Ooooh! Look what was just delivered to my place - a beautiful new edition of Elizabeth Macarthur. Just quietly, I think I like this cover better. I fear the previous one was in danger of being dismissed as 'a woman's book'. That's not a joke. I took my daughter into a bookshop recently, one of a large commercial chain. In an effort to embarrass her even more than usual, I took her hunting for a copy of my book. There it was on the Biography shelf. Nice. Then we went [...]
Interviews tomorrow with three different radio stations: listen in after 4pm to Radio Northern Beaches (Sydney); after 4:45pm to ABC Broken Hill; or after 5:45 (WA time) to ABC Drive WA. Am also speaking on Thursday morning with Wendy Harmer (yes, Wendy Harmer!!!!) - listen in after 9:00am to the ABC Sydney morning show. And on Friday it's one more interview, with ABC Bendigo (Central Victoria). Listen in after 10:30. If you're really keen, you can also listen online to last week's interviews: 2ser Sydney Breakfast Show. Fast forward to 1.04.10 [...]
Publication Day is Monday 2 April, although I'm not sure what it actually means, because nothing actually happens on the day. Some bookshops already have Elizabeth Macarthur on their shelves, others will no doubt get it in over the next few weeks. The launch party, a private function for friends and family, will be held a week or so later. My lovely publicist has lined up lots of talks and radio interviews for me but none are scheduled for Monday. Well, one was, with Wendy Harmer on the ABC Sydney [...]
I took the opportunity, late last year, to visit Elizabeth Macarthur’s grave. The Macarthur family graveyard is on a quiet hill, about a mile away from and opposite the family home at Camden Park House (about 70kms south west of the Sydney CBD). Elizabeth’s son William, passionate about botany, planted the site with exotic palms, which no doubt quickly grew tall enough to be seen from the house, but most of the site is now sheltered by native trees. In all my years of researching, I never did find a [...]
For release in April 2018. I know - too soon and not nearly soon enough! And yes, the farm in the painting is Elizabeth Farm, where Elizabeth Macarthur lived for most of her life. For more info see The Text Publishing 2018 catalogue (page 28).
Her name is Winter. She's a Scottish Deerhound. Yes, she's very tall. Saves bending over to give her pats - she's already at just the right height. One day a week. That's all I have for my own writing. And when I say 'day' I don't mean a whole day, I mean a school day, between about 9:30 and 3:00pm. Also minus the school holidays. And minus time spent hanging out the washing, catching up on my day job, making cups of tea and procrastinating by playing Tetris. [...]
With apologies to those who already know, via Facebook and Twitter - I sent the draft manuscript to my editor at Text Publishing late last week. Very happy. Subsequently spent a relaxing weekend in the garden, and celebrating Mother's Day with my gorgeous kids. No deadlines, no pressure - bliss. Next steps? The editor edits the manuscript, sends it back covered in comments and I go back to working on it. And in the meantime I keep following up and trying to source all the images I need. And yes, [...]
Young Woman Writing a Letter (detail), from a poster for Encre Marquet by Eugene Grasset, 1892. Image courtesy Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Well, by not spending time writing blog posts, obviously. The manuscript must go to the publisher (for editing) in about week, so the last little while has been just a teensy bit frantic. I kind of finished working on the text a few weeks ago, and since then I have: drawn up a Macarthur family tree (thank you PowerPoint), included a list of [...]
Elizabeth Macarthur in old age. Source: https://blogs.hht.net.au/cook/happy-birthday-elizabeth-macarthur/ Not actually today, obviously. Elizabeth Macarthur the woman died almost 167 years ago, on 9 February 1850. She was eighty-three years old. But today I wrote the paragraph in which Elizabeth dies, the final paragraph of the book really, and I felt strangely sad. It’s been my job to make her come to life on the page and I’ve been working to do so for more years than I care to admit. Yet there she was, having a stroke and quietly [...]
The gallery had sold out of the glossy, colour catalogue for Making the Australian Quilt: 1800–1950 by the time I saw the exhibition last week. But I had a terrific chat with the young woman serving at the museum shop while I placed an order to have the catalogue mailed out (at a discounted rate, no less). "Isn't it interesting," she said, "how contemporary some of those quilt designs are. It's amazing to think they predated modernism by decades. But not acknowledged, of course." She gave me a gorgeous, wry [...]