Rose Helen Mitchell Award Winning Author

My latest novel is on its way. A Paisley Shawl has been long inthe making .... nearly here Soooon.

Editing. Editing. Editing.

Hilary Mantel - The Mirror and the light. p.387

The river tugs him, he looks for the quick moving pattern, for the flitting liquid scarlet. Between a pulse-beat and the next he shifts, going out on crimson with the tide of his inner sea. He is far from England now, far from these islands, from the waters salt and fresh. He has vanished; he is the slippery stones underfoot, he is the last faint ripple in the wake of himself. He feels for an opening, blinded, looking for a door; tracking the light along the wall. p.387

June 16 1904 - The day James Joyce met Nora. The day for indulging in a chapter or two of Ulysses.

When petrol ran out the noise of traffic disappeared from highways, suburban and urban streets. Health clubs had long vanished, now people walked to sounds of birdsong and rivers splashing over boulders and under bridges.

From Hilary Mantel's "The Mirror and the Light:
"The texts sigh as the paper curls and disintegrates into mute sludge." p.258
I am loving this book. Great quarantine reading.

When stores were ripped of anything that would keep out the winter chill some of the enterprising vagrants moved to farm country hoping to find food from the previous growing season. Anything edible. Something to fill a small corner of a belly.

All will be well. All manner of things will be well. - T S Eliot

New civil law rituals and rules were formed. Marriage, christenings and burials were re-shaped to suit a new itinerant state of being. Leaders emerged from each small group. Symbols of leadership became an item found amongst derelict sites. The kingpin of one group chose an ancient cricket bat, wrapped in a piece of purple velvet and carried in a sack on his back.

When the people got tired of looting and the high fashion garments they'd stolen, became faded, wrinkled and dirty, they started walking. As they walked, the group met with other groups. IN this new world, skin colour and corporate success became meaningless. Each person owned only the clothes they wore. Nothing else mattered. .

And there came a time when we partied virtually with wine and home-made food crafted from Grandma's old kitchen book that was spattered by dark stains and still smelled of chocolate...

The baby inside Caitlin seemed to know that she was thinking of its father and gave two strong kicks as if to say, I'm here, I will comfort you.
Award winning - "Siege of Contraries" p.13

"Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time."

John Donne "The Sun Rising"

The launch of;
'Long is the Way and Hard'
Planned for 1 April at Tea Tree Gully Library has been cancelled. Apologies to those who received an invitation. The event will be re-scheduled later in the year.
Keep well everyone. Keep safe.

7am today: Rolling sea, smiling faces, dogs chasing each other, many, many 'hello and good morning'. Soul satisfaction at Christies.
Keep well everyone. Keep safe.

1 April launch at Tea Tree Gully now cancelled.

Early morning by the lake. Sun slowly moving westwards. Water birds of many colours, shapes and sizes make V shapes on the water. Some croacking and quacking as if in conversation. All is well in this patch of the planet.

"If I have taken things a little farther, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."
Isaac Newton

Through a window that sparkled in the rising sun of a April morning. It lords over all lesser lumps nearby. Spasms of light brighten the long dark shape of Mitre Peak. While the waters of the Sound flow from shape to shape it stands stalwart...our little histories are briefly interesting.

"As the train lurched around the last, long curve on the line across Broken Creek, I heard the sound of a Sousa march an; when I stepped from the carriage, you'd 'ave thought I was the king of England."
Siege of Contraries p.86

"I spoke slowly, as precisely as I could manage: ‘I remember hearing the sound of a lark. It was clear, pure. I can still hear that sound. It must have been during a respite from gunfire. And I remember thinking; ‘Silly bird – if I had wings I would fly out of this hell and not look back’. But it didn’t hear me. It went on with its melody as if it were in heaven.”
from "Long is the Way and Hard."

Book launch: ! April at Tea Tree Gully library. 6.30pm
Award winning author launches Sequel to Award Winning 'Siege of Contraries'.
Register with Eventbrite for catering purposes. See post below for Eventbrite details.

We stood among the smells and crowds and noise of disembarkation, looking into each other’s eyes. His eyes were so big and so blue, I couldn’t see the rest of his face. P.156

Rose Helen Mitchell Award Winning Author added a Shop on Website button to their Page.

Heard on Australian Radio National RN 2/1/13: 'To be a writer is to receive a gift and if that gift is not honoured by creativity, it will turn sour and your soul will be disturbed or damaged'

She covered the dough with a clean tea-towel, rolled down her sleeves and toddled along the hall to her sewing corner.
P.12 LONG IS THE WAY AND HARD

I touched them, closed the lid and held the tin close to my chest. It felt warm; the way a friendship sometimes does when the conditions that shaped the bond lie back in the past.
,...P.96 SIEGE OF CONRARIES

we will walk beside the Avonmore river, a lovely wide river with deep pools that flows through mountain blanket bog. We will gather some of the rare orchids that bloom on its banks and scan the sky for peregrine falcon.....

from; LONG IS THE WAY AND HARD p.25

I could almost reach out and touch the faces and hear the laughter that accompanied the memory....
LONG IS THE WAY AND HARD