Books, two of them: and an explanation of why these particular books at this time. First, the author. Rosanne Hawke. I had not met her before, although she lives in my part of country South Australia, and she knows people I know. She got conscripted at the last moment by one of our writers’ group who happens to be her neighbour, to be guest speaker/author at the anniversary meeting of our library writer’s group, since the person who had been going to be our speaker had suddenly and unexpectedly died. The event was held at the Eudunda history museum, which also has a lot of Colin Thiele memorabilia both in the museum and in the park next door (yes, the Colin Thiele who wrote ‘Storm Boy’, who also came from that area).
So we got a chance to look around the museum before listening to Rosanne speak, which was fascinating. She had been a teacher/ missionary in Afghanistan back before it became strategically important and had written some really interesting books about the culture and the cultural conflicts between our culture here and theirs, especially as regards arranged marriages.
She was also a descendant of early Cornish settlers in that Copper Triangle area, and knew that a lot of Cornish culture and folklore had been preserved there. I think I have mentioned the area before, including the Druid festival in the area, the Lowender Kernewek, and having myself done several jobs up there as a storyteller, including one where my mate Dusty and I did a gig at the North Kapunda hotel, which has a reputation as the most haunted hotel in Australia (if you want to see what we look like, there is a picture of us up on the Reenactment thread on the Fan Forum from a few years ago, at a Mediæval Fair. The tall whitehaired guy with the falconer and me is Dusty, I’m the short one).
I have also been able to translate the Cornish inscriptions on several tombstones in the Kapunda cemetery, and do other useful stuff up there, so I know a little about the Cornish folklore transplanted to the area along with the miners.
Anyway, the books I bought from Rosanne: one was a children’s/young adult’s short novel ‘Across the Creek’, which is a delightful fictional take on how modern kids might react if they found that some of the transplanted Cornish folklore was real. Funny, scary and sweet. I think my godsons, for whom I bought it, will absolutely love it.
The other book was ‘Riding the Wind’, which is about the art of writing for children and young adults. I think any author aspiring to write in those fields would find it extremely useful and informative!
