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