I have finished reading your book “Child of the War Years”.
This is a thoroughly entertaining and candid expose of what life was like for you in those years. At times hilarious and other times sad, it evoked many memories of my own childhood and the times spent with your family. Your writing style means that this book should be enjoyed by all who read it, whether or not they know the characters.
Love Greg
Thankyou for such a great read + inviting us to your book launch. I initially intended to read it all in one day which would be easy because it is so engrossing. I have since realised it is like a fine wine to be savoured at the end of the day. I am so grateful for the memories you are sharing. It is special to read about my Pop (John) who I loved but never really knew eg; his curry. Also, it makes me realise that families growing up in rentals is not new. You are truly an inspiration – accolades again Vicki
Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre in Greenmount, was rocking by 3pm last Sunday. Guests started arriving half an hour ahead of the planned opening time, so keen were they to be a part of the launch of my third book, ‘CHILD OF THE WAR YEARS.’
Parking is limited at the centre, but we were lucky to avoid rain and once inside the cosy, historical house, everyone quickly found old and new friends and family to chat with.
Many of my friends helped, heating and serving food, making sure everyone had a wine, soft drink, coffee or tea. They also cleared up afterwards. Music from the 1940s added to the atmosphere and the borrowed microphopne system ensured that everyone could hear us.
Grandson, Andrew, introducing me.
One of the nice things about being old (I’m eighty) is that my grandchildren are all adults and one of them, Andrew, was happy to introduce me and then conduct an interesting, entertaining interview.
This is an extract from his introduction: Everyone here today knows that nothing’s off the cards with Vicki. Just like in real life when you ask her how her dating life is going, her memoir also goes into salacious, explicit detail will all things romance. You might notice that I’m looking a little concerned at this point, wondering what secrets from my past he was about to reveal, but he continued with ‘At one point in the book there’s a particularly eye-watering passage about a nun trying to teach sex-ed.’
As the interview progressed, I had to read from this passage, much to everyone’s amusement. Here is a part of that reading:
‘In Holy Matrimony a man and a woman are joined together in a bond of love, to support each other and to fulfil God’s laws, which include having children. A man’s desires make him want to have sex with his wife and she, as a loving, obedient wife, must willingly oblige him.’
That part didn’t exactly thrill me, especially the ‘obedient wife’ bit, but as the lesson progressed and I learnt about various bodily parts that were to be involved in this transaction, I thought it sounded rather fun. Of course I had to pretend to be interested purely in an analytical way, but couldn’t wait to discuss the possibilities with Denyse and Margaret.
Please email me at vicwinmiz@gmail.com if you would like to purcahse a copy. They are only $15 plus postage. I will post a couple of reviews next, so you’ll see that this story is interesting and entertaining.
If you have read it aleady, please add your review in the comments.
Today I want to tell you about last Saturday, when I joined eight of my writing friends at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writing Centre in Greenmount, to write A Book In A Day. This is a competition to raise funds for children’s cancer research. It’s a group writing project, with usually 8 – 10 people who come together for one day (twelve hours only) to produce a book, including illustrations, to be read by children aged about 10 -16. The books are given to the children in hospitals, but anyone can procure and read them. Each group nominates a day to suit them between 1st June and usually 31 August, but this year it’s September. The parameters are different for each group. No-one can pre-plan or try to guess the situation, issue or characters as this is not permitted until 8am on the selected morning.
As this is a fund raising venture as well as a fun activity, we all donated monies towards our entry. I’m hoping that, once you’ve read about our day, you might want to also participate in sponsoring our team for WABIAD. (WA Book in a Day)To get to the sponsorship page for our group, TNGers, click on this https://writeabookinaday.com/team-sponsorship/?id=86 or copy and paste the link. You can then scroll down to fill in your details and donation amount. All the money goes to the Children’s Cancer Research. A big thank you from all the children you’ll be helping, and from us.
Armed with food—fruit and biscuits for morning tea, soup and crunchy breads for lunch, home-made brownies and other nibbles for afternoon sustenance and the promise of a home cooked Indian feast for dinner, plus liquid refreshments to help celebrate our success—we arrived at our venue well before 8am. We brought laptops, cords, USB ports, paper and pens to make notes and anything else we might need for a full-on day of writing. Our skilled artist came laden with paints and pencils, pots and paper, ready to create hilarious renditions of characters and situations as the rest of us developed our ideas.
On the dot of 8, coffee, tea or chocolate beverages to hand, we were given our clues. This year’s competition hasn’t finished yet, so I’d better not broadcast ours, but I can tell you what we had to write about last year, to give you an idea of what’s required.
A Piano Tuner
In 2019 our characters were a piano tuner, a dentist and a necklace (we always have one non-human character). The setting was a motorway and the issue was the discovery of magic powers. Creating a story suitable for 10 to mid-teens is a challenge. Setting it on a motorway had several of us tearing our hair out. No swearing allowed in the publication either.
A dentist, Ivor Hinkleburger
Each year we also have five words to be included anywhere in the story, block letters making it easy for the readers to find. Community, skipped, magic, canvas and sings appeared with little effort.
This year, with our characters, the setting and the issue noted, our first task was to decide boy, girl, man, woman, age, names, appearances and the fun part – who will be the baddy? Setting and issue already decided for us, we found it fairly easy to fill in the details of who, where, when how and why. The discussion got quite heated, with nine enthusiastic participants keen to contribute ideas. Our group leader had the task of noting suggestions on the white board. As we needed to get around to the actual writing as soon as possible, this part of the process was a bit messy. Fortunately this year our leader was calm, organised and a quick writer. Unfortunately, his handwriting was often difficult to decipher, but he didn’t mind repeating himself, several times.
Eight of us were there to write, so the story was broken up into eight chapters. We then chose which chapter we wanted to create. This method works quite well, except that it’s easy to miss some vital bit of information that needs to be in your chosen chapter, or, as often happens, the information is repeated in the previous or following chapter.
We had an added problem this year. One of our most enthusiastic members was recovering from major surgery and couldn’t be with us. Face book Messenger to the rescue; he was able to participate in the initial discussions, although with limited understanding of all the conversations the exercise proved a wee bit frustrating for all.
Once a big chunk of writing was done, around lunch time, each participant read out what they had written so far. The omissions and double-ups were obvious. After lunch—everyone enjoyed the soup, many returned to the pot for seconds, and much of the bread and butter disappeared—bodies moved around tables, paragraphs were removed, inappropriate representations swapped for agreed replacements and generally, solutions were found that helped the story to flow.
Our ninth member is an artist as well as a writer. Without her illustrations our stories would lack the necessary sparkle. She worked on a separate, long table at the head of the room and visited each of us to discuss details about the way we imagined characters and scenes. Hair—long, short, curly, blonde, grey etc. Facial features—eye colour, head shape, facial hair? Is the character smiley, grumpy, studious, etc? Are the characters fat, thin, tall, short? Clothes—style to portray the character. And of course we all had to remember those details in our section of the story. We’re so lucky to have a talented artist on our team. Her illustrations were often hilarious and always perfect.
Our leader had to write his chapter as well as edit all of ours as we finished, plus scan the pictures and story, in correct order, to come up with our finished book by 8pm. Writers had finished by about 7pm and the last illustration just needed to dry before being scanned, closer to the deadline.
Cameras and phones captured appropriate images of diligent creators, bottles were opened (and our leader was still working) while we dragged out the last of our creativity for funny reviews and a synopsis for the back cover. Coming up with a suitable name for our story required several sips of wine for most of us and (thank goodness) a stroke of genius from our youngest member.
There were cheers all round as the finished book was sent off, via the internet, well within the time limit. Now we just have to wait for at least a month, until judgement day.
We believe we have produced a winner and I hope you will want to purchase a copy or three. They make great Christmas presents for children in that 10 – 16 age group.
If you are prepared to add to our financial donation, you can sponsor us by clicking on this link, https://writeabookinaday.com/team-sponsorship/?id=86 or if that doesn’t work, copy and paste it to connect to WA Book in a Day. The TNGers sponsorship page should appear. Scroll down to fill in your details and donation. Many thanks from us, the organisers and the children.
When we get the results of the competition I will let you know.
At the beginning of this story I said that I felt strong enough to write it down. This episode is causing me a little more trouble as I have to again face my emotional responses after leaving hospital. I’ve had several attempts, but it’s like opening up an old wound. Please forgive me if I waffle a bit.
After five days and nights confined to one room I was more than ready to escape back to the comforts of my own home, despite all the care I received in hospital. I am particularly grateful to the nurse who gave me my first shower.Continue reading→
Again I want to state that my reason for publishing my story is to help others understand the importance of continuing to have mammograms as we age, regardless of what the medical ‘experts’ advise.
If you missed the first chapter, please scroll down and read it, to make better sense of this one.
I hope that by going public with my breast cancer journey I will help others who might also be somewhere on this journey.Continue reading→
I have received Highly Commended awards and publication in a collection of short stories for two of my stories. I’ve included a couple of excerpts from each of them.
One Week To Harvest
From the doorway of his shed Gus watched the motor bike – a Harley Davidson, its shiny black metal splattered with mud. His ears throbbed at each rev of the throttle; the pain was nothing compared with the agony gripping his heart . . .
Harry, his black coat dripping, wandered into the shed. Doggy eyes sought answers from his master. He had followed the bike, bearing Amy, as far as the gate. His tail normally wagged so fast it knocked cups off the coffee table. Now it drooped, leaving a wet trail on the floor . . .
Country Life
Waving the torch around, I noted a brick fireplace, pale brown stains on the ceiling, walls painted yellowish green, jarrah floor boards, no curtains on the window. Plonked in the middle of the living room were the boxes that we had packed several days earlier . . .
It was one in the morning when we fell into bed. Almost immediately, it started; thump, thump in the ceiling. Eyes staring into the dark, heart thumping as loudly as the intruders, I was wide awake and ready to defend my babies . . .
I hope you are dying to find out what happened next.
My stories are published in Timber, which is the latest of the Stringybark Stories, published by Smashwords (an Australian publisher, like Amazon) Use the code WK297 when downloading the collection in eBook format to get a 25% discount, making it about A$2.80 until 24 August 2018. Price can vary depending on $Aus/$USA exchange rate. Hard copies will be available around late July.
I have now read the full collection and was impressed. I hope you too, will enjoy them. If you have a problem, please let me know and I’ll contact the publisher.
I’d also like to thank all of you who responded to my last piece, ‘Getting To Know My Dad.’ I’m certainly encouraged to keep writing my memoir and it seems that more than just family will be interested in the story. I hope that at some point my children and grandchildren might take a look at what I’ve written. Finding that cousins, friends and even even passing acquaintances are sufficiently interested to comment, is very encouraging.
Of course I’m very interested to see what you think of my award winning short stories and if you feel like passing on the information to your friends, that’s even better. I love to hear what readers think of my writing, especially something like these stories.
This weekend I am at the Writers’ Festival in Perth, so I thought it would be a good time to review some of my favourite reads since the last festival. I had the pleasure of listening to and meeting Louise Allan, a lovely, natural lady, who seems surprised and perhaps a little overwhelmed by the success that has come her way. I hope you will all read this, her first novel, and love it as much as I have.
I think all of my choices are excellent reads, but would love to hear your opinions and comments. I’d also like to know what your favourite books were.
The Sisters’ Song: Louise Allan
I am reading this book for the second time, partly because I recommended it to my book club and we are meeting to discuss it next week. I’m enjoying it even more the second time.
The 2016 production of the Mystery Plays was one of the most impressive pieces of theatre that I have ever seen. I know that for some of you, the idea of a religious performance in a religious venue conjures up images of an evening spent in the most boring possible way. Believe me, this was anything but boring.
As the director, Philip Breen said in an interview, from which I’ll quote, ‘We return to these Plays again and again because they are asking the most profound questions about who we are, where we are going and what it means to be alive.’ In the bible we have stories about love and hate, families – supportive and destructive, power struggles, sex, war, good and evil, birth, life and death, racial tensions, moments and events that changed the course of history. What more could one want for any number of highly dramatic scenes and a play that makes Shakespeare seem tame? There are also some very funny scenes.
In all, eighteen scenes were presented for us that night, beginning with the Fall of the Rebel Angels and the introduction of Lucifer as he defied God, leading his ‘devils’ down under the stage to hell.
This week I am writing about my other love – classical music, and the concert which thrilled us last Saturday night at the Perth Concert Hall.
Being Grand Final day for the AFL (Australian Football League for my non-Australian readers) meant that the audience was the smallest I’ve ever seen for a concert of this standard. That meant that we, and many others, could move to better seats and enjoy the performance even more.
Anything composed by Claude Debussy has me in the clouds, so when Nicolas Altstaedt touched his bow to his cello and Aleksandar Madzar ran his fingers over the keys of that grand piano, I sat back and let the music they created, carry me away.
The novel I am currently writing is about a former concert pianist who loses his right hand in a motor accident, so I am always keen to sit where I can study the movement of fingers, hands, arms and even the shoulders of a maestro, while listening carefully to the music they make. The Russians tend to over-dramatize, using large, flourishing lifts and pounces, while some pianists seem to use their whole upper torsos in a sequence of movements up and down the keys. I am a fan of Simon Tedeschi, having followed him since he was doing gigs as a teenager (maybe a bit older but he looked like a teenager) but his performances, although spectacular, remind me of an athlete as he pounds the keys with so much energy that I feel quite exhausted and he certainly looks worn out. I haven’t seen him lately so, maybe that’s an outdated comment.
I promised to write about the National Gallery in London, but I hope you will find this description of the last week and half amusing.
Buying a new residence and moving in, should be an exciting exercise but we all know that the stress levels for a house move, or in this case setting up a second home, are up there with death of a loved one and divorce. Well, believe me, having experienced both, it’s nothing like that bad, but despite my determination to have everything organised to the nth degree, because something always goes wrong on such occasions, it wasn’t exactly a smooth and simple operation.
