free man he allows himself to fall in love and marry another woman. But soon after a letter from Bella arrives. She is on her way to find him.” Married to one and betrothed to another, Tom’s life is turned upside down. Despite the crossroads he finds himself at, Tom manages to carve out a successful life harvesting timber as a free man in Port Macquarie. He applies for a land grant and is successful, his superiors telling him he is “an honest and hard working man” who has “helped Port Macquarie prosper”.  Tom is instrumental in the construction of Port Macquarie’s Anglican Church, selecting the cedar and other timbers for the Church’s pew boxes and pulpit. Wylde Oates, which won an award at the London Book Fair, has been praised for its attention to historical details, something Dell is meticulous about. The author says 20 years as a volunteer at the Kiama Family History Centre helped to hone her impeccable research skills and her love of history. “When I'm doing my research I always try to find original sources,” says Dell. “I find diaries, newspaper clippings and journals written at the time. First hand information is key to good research.”So it was fitting that the book was launched at one of Dell’s favourite haunts, Kiama Library. Dell is a passionate supporter of libraries, where she has launched each of her books. She frequently hosts writing talks at local libraries and was invited by Friends of Kiama Library to speak about her books, and the art of writing, at their Christmas function last year. Dell is always happy to share her expertise with those interested in learning more about the craft of writing and runs a regular writing group - The Fiction Writers Group - as part of the South Coast Writers Centre. “Every month we share excerpts from what we are writing and we give each other feedback on how we think our books are going,” says Dell. This edition The Bugle is giving away a copy of Wylde Oates to one lucky reader who can tell us the name of the old Anglican church in Port Macquarie that Tom helped to build.

The Kiama Readers’ Festival line-up features a who’s who of literary royalty; Jane Caro, Chris Hammer, Hugh Mackay, Michael Brissenden, Joanna Nell, Sue Williams, David Hardaker. The list of talent, both local and national, goes on. Organiser Perrie Croshaw admits her first foray into organising the Festival, as President of Friends of Kiama Library, was “a baptism by fire”. Thankfully Kiama is a community of book lovers and talented novelists, so when Croshaw and a dedicated team of committee members and community volunteers tapped into their networks they were able to curate a stellar line up of authors for the biennial event.Supported by Kiama Council, Destination Kiama and a plethora of local businesses and community members, the festival will launch on Friday, July 19 with a sold-out event at Burnetts on Barney. Guest speakers Fiona Weir, a cookbook author and owner of Gerringong’s Buena Vista Farm, Kirsten Bradley from Milkwood in Tasmania, and Victoria-based gardening guru Craig Castree will discuss permaculture, kitchen gardens, self-sufficiency and cooking from scratch during the morning session which kicks off the festival.“Anyone who got tickets to this is really lucky,” says Croshaw. “It sold-out so quickly. But there are many more amazing author talks to choose from, we've got something for everyone, with really talented writers coming down, and a bunch of local talent as well.” Fred Smith - songwriter, author and former diplomat - will officially launch the festival at Kiama Library on Friday night and punters can expect something “a little bit different”.“Rather than just an author getting up and doing a bit of a talk about their book, Fred will bring his guitar and tell his wonderful life story through song and a multimedia presentation,” explains Croshaw. “He will discuss his fabulous book, The Sparrows of Kabul, which has been shortlisted for the ACT Literary Awards. He will also talk about his travels around the world as a diplomat. That's going to be a really fabulous event and is being catered by Saltwater in Kiama.”Another special guest is social researcher Hugh Mackay, possibly doing his last author circuit before retirement. “But who knows because he’s addicted to research,” laughs Croshaw. Crime writers Chris Hammer and Michael Brissenden will discuss their most recent work, dubbed Cli-Fi, a term coined when crime fiction meets environmental and political corruption. It is a genre in which the former political journalists are well-schooled. They will be joined by Sydney Morning Herald book reviewer, author and crime fiction aficionado Professor Sue Turnbull, who will moderate the author discussion. The session is a partnership with BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival.  “Chris Hammer is always well supported when he comes to Kiama,” says Croshaw. “He has been a guest speaker at Kiama Library before, and was a hit with readers. We expect the same response this time around too.”Journalist David Hardaker, of Four Corners and 7.30 fame, will talk to former Illawarra Mercury editor Nick Hartgerink about politics, power and friends in high places. Karen Viggers, internationally bestselling author, vet and soccer mum will discuss her latest book Sidelines. And award-winning journalist and columnist Sue Williams will share insights into Run For Your Life, her book about a family who fled to the Australian outback to escape Putin’s Kremlin. “Some people might criticise me for asking too many journalists along, but they seem to be the people that are writing at the moment,” says Croshaw. “We're also really lucky to have non-fiction writer Andra Putnis discuss her debut novel, Stories my Grandmothers Didn’t Tell Me. The book is about her two Latvian grandmothers who lived through World War II and survived to immigrate to Australia. Sometimes you might think that you can't pick books like these up, because you know they're going to be sad. And yet, Andra’s book is so moving and beautifully written. I hope she goes on to write more.”Then there’s GP and author Joanna Nell, who has rewritten the narrative on ageing by featuring older characters who refuse to be defined by their years. “I have to admit, I’d never read any Joanna Nell books but when I did I just laughed myself silly,” says Croshaw. “I mean, it's a little bit close to home, because it's about a retirement village and I’m in my late 60s and staring down that barrel. But it was just so funny.”The festival will wrap up with a Gala dinner on Saturday night hosted by Walkley Award winning columnist, author, novelist and social commentator Jane Caro. “We are so excited to have Jane join the festival,” says Croshaw. “We know she will be very popular with the Kiama community.“We're definitely punching above our weight here in Kiama, with such a wealth of talented authors and avid readers. We have been really lucky to get the authors that we’ve lined up for this event. It's a very diverse lot and we did that deliberately to cater to everyone’s taste, but also to encourage people to step outside of their comfort zone and read something they might not have picked up otherwise.”A life-long book lover and former journalist, including for the Kiama Bugle, Perrie stepped into the role as president of Friends of Kiama Library late last year. “I thought I would just be doing four author events in 2024,” says Croshaw. “Then Michelle (Hudson) from Kiama Library said to me ‘oh, don't forget there’s the festival this year! Even though we're a small committee, we do have an awful lot of friends who've come along to help us with this venture. It has really been a community effort, with all the hard work from the committee and assorted volunteers who just love books. People in Kiama will really go the distance to read a good book and support writers. It's just wonderful to see so many people giving back to the community.”The book is definitely not dead, at least not in Kiama. Tickets to festival events are available at Kiama Readers' Festival 2024 Kiama Library (nsw.gov.au) 

“Old buildings whisper to us in the creaking of the floorboards and the rattling of the window panes.”Fennel HudsonA Meaningful Life – Fennel’s Journal No 1Old buildings have always fascinated me. The older and more dilapidated, the more intriguing. This one was no exception: a building that had stood tall and proud for over 150 years but now ached with the pain of old age. A crusty stone façade exposed the ravages of time and environmental degradation. Inside cracked floorboards scrambled invisible footprints of the many who had traversed them, playing a vital role in its rich varied history.I loved that old building. It was a fine example of what many new buildings lacked – character and history. It was soon to be gone forever however, a victim of the escalating push for urban renewal in the 21st century. I was on a mission to capture that character and record the history for everyone now and future generations to appreciate.I found a quiet spot, out of the potential path of the scores of pedestrians soon to hit the pavement. I erected my folding chair and placed my bag containing my sketch pad and pencils, a flask of coffee and a few snacks beside it. This building had been in my mind for a morning of sketching for some time but it was only hearing of its upcoming demise that I bumped it up to the top of my list.“Morning” a familiar voice greeted me from behind. It was Tom, a member of my urban sketch group who had lately joined my urban rescue missions.“You’re earlier than usual and very snugly clad for a cold morning I see,” I replied, commenting on his brightly coloured coat with matching beanie and mittens. “It’ll warm up soon,” I assured him.“So, what’s the story with this one?” “I’ve been able to get some old plans from the Council and information from the local historical society but it’s a little patchy.” I settled down in the chair, pulled my notepad from my bag and read out some of the information I had so far unearthed:It was built in 1849 by the Forward Steamship Company as a boarding house for seamen due to its close proximity to the working harbour. It soon became known as The Seafarers Lodge, described in the records as ‘a commodious dwelling house with spacious stores, replete with every convenience. Built from stone it had three floors and a 40 foot frontage on the street.’By the 1880s its casual residents also included sex workers, travellers with one floor operating as an opium den. During the early years of the 20th century it was bought and sold a number times with some renovations and improvements noted in the Council records. For a few years it housed a doctor’s surgery and manufacturing chemist. The Harbour Trust took it over in 1930 to lease out. It morphed into a boarding house for the last time during WW2, this time for the navy. During the 1980s it became a museum with extensive renovations begun but not completed due to the huge cost involved. It has been vacant since 2010, left to the elements (and a few rough-sleepers from time to time) while awaiting a decision about its future. Now the State Government is embarking on a number of projects that include this site to increase social housing in an attempt to tackle the housing affordability crisis in major cities. So, despite many protests over the last year or so, it is now earmarked for demolition: in the next few weeks to be precise.“There,” I quickly added, “another one bites the dust.”“So much for protests over these buildings,” Tom reminded me. “What about that one a month ago in Reid Street when we were nearly arrested,” he added as he settled into his chair getting his equipment organised for the morning of sketching. “Yep. That was a close call. It was only when the gallery confirmed why we were there they eventually let us go. We weren’t disrupting traffic; people were just curious and stopped to investigate. That’s why it's less problematic starting early like this.”   “So how are the plans for the exhibition going?”   “Great. Only one more then all they have to do is get them mounted and framed and finish writing up the histories to make them more interesting. Are you sure you don’t want to put some of yours in too?”I don’t think they are good enough.”“Well, they are, but it’s up to you.”It was gradually getting warmer and the light more intense. The city was beginning to awaken and come to life. When I arrived an hour or so earlier it was as if it had been holding its breath through the long cold night. In the distance I could hear the rattling of a couple of trains carrying the precious cargo of city workers and students from suburbs and surrounding towns into the central district for the day. Before long cafes down the street would be opening their doors, setting up tables for breakfast and preparing their coffee machines for takeaways.I glanced over at Tom, now with his mittens off, totally absorbed in his drawing. I looked down at my empty white page and remembering why we were there, pulled a charcoal pencil from my bag and began…

The debutThe old idiom ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ hit home for accomplished Gerroa author Lisa Darcy when her first book was published fifteen years ago.Lisa sheepishly admits she cried when she first saw the cover image of her long-awaited novel; and they were not tears of joy. The cover, emailed to her by her publisher, looked nothing like she imagined while squeezing thousands of hours of blood, sweat and tears onto the 384 pages of her debut, ‘Lucy Springer Gets Even’. “Then I got over myself,” laughs Lisa. “I thought ‘okay this is what the marketing and publicity department has decided, I’ll just run with it’. Gratitude soon kicked in after the initial shock and, when Lisa saw her novel for the first time in a bookshop, she thought ‘wow, this is fantastic, I am an author’.”That was back in January 2009 and Lisa’s debut novel was so successful, it was rebranded after her publisher admitted the original cover was a mistake. Sales spiked (with a new cover and title - ‘Lucy Bounces Back’) and the book was sold as a wrapped bundle alongside best-selling author Jodi Picoult. Lisa now has nine hit novels under her belt, yet she remains humble; self-deprecation is her default position. Perhaps because, like all good artists, the journey to becoming a published author was long, and not without rejection. Writing the Great Australian NovelIn a previous life Lisa was a journalist in Sydney, working for Australian Consolidated Press - Kerry Packer’s stable of magazines - on publications including ‘Bride To Be’ and ‘Practical Parenting.’ It was in 2000, after Lisa had just given birth to her daughter and had two sons aged two and four, that she decided to pursue every writer’s dream – create the Great Australian Novel. “I thought it would be the perfect time to quit my day job and write a book, I thought it would be easy, I was so naive!” laughs Lisa. The internet was fairly recent back then but there were plenty of tips on how to write a novel, so Lisa followed a formula, set out by the publisher of blockbuster ‘Mills & Boon’ novels, and wrote a 60,000-word bodice ripper set in Venice. She’d never been there but thought ‘hey, how hard can this be?’ After months of toil, she sent her manuscript to acquisitions teams in Vancouver, London and New York (Australia had none at that stage) and waited for the offers to come in.“God, I was so arrogant - it got soundly rejected. The feedback was something like ‘great first line all downhill from there’,” says Lisa, who can laugh about it now that she is a successful author. At the time, it was a definitive blow to her ego during an already tough time in her life. Three lessons learnedShe was a new mum, pumping out thousands of words each day, while also in the midst of breastfeeding and toilet training. Despite the rejection, Lisa got back on the proverbial horse - this time taking on the lessons she had learned - to be successful you need to write from the heart, about things you know, and for genres you love. “I had that naivety, to actually send it off and think that it would get a good reception,” admits Lisa. “But that initial manuscript was so clunky. I don't regret doing it. It showed me that I could actually write a story that stretched to manuscript length. I knew I could write, I knew I could put a story together and I knew I could complete a task. But what I had to do next was actually write about something I cared about.”“So I went away and looked at my bookshelves and the novels I loved reading. It was the 2000s, so books like ‘Bridget Jones’ Diary’ (Helen Fielding) and ‘Watermelon’ (Marian Keyes). Those books are all written in first-person, they’re conversational, the author is talking to me as their best friend, confiding in me. When I looked at that first manuscript, it was in a third person point of view, distant. I was telling a story, but I wasn't involved in the story, so it wasn't coming from the heart.”Lisa believes her latest novel - ‘The Pact’ - is one of her best, written from the heart about complex family relationships and the unbreakable bond between sisters. But it has been almost a decade in the making, and she had to fight hard to get it published.Not a sports book, but one about familiesRewind to 2015. By this stage Lisa had published five books with Allen & Unwin (“the covers got progressively better”) before deciding to take a break from writing. Her kids were navigating the tricky teenage years and Lisa was the quintessential mother of adolescents; unpaid Uber driver, accidental counselor and round-the-clock chef. Once she had survived “teaching kids to drive,” Lisa rediscovered her love for writing and returned with a self-published book which “sold three copies on Amazon.” Unhappy with the final version, Lisa pulled it from the platform but knew that ‘the skeleton’ for a great story was there. “I just needed the heart and the muscle,” she says. “I really wanted to take my time with it and either self-publish again or find a publisher who actually believed in it.”That book became her latest novel, ‘The Pact,’ a compassionate dissection of the love-hate relationship between two sisters, who lost their mother as teenagers. The book explores how this traumatic event impacted their lives, and loves as they climb their way up the ladder as doubles partners on the international tennis circuit. “Samantha and Annie are professional tennis players and while I’ve played social tennis; badly, I am by no means an expert on the subject,” says Lisa. “Publishers would say, ‘oh if it was cricket or swimming maybe … but not tennis. For me, it was never about writing a sports book, I wanted to write a book about sisters, families, mothers. Tennis was a good way to highlight sibling rivalry, but essentially, the book is about exploring the psychological impact of losing your mother at a young age, how this creates a fear of abandonment for Samantha and a need to be loved for Annie.”Lisa threw herself into research for the book, reading biographies by Ash Barty, Andre Agassi, the Williams sisters, Rafael Nadal, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert-Lloyd. But it is the human relationships and connections around her that she draws on for inspiration, admitting that her own relationship with her sister is the typical, love-hate, sibling rivalry archetype. But at the end of the day love wins out. “In most of my novels, but not this latest one, there's also the older mum, or grandmother, who is always based on my mother, but I don’t think she’s even read any of my books,” laughs Lisa. “And my kids have only just twigged to this, but for all their high school years I was forever just passing by their room when they had friends over, basically eavesdropping. I was absolutely stealing their conversations for material and I have no regrets!” “I don’t think my kids have read my books either, in my acknowledgments I always mention them. That was a little test to see if they came back to me. But I do know the boys have given copies to girlfriends, which they say they really enjoyed and laughed at, because they can see my sons in those stories. Without destroying any illusions, I think it's really important to talk about real life experiences, real relationships.” Becoming Lisa DarcyBack in the early noughties rural romance was ‘going gangbusters’ off the back of shows like McLeod’s Daughters. Lisa’s publishers reached out to her saying, ‘this is going to be the next big thing, can you write something like that?’ “I said ‘well, I’m a suburban mother, living in Sydney, yes I’ve seen a sheep and I’ve patted a cow but there’s no way I can do that’,” she chuckles. But what she could do was write coastal romance, with Gerringong the setting for her 2021 novel ‘Lily’s Little Flower Shop..“I’ve had a property in Gerroa for 25 years,” says Lisa. “I moved here permanently in 2021, when the kids had finished uni. I really should have written ‘Lily’s Little Flower Shop’ years earlier but when I finally started writing it, I knew I could do it justice because I know the fictional, but real, township I’m writing about.” The book has since been published in several languages, including French and Italian, and marked the beginning of Lisa’s success as a renowned international author when she signed with UK-based publisher Bloodhound Books in 2020. However, there was a catch. Her new publisher wanted to “completely rebrand” her. Lisa had always published her work under her maiden name, Heidke. By now Lisa knew the drill, publishers have the final say on covers, titles and even with authors’ names. “After I got over myself again, I thought okay I’m in charge here,” she says. She chose a name that she liked, one that resonated. Darcy was reminiscent of Jane Austen. Marketing research shows authors whose last names start with C or D do well in the line-up on bookshops shelves, explains Lisa. She wrote ‘Lily’s Little Flower Shop,’ ‘My Big Greek Holiday’ and ‘Should You Keep A Secret?’ under the pen name Lisa Darcy for Bloodhound Books.“Other than when I am talking to my friends and family and I’m Lisa Heidke, I became Lisa Darcy on all my new novels and socials,” she says.’ Lily’s Little Flower Shop’ has a special palace in her heart and is one of her most beloved novels. But ‘The Pact’ is the one she is most proud of. She fought hard to have it published on her terms.“This book has been so well-received by readers, and I’m really happy with the end result,” says Lisa. “And I love the cover!”

Over 100 Charmian Clift fans gathered at the Kiama Library on Saturday 1 June 2024, to hear Nadia Wheatley, discuss her new work “The End of the Morning”, the final and unfinished autobiographical novel by Charmian Clift. It is the book that Clift herself regarded as her most significant work. Although the author did not live to complete it, the typescript left among her papers was fully revised and stands alone as a novella. It is published alongside a new selection of Clift’s essays and an afterword from her biographer Nadia Wheatley.Wheatley is Clift's long-time advocate, and champion of both the work and the woman. She informs that Clift had produced this wonderful volume about a girl called Cressida Morley, who has appeared already in “My Brother Jack”. Kiama Library and Cultural Hubs Manager Michelle Hudson said, “The event sold out within a week and the community is always very supportive of all the Charmian Clift events we run.”When asked about the appetite for the new book Ms Hudson said, “Everyone was excited about this new book of essays and Nadia’s presentation explored Charmian’s Kiama through a series of old photos and readings from her essays.”“The main theme of the comments was that this new book will highlight Charmian’s writing again and hopefully many other readers will get enjoyment from her work.”There is both joy and sadness in reading Charmian Clift's unfinished novel, The End of the Morning, published some 55 years after her death. Clift writes, “In those days the end of the morning was always marked by the quarry whistle blowing the noon knock-off. Since everybody was out of bed very early, morning then was a long time, or even, if you came to think about it, a round time - symmetrical anyway, and contained under a thin, radiant, dome shaped cover...”Speaking about her character Cressida in The End of the Morning, Clift reveals, “I invented her first and her eccentric family who live in a weatherboard cottage on the edge of a beach. It is a book about young dreams and young longings and filled with sand and sea and sun and wind and seaweed draped on the front picket fence after a storm.”  And of course, we all know that front picket fence and weatherboard cottage are in Kiama - Clift’s hometown.During the years of the Great Depression, the Morley family were outsiders in their small working-class community. They rant and argue and read books and play music and never feel themselves to be poor. Yet as Cressida moves beyond childhood, she starts to outgrow the place that once seemed the centre of the world. As she plans her escape, the only question is: who will she become?Sydney writer, Fiona Wright, has said, “’The End of the Morning’ is full of feeling, animated by that formless, aching questioning of childhood, and a fascinating glimpse of the forces that shaped Clift as a person and a writer.” Peter Craven, Sydney Morning Herald journalist says, “Reading her, even a glimpsed paragraph of her, is like quaffing the finest champagne on earth.”Author Richard Cotter says, “'Forthright, funny and with an indefinable flair, Charmian Clift's writing plays second fiddle to nobody”.Charmian Clift was born in Kiama, on 31 August 1923. After serving as a lieutenant in the Australian Army, she joined the staff of the Melbourne Argus newspaper, and in 1947 married fellow journalist George Johnston. Clift wrote the memoirs ‘Mermaid Singing’ and ‘Peel Me A Lotus’, her two novels, ‘Honour’s Mimic’ and ‘Walk to the Paradise Gardens’, and, for several years, a popular weekly column that appeared in the Melbourne Herald and the Sydney Morning Herald. Charmian Clift died in 1969.Nadia Wheatley is the editor of ‘Sneaky Little Revolutions: Selected essays of Charmian Clift’, and author of ‘The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift’. Described by critic Peter Craven as ‘one of the greatest Australian biographies’, this was the Age Non-Fiction Book of the Year, 2001, and won the NSW Premier’s Australian History Prize (2002). After 20 years it remains the classic account of the life and work of this transformational Australian writer.

This review coughs up a rather a shameful confession: I may have regularly – albeit unknowingly – littered work emails and team meetings with cringy corporate jargon and proudly paraded an important-looking lanyard around my neck to give the ego a bit of a stroke – particularly in younger years.  Thanks to the hilarious guys from Wankernomics – As Per My Last Email, James Schloeffel (The Shovel) and Charles Firth (The Chaser), I can now recognise this faux pas and ‘drill down’ on my journey to recovery – and have a hard-earnt laugh at my own expense!  However, I’m not alone embarking on this revelation. Approximately 730 corporate comrades filled almost every seat at Wollongong Town Hall to watch Schloeffel and Firth’s latest rendition of this side-splitting satire unfold on Friday, 3 May.  No doubt, this ‘workshop’ triggered flashbacks of long-winded meetings in which no parties are particularly clear on either purpose or outcomes, colleagues awkwardly passing the buck when put on the spot, recollections of many emails kicked off with a token (but no doubt often well-intentioned), ‘I hope this finds you well’, and copying in countless unnecessary people to make a point. Not to mention the impressive lingo on LinkedIn profiles and mission statements that quite literally could have been plucked out at random using a prize wheel, as Schloeffel and Firth demonstrated that evening with a brave patron who revelled in a crash course on everything she needed to know to ‘upskill’ for success. Hilariously, the random end result spat out by a few prompts and spins of the prize wheel quite likely reflected mission statements outlined by many modern organisations.  Enthusiastically tossing mentos to the audience, who had cooperatively ‘accepted the invite’ to the workshop, these guys presented the most refreshingly light-hearted lesson on ‘how to outmanoeuvre your colleagues with nothing more than an obnoxious LinkedIn profile, a passive aggressive email, and the phrase circle back. In a world where we often take ourselves and corporate lives too seriously, this presented the perfect reminder to laugh and lighten the tone.  And then … Wankernomics sent my over-analytical brain into overdrive, that led me way down into a deep rabbit hole – pondering how all of this corporate poetry per se happened to come about. And so, the ‘googling’ about the evolution of office jargon began. One write-up on TeamBonding claimed that office jargon came to the fore in the 1950s with the goal of office cohesion. It was around this time that three Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors, Douglas McGregor, Edgar Shein and Richard Beckhard, developed the field of organisational development, which saw buzzwords bulldoze through workplaces at lightning speed.  However, as demonstrated in Wankernomics, this evolution of talking in office tongue – often containing components unique to certain industries – commonly causes mass miscommunication. [1]  Given Firth in fact joked about using my emails as material for the show (although, that could disgracefully be legitimate!), I suppose it is only apt to sign off with a ‘kind regards’ or ‘best’, and then ‘loop in’ my network for a spot of team bonding to catch them again when they return to Wollongong Town Hall in December for War on 2024. In the meantime, head to www.wankernomics.com for witty tips and tricks about how to nail your professional persona!

It was the most unusual and intriguing music box I had ever laid eyes on, and I had seen quite a few in my twenty-five years as an antiques and curios dealer. Atop an exquisitely carved wooden box encasing the mechanism that produced the sound, sat an exquisitely crafted wooden clown with a rather deadly smirk on its face, clothed in a brightly coloured costume adorned with gold braid trimmings. It appeared to work by winding a handle on the side to make it play a whimsical tune with bells. I was allowed to try it but the tune was nothing I recognised. The moment I saw it in the auction room I knew I had to have it.     Despite being over a hundred years old, according to the listing in the auction catalogue, it was in excellent condition and the mechanism still worked. Its provenance was a little sketchy though – probably French but there was little else to provide clues to its origins. Provenance is important when dealing with antiques and curios so I approached the auctioneer to see if he had any more information     “It came from a deceased estate,” he began. “The name of the last owners was Carlyle. Such a tragedy,” he added. “I’ll provide you with the estate administrators' contact details, if you like.”    “Thanks, that would be great,” I replied, curious to know more. I was determined to buy it anyway. With little provenance, the price was going to be affordable I suspected.     The bidding went smoothly, and as there were only a couple of less enthusiastic bidders, I was soon heading back to the shop with my new treasure and a few other interesting bits and pieces.     There was really only one spot in the shop for my music box - in the middle of the front window display. I didn’t put a price on it. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure I wanted to sell it anyway but being in the window it was sure to capture the attention of passersby, who hopefully, would come inside and become customers.      “Oh, that was a real tragedy,” the estate administrator began when I contacted him the next day. “The entire family died in a disastrous house fire. Two very young children were deprived of a future and they were only just back from their trip of a lifetime to Europe. Such a waste.”     “Well, it’s actually the music box I bought at the auction and added to my collection that I am interested in. Do you know anything about it?” I asked, trying not to sound too disinterested in the awful circumstances by which I had acquired it. I vaguely remembered something in the news about a house fire recently but gave it no more thought.     “Oh, that creepy thing,” he replied, “One of the few items that survived the fire, heaven knows how. Sorry, I don’t know much about the music box except that I think they probably brought back from their trip.”     The music box was definitely creepy as he said but I was used to unusual things and had always been attracted to items that might be described as different, especially anything macabre. At times I did feel the strange clown’s eyes following me around the shop. The little bells he held in his hands would ring when someone entered the shop. As it turned out, rather than being annoying, the ringing of the bells was quite useful as it alerted me while I was busy online researching French music boxes to get some clues to their origin and history. I had already thoroughly inspected every bit of the box inside and out, looking for a makers’ mark or date to no avail.     As I was now quite certain that it had French origins, I started to search for information on music box makers around the time the auctioneer had suggested. It was then I came across an article in a French newspaper dated around 10 years ago. Although my French is a bit limited, I did manage to get the gist of it. It was a mysterious fire where a house burned down killing all its occupants. Only a strange music box survived the inferno. The photo attached to the article was a bit fuzzy but I could make out the silhouette of the music box and the distinctive clown. It had to be it! I instantly printed it out and arranged to take it to a friend, who was more fluent in the language and had connections in the antique market in France.       I am not sure if it was the smell of the smoke or the fire engine sirens that woke me abruptly from a deep sleep that night. Regardless, I was quickly out the window, carefully navigating my way down the rickety fire stairs in the dark. Thank heavens the old building that housed my shop and living quarters above it still had one, although it was in desperate need of repair.     Soon I was standing in the street wrapped in a blanket along with many of my neighbours, watching everything that mattered to me… the shop and all its wonderful antiques and curios, burn to the ground.     The source of the fire is still under investigation. An electrical fault, they suspect as the building was quite old and had not been maintained well enough, I was told by experts. But I had another idea that would have been too weird to share and no one would have believed me anyway. True to the history I had been discovering about it, once again, the music box was the only item in the shop that survived.     I often wonder why it spared me but I'll never know because as much as I still loved it, the music box went straight back to the auction house the very next day.

Acclaimed author Dr Dell Brand started writing books, “by accident”. The former high school PE teacher was looking for a new challenge when her husband John found an advertisement for a freelance journalism course. Dell signed up, and before even finishing the course, landed her first freelance job; a travel piece in the Illawarra Mercury in 1999.“It gave me a new passion,” says Dell, an avid adventurer who wrote about her biking, camping and caravanning holidays (including snow and cave camping) across Australia, Europe and the United States with her husband John.On one of these adventures, Dell and John stumbled across a potter in Pilliga, a town west of Narrabri. Dell wrote a travel piece that changed the course of her career. The steepest learning curve“I said to John, ‘Who am I going to send this story to? So, we scanned the magazine racks in the local Pilliga newsagent and found the Australian Ceramics and Pottery magazine. They published it and wanted more stories.”Over the next five years, Dell, who has three university degrees in education, including a PhD based on a longitudinal study into the impact of outdoor education on learning outcomes, wrote hundreds of pieces about pottery. To say, she stepped outside of her comfort zone is an understatement.“It was a topic I knew nothing about,” she says. “It was the steepest learning curve, but what I was writing wasn’t technical, it was human interest.”Curiosity and an interest in people, along with a love of reading and writing, led Dell on her next big adventure; an author of historical fiction. She was still teaching at Warilla High School but began future planning for her retirement in 2003.Why not write a book?“I realised pretty quickly that this new job as a freelance writer wasn't going to be a money maker,” laughs Dell. “But it was something I was passionate about and I wanted to pursue it. One day my daughter said to me ‘you’re always complaining about kids coming into Year 7 and not wanting to read books, why don’t you write one. So I did.”Her first novel, a children's book called History’s a Mystery, published in 2002. The book was an “amazing success,” and won praise from the Children’s Book Council of Australia.  Dell began visiting schools and talking to students about the book and “found out very quickly that kids like a series.” “There was never going to be a next one,” laughs Dell. “I had used up all my good ideas in this first one. So I started asking the kids what they wanted and they came up with the most amazing ideas for the next three books.”Call for illustrations  From chapters on topics as wide-ranging as Simpson’s Donkey to Jesus, Dell’s books covered all aspects of history, and her loyal readers loved it. The author even put the call out to students to submit illustrations, which are featured in her books.“The number one mistake I made with the first book was not including pictures,” she says. “I wrote the book for reluctant readers, and what does a reluctant reader like? Illustrations.” Dell reached out to her number one fans while doing speaking engagements at schools and asked them to send in their drawings for the next books in the series. “I said to them ‘you’re not going to get paid, but if you want to get your name in print send me your illustrations.’ The kids really loved being a part of the process and all four books in the History is a Mystery series feature their work.”Fast forward a few decades and the former Kiama resident (she now lives on a property in Calderwood) has 13 books under her belt, and is in the midst of writing number 14. Her most recent published work, Wylde Oates, won the General Fiction prize at the London Book Fair. Wylde OatesIt is also the pick of the month for the book club she runs in Kiama. The book begins in Lanark Mill, a cotton factory in Scotland, and follows the journey of a young man who is sentenced to prison in NSW.“John and I visited the mill when we were in Scotland, and I like to write about places I’ve been to,” explains Dell. “That’s why I’m finding this new book difficult to write. I need to get over there.”The “over there” Dell is referring to is Western Australia, specifically the south-western town of Busselton, where her new novel is set.Dell and John were forced to put their travel on hold when John was diagnosed with a brain tumour, just about a year ago. His decline was fast, less than 10 months, and Dell was by his side every painful step of the way.“Everything ground to a halt, first with COVID and then with John’s illness,” explains Dell.“I’m just getting back on the horse.”Write, explore and connectThe horse she is referring to is travel, a life-long passion she and John shared. Now she is adjusting to doing it without her soulmate. Dell has bought herself a new car and small caravan, and along with her best mate, her dog Max, she will get back to writing, exploring and creating connections.“I’m hoping to get on with life on my own, and to travel just like John and I did,” she says, blinking back tears. “Max will be my companion on the road. It’s lonely without John, but I’m very fortunate to have family nearby.” She points out the window of her Calderwood property to her daughter’s house on the hill.Dell is also looking forward to reconnecting with her caravanning family, travellers from around Australia and the world who have been her biggest supporters.“People come up with the most amazing stories, based on things they have experienced or people they know and when I’m travelling and going around to caravan parks there’s always someone happy to have a chat,” she says. Her caravanning familyFellow caravanners are also Dell’s biggest fans, and during her decades on the road she has sold hundreds of her books to other travellers. Despite her success as an author, almost all her novels have won or been shortlisted for prestigious national and international awards, Dell has been unable to find a mainstream publisher in Australia willing to market and sell her books. “It’s really frustrating,” she says. “There are only a few publishing houses in Australia that will even consider historical novels.” Dell will continue to self-promote and sell her books when she hits the road again later this year to research her upcoming novel. When asked to choose her favourite book, Dell says that would be akin to choosing a favourite grandchild (she has five).“John’s favourite was The Weif, set in Tasmania and South Australia,” says Dell. “Botany Boys is loosely based on John’s great Uncle, the first soldier from Botany to die in WWI. He loved that one too.”When pressed to pick, Dell settles on Darwin, a book which has a special place in her heart. “Before I lost John, we would travel to Darwin every year and stay up there for four months,” she says. “I would write and John would fish. I think this is a fantastic book, set between WWI and Cyclone Tracy, and the impact of those years on the people of the Top End.”The hardest book to writeThe hardest book she has ever written is Stina, based on the life of her great-grandmother Christina. Dell spent years painstakingly poring over newspapers and diary entries to piece together Christina’s journey from Sweden to Australia when she was 14 and her family’s subsequent story.“She had the most horrendous life,” says Dell. “She married at 16, had four children by 21. Then her husband died and she had no income, no support and four babies. It was a very hard book to write, I knew a lot about her but I had to fill in the gaps with best guesses.” Key to good researchDell credits her time as a volunteer at the Kiama Family History Centre for more than 20 years (she and John lived near Jones Beach for three decades after they were married) for her impeccable research skills and her love of history. She began volunteering there while researching her own family’s background. “When I'm doing my research, I always try to find original sources,” says Dell. “When I was writing about the gold rush in Cry to the Wind, I used diaries, newspaper clippings and journals written at the time. First-hand information is the key to good research and accurate writing of history.”As is a lived experience, and Dell is itching to get back on the road. She knows it will be bittersweet without her beloved husband by her side. She also knows John would want her to get back to doing the thing they loved best, adventuring.For more information, or to purchase Dell’s books visit: www.authordellbrand.com.au  

Kiama is gearing up to host book lovers and literary enthusiasts from far and away for the Kiama Readers’ Festival over the weekend of 19-20 July. This year, the festival promises two jam-packed days of literary discussion, insightful author talks, and the opportunity to mingle with like-minded individuals who share a passion for the written word. The festival has been organised by the volunteer group Friends of Kiama Library, which supports the Kiama public library service and the local community. They have done it spectacularly by creating a stimulating and enjoyable program for members and the local area alike.Day one of the program focuses on food and literature, welcoming authors such as Fiona Weir of Buena Vista farms, Kirsten Bradley and Craig Castree. The evening sees Fred Smith deliver a performance and discussion called “The Dust of Uruzgan,” at Kiama Library. Day two features appearances by renowned authors Hugh Mackay, Sue Williams, Chris Hammer and others. For the final session, Chris Hammer and Michael Brissenden will discuss Australian crime writing. The festival will conclude with dinner at the Kiama Leagues Club where attendees can join writer and social commentator Jane Caro, who will be the guest speaker. For those eager to spend a weekend enjoying reading and writing delights, visit the Kiama Library website: for tickets and the full program.Keep an eye out in The Bugle for exciting updates leading up to the festival!

What does the world look like from the perspective of a creek? What do human behaviours look like through the eyes of cockatoos?The Sutherland Shire Environment Centre’s 2024 RD Walshe Memorial Writing for the Environment Competition is now open.This year’s topic is Through the eyes of Nature, inviting writers to tell a story from an alternative perspective - to write as if looking at the world through the eyes of nature. The writing must, consider elements related to the environment and broader sustainability concepts.“We forget, sometimes, that we are but one species amongst millions,” said Ian Hill, Chair of SSEC. “This year, we’d like writers to select some non-human element of nature and write from that perspective.”Some examples that writers can choose could be a waterfall or a cold, crisp morning in the desert, dolphins in the surf, and so on.“We are keen to hear about our world, our environment, our actions for sustainability from non-human eyes,” says Ian.Participation is free, and there are three age categories – Under 19, 19-26 years, and Over 60 – with cash prizes of $500 for the winner of each category. Runners-up will also receive a cash prize.The Sutherland Shire Writers Group also offers an additional prize of $100 for a junior writer, the “Pat Strong Award for a Young Writer”, which honours one of the Group’s foundation members.More details for the competition and submission can be found here Details about the competition and how to submit your entries can be found here. Entries close on Friday, 28 June 2024.

Kiama is blessed with a multitude of accomplished authors. Among the list, Trish Griffin, a two time non fiction published author with two more books on the way, finds inspiration writing the stories of people she meets on her travels. She grew up on a large cattle station 180 kilometres north west of Longreach in the fifties. Reminiscing on days spent barefoot, riding horses 24/7, and mastering the art of driving at a young age. "I had my own gun since I was 8 years old, we all did," she shares, on the unique realities of her upbringing. The freedom and tranquillity of her childhood inspired her to explore the world.Her second published book, “Dancing on the Head of a Pin”, was met with rave reviews. It chronicles her journey along the Camino from Barcelona to Santiago, covering a staggering 1300 kilometres in 2012. Her writing only flows when she's deeply inspired, and the individuals she encounters during her journeys serve as the perfect muse.I had the privilege of discussing Trish's current work in progress, a book focusing on post-war immigration in the Snowy Mountains region. She spent time there with locals and again inspiration hit when listening to their stories. Trish is committed to presenting these narratives without any agenda or political bias, allowing the truth to shine through organically. Keep an eye out for updates on her upcoming book release on the Bugle app.Trish gave her advice for those who want to travel in the same way she does, getting involved in the community and immersing herself in the culture. She discourages organised tours like Contiki and volunteer organisations, preferring instead to engage in independent volunteering to truly experience local culture firsthand and witness the direct impact of her efforts. Despite acknowledging the discomfort and fears associated with solo travel, she believes the rewards are boundless, stating, "It's a scary edge, but that's where all the good stuff happens - you learn things you don't learn in school."Trish's approach to travel involves landing in a new place, taking a taxi or bus to find budget accommodations, and relying on locals for insider tips on navigating the area. She describes this style of travel as being "on the edge," where one can gain invaluable experiences and insights that go beyond typical tourist experiences.Trish brings a wealth of incredible stories from her global adventures, and we're delighted to welcome her as a new columnist. Look out for her name on the byline, and stay tuned to Bugle News for updates on her upcoming releases.

In a heartfelt tribute to one of Australia's most revered writers, Charmian Clift, Kiama unveiled a blue plaque at the Kiama Library on Saturday 13 April. Attended by dignitaries, relatives and local historians the event was opened by Mayor Neil Reilly with a welcome to country by Councillor Stuart Larkins. This commemoration stands as a testament to Clift's enduring impact on literature and culture, a legacy cherished by generations.Born in Kiama in 1923, Charmian Clift's journey into the world of words began at a tender age, her pen weaving tales of her beloved hometown's wonders, such as the famous blowhole, even as a child. Her passion for writing flourished, leading her to Sydney where she ventured into journalism, eventually joining the Australian Women’s Army Service during World War II.Dr Sarah Kaine MLC with Dr Graham Tucker in KiamaClift's life took a significant turn when she met George Johnston, a renowned war correspondent, sparking a passionate yet tumultuous love affair. Despite the challenges they faced, their journey together led them to Greece, where the idyllic landscapes of Kalymnos and Hydra became the backdrop for Clift's literary masterpieces. Works like "Mermaid Singing" and "Peel Me a Lotus" echoed her experiences in Greece, captivating readers with their autobiographical essence.In 1960, Clift penned her solo novel, "Walk to the Paradise Gardens," drawing inspiration from her roots in Kiama. Her subsequent works, including "Honour’s Mimic" and the recently published "The End of the Morning," reflected her profound reflections on life, love, and society.Sue Eggins, President of the Kiama District Historical Society was the principal proponent of the submission and all the follow up required to achieve this great milestone. Her enthusiasm, effort and persistence ensured the plaque stood as a testament to Charmian's legacy. Her work is greatly appreciated by the historical society and the Kiama community.

By Jenny EnglandI took my sparkling mineral water and a bowl of deep-fried locust wings from the bar and rejoined Bailey in the quiet Beer Garden, remembering how it once used to buzz with chatter, laughter and music. It was one of my favourite outings: a brief catch-up with my gorgeous grandson.“This is my last one here this month,” I said as I sat down. “I’m now out of ration coupons.”“Me too,” he replied, holding up his half-finished glass of beer.I offered him some locust wings. He shook his head.“I know,” I began, “they are an acquired taste, definitely not the same as a bowl of peanuts or a packet of potato chips.”It was hard getting used to the only foods that were available since The Dry began to wipe out most of our agriculture. Thank heavens there were some local far-thinking farmers who began to substitute their traditional crops of fruit and vegetables and livestock to more drought-resistant varieties.“I’m still angry with the government for what they let happen to our food supply,” Bailey began to rant. “They should have done much more, much earlier. There were plenty of warning signs of the potential devastating effects of Climate Change many years before The Dry.”I took a few sips of the refreshing mineral water and nodded in agreement. Despite the efforts of the far-thinking farmers, any kind of meat, even from those we once thought of as vermin. The diminishing stocks of feral camel and goat were difficult to obtain and oceanic fish supplies were getting desperately low. It was the same for most fruit and vegetables and other, once stable, crops.“How’s the job hunting?” I quizzed him, changing the subject, as any discussion these days concerning climate change could become quite intense even between friends and family.“Slow,” he replied. “There isn’t much demand for landscape gardeners these days. It was the only thing I ever wanted to do.”“I’ve heard the Desalination Plant is recruiting again as they expand to meet the never-ending demand for clean drinkable water. The shifts are long but they pay well and you get extra water vouchers,” I suggested in an effort to be supportive.“I’ll look into it,” Bailey replied, but he sounded and looked despondent. “Hold on,” he suddenly added. “It's time for tomorrow’s weather report. I’ll get it on my phone and turn it to speaker so we can both hear it.”It soon began:The Regional Weather Report for Wednesday 20th October 2032. It will be a sunny, hot, dry day with temperatures ranging from 35 degrees to 28 degrees during the day, dropping to 26 degrees overnight. Moderate winds are expected. Precipitation will be extremely low with a 2% chance of rain.We both sat quietly for a few minutes only to be interrupted by Brad, the Hotel Owner.“Are you two nearly finished,” he began politely. “I am closing early as you can see there are very few customers here today. If it wasn’t for the small subsidies I get from the government, I would have closed the hotel down by now as most of the others in the region have been forced to.”“Yes,” Bailey replied. We both watched in silence as he proceeded over to the other few patrons there that evening.“Well, I’d better get going then,” I said, breaking the silence. “Pa expects me home by 7pm.”“Yep, me too. I’ve got heaps of stuff to do tonight besides checking job vacancies.”We picked up our now empty glasses and the bowl with a few locust wings left in it and dutifully placed them on the bar on our way out to the car-park. It was still hot but we were used to that. Bailey headed over to his battered old car.As he only had a short distance to drive and hadn’t had much to drink he was fine to go. He was still able to use his car occasionally when he could get fuel but it was beyond his means to afford to convert it to electric. I made my way to the bicycle rack and released my electric tricycle from its lock, but with so few people around it probably didn’t need to be secured.“One positive in all this,” I called over to Bailey. “At least the roads are much safer for cyclists like me without as much traffic as there used to be.”“Trust you to think of something positive about The Dry,” he called back as he jumped in the driver's seat of his car. “Love you, Gran!”“Love you too, Bails!”It was hard for us oldies to get through these difficult dry dusty days, but so much harder for the young.

By Prof. Paul Genoni, Curtin UniversityCharmian Clift fans will be excited to learn that The End of the Morning, a previously unpublished autobiographical work by Charmian Clift, has been edited by Nadia Wheatley and will be published in May, and that Nadia will be returning to Kiama Library on Saturday 1 June to discuss this new work.Clift described her work: “The End of the Morning is about a girl called Cressida Morley, who has appeared already in My Brother Jack, but I invented her first and her eccentric family who live in a weatherboard cottage on the edge of a beach. It is a book about young dreams and young longings and filled with sand and sea and sun and wind and seaweed draped on the front picket fence after a storm.”Of course, that front picket fence and weatherboard cottage are in Clift’s hometown, Kiama.This is a Friends of Kiama Library and Kiama & District Historical Society joint event.Please join us for afternoon tea after the talk, when books will be available for purchase and signing.Please note, the Pilots Cottage Museum will have free entry on the 1st and 2nd of June so that people can enjoy the Charmian Clift exhibition after the Nadia Wheatley event at the library.Tickets for Members of the Friends of Kiama Library and the Kiama & District Historical Society will cost $8. Guests $10. All are welcome. Tickets go on sale 1 May and will be available at the library, online, or call 02 4233 1133.The publication of The End of the Morning is a long-awaited moment in Australian literature.Readers familiar with Charmian Clift will be aware this book’s protagonist, Cressida Morley, is the writer’s alter-ego. Morley was to have been the vehicle for Clift’s self-representation in an autobiographical novel she was working on for some years prior to her death in 1969.The End of the Morning marks the arrival of Morley, as seen through her own eyes and represented in her own words.Clift’s suicide has been explained, in part, as the result of her inability to make progress on the novel that was to bring Morley to life. It was to be the tale of a Kiama beach girl whose lust for life takes her to Wollongong, Sydney, London, the Greek islands … and back to Sydney.Protracted gestationIf Clift had completed The End of the Morning, it would not have been the first time readers had encountered Cressida Morley. She was a character who emerged, after a protracted gestation, through the novels of Clift’s husband, George Johnston.Cressida was arguably first glimpsed as Charmian Anthony in the opening pages of Johnston’s Death Takes Small Bites (1948). The novel’s journalist-hero Cavendish C. Cavendish encounters Charmian adrift on the Burma Road. He is immediately taken by her lips “as pink as Danish salmon”, her eyes with the “same tint as glacier ice”, and a figure that is “slim and tight and stiff like a bullrush”.When Cavendish asks what “a girl like you” is doing in remote China, Charmian responds: “Do I look like a missionary?” Cavendish realises he is “a little out of his depth”.Johnston subsequently enlisted Clift as co-author on novels that drew on his wartime experiences in Asia, while inching forward with a series of sole-authored, increasingly autobiographical novels that invariably featured a Charmian doppelganger at the hero’s side.In Closer to the Sun (1960), he presented for the first time David Meredith, his own alter-ego, with whom he is now forever associated. Meredith and his wife Kate battle to keep their fragile Greek island expatriation afloat.Several years later, Johnston completed My Brother Jack (1964) – the first novel of his renowned “Meredith trilogy”. He called on Clift’s help, interrupting her attempts to use Cressida Morley to breathe life into her own roman à clef. When the dust settled on the wildly successful My Brother Jack, Meredith’s wife-to-be had transformed into Cressida Morley.Stripped of her essenceAt this point the famously close, complex and fractious relationship between Clift and Johnston became even more troubled. The depth of Clift’s creative crisis is artfully canvased by her biographer and editor Nadia Wheatley in an Afterword to The End of the Morning.According to Wheatley, once Johnston had snatched Cressida Morley, Clift’s progress on her own Cressida novel was all but stilled.Adding to the sting, the Cressida Morley who appeared in My Brother Jack and its sequel, Clean Straw for Nothing (1969), was stripped of her essence. She was deprived of Clift’s overriding passion: her vocation as a writer.This complex dynamic between authors and characters was brilliantly reimagined in Susan Johnson’s novel The Broken Book (2004), which opens with a National Library of Australia catalogue entry for the manuscript of an incomplete autobiographical novel by a deceased writer named Katherine Elgin.The novel proper begins with Elgin struggling with the knowledge that the world knows her as Cressida Morley, the “breath, muscle, gut” creation of her husband, novelist David Murray. She is unable to complete her own version of Morley, declaring that “my Cressida has died upon the page”. This literary death becomes a prelude to Elgin taking her own life.The incomplete novel Johnson called “The Broken Book” has emerged as The End of the Morning. True to her account, it has been lying dormant in the National Library for nearly four decades.Edited by Wheatley, it is presented as a complete novella. Clift’s seven years of sporadic work has resulted in 20,000 words describing the childhood of Cressida Morley.Essence of the commonplaceThe positives in The End of the Morning are immense. It is definitely more than a curiosity. Readers familiar with Clift’s travel memoirs and essays will find that it bears the hallmarks of her finest work. She writes with customary authority and brilliance. She has a keen ear for a well-crafted phrase. Intimacy, lyricism and expressiveness abound. The writing is taut, yet seems effortlessly paced.Also on show is Clift’s characteristic trait of rendering the familiar and the mundane in a manner that makes them feel like exotic discoveries – an important skill when narrating both the generational and individual memories of childhood.Clift has long excelled at evoking the nostalgic essence of the commonplace, as highlighted by the carefully rendered lists that dot her essays and induce instant recognition and empathy (items on a shelf; tastes of a summer picnic; things seen from a window). Has anyone ever written better lists than Clift?An early manuscript of the End of the Morning. Author providedSimilarly, few have better expressed the sybaritic alliance between sand, surf and sun found on the Australian beach that is essential to so many childhood memories. Whether in Australia or Greece, ocean swimming is a subject that always quickens Clift’s prose. The End of the Morning is propelled by the pulse of the surf throbbing beneath Cressida’s recall of home and the green valley and rail line and the quarry and the town of Lebanon Bay (Kiama) that lies beyond.Clift’s characterisation is also incisive. The Morley family dynamics are convincingly sketched. Cressida’s love of her parents is generous. She knows their strengths and weaknesses. She embraces their idiosyncracies and is acutely aware of their social status as middle-class “oddities” in a working class town.Clift also makes absolute sense of Cressida’s relationship with her older siblings Cordelia and Ben. It is a memorable childhood menage that is deeply affectionate and sometimes competitive. Cressida is constantly overshadowed by Cordelia’s beauty and first-child aspirations.Unresolved mattersClift’s fiction has attracted less attention from readers and scholars than the rest of her body of work. Her two sole-authored novels, Walk to the Paradise Gardens (1960) and Honours Mimic (1964), leave open the question of whether she was, potentially, a novelist of significance. The former is chronically uneven in tone; the latter is a confused romantic drama, a decade out of step with the tastes of the readers she craved.By this measure, The End of the Morning is Clift’s most successful piece of fiction. Its shortcoming is that it is only a piece, and one that leaves two matters unresolved.Firstly, there is the question of whether, in this form, The End of the Morning amounts to fiction. The distance between fiction and memoir can be short. If this book had been published with “Cressida” replaced by “Charmian” and other names similarly reverted, it would be read as memoir, so closely does it adhere to the known facts of Clift’s life.Secondly, with the above in mind, it is worth noting that there is more of The End of the Morning available than these 20,000 words. As Wheatley notes in her Afterword, there are other versions of the novel in the National Library.Wheatley has used her editorial discretion and selected what she calculates to be the latest draft, which overlaps to a considerable degree with an earlier draft that is longer by approximately 10,000 words.The attraction of the shorter version is it is more polished and concludes at a very specific narrative point. Cressida and Cordelia are poised for big changes in their lives: Cressida wins a scholarship to undertake her secondary schooling in nearby Wollongong; Cordelia departs for a Sydney technical college to pursue her love of art.More like fictionBut the section that follows in the earlier draft, not included in this published version, takes Cressida’s story in crucial new directions. The transition between the two is marked by the embarrassing arrival of puberty. It is accompanied by a new group of older friends, the first fumblings of adolescent sex, some academic progress tainted by failure, and the threshold realisation her future lies beyond Lebanon Bay.Also excluded is a telling and, with hindsight, poignant sequence that reveals the dangers in Cressida’s future might be found in the most familiar places. When she rescues a handsome stranger in city clothes after he wanders without caution into the local surf, the reader discerns the life saved is a suicide prevented.The beach at Kiama. Martha Almeyda/ShutterstockIn these unpublished sections, the manuscript begins to read less like memoir and more like fiction. Where the earlier sections rely on Cressida’s rendering of character and place, here the narrative gives way to something more imaginative. The plot is underpinned by motivation and will.And from this emerges the Cressida now associated with Charmian: the young woman enchanted by the “whiff of the world, the promise of something wilder and bolder and grander”, who “knew the town was too small to hold me.”The longer draft does not reach the point where Cressida imagines her future as a writer, but it does bring readers closer to a life that traced such an unlikely and durable arc. Without that section – even, perhaps, as an addendum – this welcome, wonderful, but truncated version of The End of the Morning feels like another slightly broken book.