Author Blog Challenge # 25
Time for some shout-outs. This may mimic your
acknowledgement page, but whom would you like to publicly thank for their help
in creating your book or completing it to the point where it is presently?
There are different ways in which others help in the
creation of any book, not the least being the support and understanding from
family and close friends without which many books would remain unwritten. Therefore, my shout outs are as follows.
The Hidden Risks
- Acknowledgement must first go to my husband, Michael, for his persistence,
the long hours spent in research and pursuit of documents, and in following up
family contacts throughout the state. Thank you also to my sister-in-law, Anne
Macleod, for her assistance and support for the project and my brother-in-law,
David Pugh, for his understanding. Appreciation
is also extended to the late Jean Martin and her daughter, Lyn Gleeson, for
their generosity of spirit and sharing of information and resources, Murray
Stagg, for his kindness in sharing anecdotal family history, and for the time
he freely gave to take us on a tour to the locations where the colonial Stagg
family resided, to Helen Britton, Margaret Niaura and Joan Donaghue, for their
willingness to share and their kind hearts, staff at Carr Villa Cemetery office
who persevered with Michael in his quest to find his grandmother’s grave, the
gentleman at C T Finney’s, who searched old records and aided our understanding
of the processes of that era, and the staff from the records department staff
of the Launceston General Hospital for their willingness to assist in the
location of patient records from almost a century ago.
The Little Mongrel
- This book was written with the greatest respect to Graham, Bill, Marcia, Chum
and Lynny; the raggle taggle mob of kids who came from diverse cultural and
genetic backgrounds to become my brothers and sisters, and with gratitude to my
children; Pauline, Julie-Anne, Karen, Heidi, Jade, James and Steven, who broke
the loneliness of a solitary journey and helped me to find my unique place in
life, and their partners, children and grandchildren, who have shared the
travel and added a depth of love to the fabric of our family. And last, but
never least, my thanks goes to my husband, Michael, who held the seed of love
through a distance of forty years, while we followed our separate destinies,
until we married in 2002.
Discourse with Walls
- I am indebted to the Launceston City Council Artist in Residence Program for
the opportunity to complete this book of poetry. My time at the Gorge Cottage
allowed me deeper insight into the ever-changing vista of the river and
environs, adding intimacy and immediacy of place to my writing. I hope this
collection gives evidence of the value of the Gorge Cottage Artist in ResidenceProgram. While thanks must go to everyone who supported events held as part of
my residency, I owe a special thank you to Rose Frankcombe, my dear friend and secretary
of the Society of Women Writers Tasmania, for her tireless efforts in
supporting these events and arranging sponsorship for my ‘Urban Writing’
workshop and to my friend-in-writing, Jacqueline Lonsdale Cuerton, for arranging
the School for Seniors Writing group workshop, ‘Painting Characters with Words’.
To the writers and poets who gave peer review and comments of the early drafts
of the poems, I am especially grateful for their advice on small anomalies in
detail I might otherwise have missed. Thank you also to the guest poets who
have contributed to this book, Loretta McCarthy, Joan Webb, Jacqueline Lonsdale
Cuerton and Rose Frankcombe, all wonderful writers and poets who contribute to
the literary fabric of Tasmania.
~ Merlene Fawdry
I am at a loss to understand why anyone would attempt this kind of challenge. How do you find time? I guess you have an enormous amount of 'sticktoitness'
ReplyDeleteGreat work once again.
Why do I do these things? I really do not know either, other than it adds diversity to my writing and causes me to reflect on where I have been, to understand where change is needed and in some strange way, to determine longer term focus. This has probably been the most worthwhile aspect of this challenge, as I have made firm resolution about priorities for the future. To be honest though, a professional lifetime of churning out reports on the run stands me in good stead for writing non-fiction, so it is not as time consuming as it may appear.
ReplyDelete