Through a different lens

This image is a photograph of a letter seen through the magnifying lens of the Reading Room camera at the Battye Library. I chose this one because I wanted to write today about different ways of looking and different ways of thinking.

I’ve been bent over my keyboard for weeks trying to complete some writing by the end of May. It’s been a challenging activity. Some days, my mind has been blocked, twisted into knots with uncertainty. Other days, the words pour out easily and I can’t stop the flow.  When writing feels difficult, I treasure the solace, empathy and support that come from talking with friends who are writers. I know I’m not alone in that. I also find guidance and inspiration in reading. The words on the pages are the building blocks of stories and noticing the way other writers put those words together, sit them next to one another along the lines, that always helps me. But lately, I’ve realised that staying with what I know, the familiar and the comforting, is not the only way to learn and grow in my own work.

I’ve had lots of opportunities in the last couple of months to enjoy the creative outcomes of artists in a range of different media. That’s been a reminder that there are many, many ways of looking and many ways of telling stories. The freedom from words feels a bit like walking a new path that connects two places you know well. You arrive by a different route and the journey is different. You see things you’ve never seen before along the way. Whether the new track you’re taking is music, photography, sculpture or painting, or any other medium, seeing things from a different perspective can shed light in remarkable ways on your own viewpoint when you sit down to write again.

Today I visited the studio of Elisa Markes-Young, a local artist, as part of the wonderful Margaret River Region Open Studios annual event. I’d been in touch with Elisa and her partner, Christopher Young, last year when they held a joint exhibition that included some pieces inspired by the life and work of Georgiana Molloy. MRROS draws in such a wide range of artists in this region that it’s impossible to see everything. It’s an amazing privilege to see creative people working in their own environment so we always try to visit a few studios we haven’t been to before. I heard that Elisa is exhibiting one of the Georgiana works this year so her studio was at the top of my list.

She talked to us about the thinking behind the piece, and last year’s exhibition, and described how she had first come to the idea of representing the journey into botany as Georgiana’s refuge following the death of her eighteen-month old son by drowning. After thirteen years of research, I thought I knew everything there was to know about Georgiana Molloy and perhaps I do know most of the facts but what Elisa showed me was a completely different, new way of looking at the life of a woman I know well.  Something to do with a different viewpoint. Something to do with the life experiences of Elisa herself. Something to do with personal memories and emotions. Something to do with working in a medium that does not rely entirely on words. It was refreshing, inspiring and very moving. And I learned a lot.

One of the images here is from that piece which includes black mourning ribbons, embroidered with words from a letter Georgiana wrote in 1837 about her little boy’s death.

MRROS is on for another week and I’m definitely planning to stretch my mind and heart again over the next few days by exploring artists who work in different media.  If you’re around, or just down this way for a while, don’t miss out!  The list of contributing artists is HERE. Elisa and Chris are number 73 in the list and their delightful studio is close to Margaret River town centre.

 

 

 

Endings or beginnings?

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When the frenzy of writing has been going on for more than a year it begins to feel like the only thing there is. It invades every waking moment and sometimes the sleeping time, too. I dream of words. Not sentences or meaningful phrases, just words. Then suddenly, it comes to an end, on the day a complete manuscript is saved and printed.

That happened to me recently and I hadn’t experienced the feeling of closure for two years, something seemingly enormous, finished. I sat at my computer the day after the manuscript was sent off to my agent and looked at my ‘writing wall’ as I have done for hours every day through a summer, an autumn, a winter and a spring. It’s a large board, covered in pictures, photographs, snippets of text and anything else that captures the essence of the places and people in the story. Photographs of old portraits provide faces for me to stare at while I search for the best words to describe a nose, or a smile, or a way of standing. Landscape paintings show me the settings I’m trying to recreate in words. Since part of the plot is set in places I’ve never been, these add something more to the other research that underpins everything. I don’t need my writing wall any more but I can’t bear the idea of a blank canvas in front of me so it will stay right where it is until I begin collecting images for the next one and that won’t be until after Christmas.

Time at the end of December has already been set aside for the reading I’ve missed out on for months. The Reading Pile has become The Reading Tower. There’s always at least one book on the go but it’s a long time since I’ve been able to do that delicious thing of disappearing into a book and devouring it from beginning to end in one long gluttonous read. Reading is still the most important part of writing, for me anyway, because that’s where everything begins – characters, places, lives, words. Especially words.

Sorting through the piles of loose papers on my desk today, I’ve realised that finishing one thing isn’t an ending, it’s a beginning. There’ll be a lot more work to do on my manuscript next year. There’s a historical writing project to begin in January, that’s been waiting patiently in the wings for months. And there’s a backlog of transcription that I can’t set aside any longer if I want to write more on the story of Georgiana Molloy, to make new information available before the end of next year.

I never like to wish time away but I’m looking forward to 2017. Here’s the exciting news: at the end of February, I’ll be joining about 60 other authors at the Perth Writers Festival. I can’t think of much that could be more thrilling than taking part in my own local festival to celebrate reading and writing. 2016 is ending on an equally exciting note too. The wonderful crew at ‘Readings’ bookstores in Melbourne included ‘Georgiana Molloy: the Mind That Shines’ in their list of ‘50 great reads by Australian women in 2016’.  While I was writing the book I had no idea I might create something that could be described as ‘a good read’ so that means a great deal to me.

There are so many times when writing makes you feel vulnerable and inadequate, useless and foolish, but other writers tell me they often experience the same self-doubts. We have to keep going, bent over notebooks and keyboards, finding a way through to the end of the story. And then beginning another.

 

See the Readings bookstores list of ‘50 great reads by Australian women in 2016’ here.

Publication Day!

Tomorrow, March 22, is the publication date for the new Picador edition of ‘Georgiana Molloy, the Mind That Shines’. We’ll be celebrating a happy ending to more than a decade of work and a year of self-publishing but with so much going on it feels like an exciting new beginning at the same time.

I’m so happy with the wonderful job that publisher Alex Craig and editor Jodi Devantier at Picador have done with the book, and the new interior design and subtly updated cover from Lauren Wilhelm.  There are two more sections of new colour images and I finally have the hand-drawn maps I’d hoped for in the first edition – which had to fall by the way in early 2015 when we reached our budget limit.

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The best thing of all at the moment is having the opportunity to talk to so many people about the book. I can’t say I look forward to the nerves involved in recording live radio interviews that will air in every state, but it feels fantastic knowing that the outcomes of my research into Georgiana’s life will be reaching so far in the next few weeks. My original objective was to make the story publicly available, even if that meant printing fifty copies at home and sending them to libraries or just publishing the book on a website.

In the new edition, a few extra lines appear in the list of thanks, including an acknowledgement of the hard work of the whole team at Picador; so many people contributed their skill to the final lovely package. There’s also an expression of gratitude to my agent, Martin Shaw of the Alex Adsett Literary Agency, who’s done so much to support and encourage from the very first tentative email I sent him on 21 July last year. He’s simply the best and I could not be luckier.

And there’s another important addition to that list: ‘Huge and heartfelt thanks go to the many bookshops and other retailers who supported the self-published book in 2015 and started it on its journey.’ Booksellers shared their enthusiasm with readers and did a great deal to keep sales flying high.

Finally, I’m so glad that the book being published tomorrow still has the same statement on its very first page – and nothing else – just the acknowledgement of country. It was a personal choice for me in March 2015 and Picador have retained it in this new edition.

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Everything changes and things move on.

With just a few copies of the 2015 self-published book left in bookshops and the new 2016 Picador edition on its way, it’s time to update the information I share about ‘Georgiana Molloy, the mind that shines’. It’s also an opportunity to create a website that can manage everything, including new writing.

The design is underway so watch out for that news in a couple of weeks. The site will look very different but all the original information will still be there, including the photographs.

The Picador book will be released on 22nd March.

Meanwhile, please stay in touch via this website or the Facebook page: Georgiana Molloy 1805 – 1843

Exciting news

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My first and strongest motivation in writing a book about the life of Georgiana Molloy was to share as widely as possible the full story and the true facts. Selling so many copies, so quickly, since the book was published in March was a wonderful surprise and hearing from so many readers who’ve enjoyed the book has been fantastic.

But self-publishing has its limits and with an increasing number of requests for copies from bookshops in other states, and from readers in the UK and US, we realised that we couldn’t manage to meet demands on our own and I decided to look for a publisher. The last few weeks have been a whirlwind journey…

First, I was signed up by a literary agent who’s turned out to be the best agent I could have wished for, Martin Shaw of the Alex Adsett Agency. He returned my first email within hours and was excited enough about the book to pitch it to major publishers within a couple of weeks. Then he guided me with wisdom and sensitivity through the process when I was faced with more than one publishing offer and a decision to make.

Pan Macmillan will be publishing the book next year under their Picador imprint and after meeting my publisher, Alex Craig, for the first time last week in Sydney, I’m absolutely sure that Georgiana’s story is in the safest of hands to move on and travel more widely than Mike and I could ever have taken it on our own. It’s an overwhelming privilege to be working now with an agent and a publisher who bring such knowledge, experience and creativity to what’s been a very personal project until now. All I have to do is learn to let go – and try to focus on the book I’m writing now!

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And here’s a photo of a very happy moment: signing the publishing contract in the Reading Room of the Battye Library in Perth (where so much of the research was done) with Georgiana’s great-great grandson Patrick Richardson-Bunbury, to whom the book’s dedicated. He signed as the witness on the contract.

‘Cover to Cover’: an interview

As part of Writing WA’s ‘Cover to Cover’ series, I enjoyed a discussion with Meri  Fatin about Georgiana and John Molloy, the research that kept me hooked for so long and the process of writing and publishing the book. The programme is currently being aired several times on the Westlink TV channel (602) and is also available now to view on YouTube, using THIS LINK. (30 minutes)

 

Book Club notes can be downloaded from the ‘For Readers’ / ‘Book of the Month’ section of the ‘Writing WA’ website.

Another review in the ‘West Australian’ newspaper

A lovely review by Writing WA in today’s West Australian newspaper.

“Bernice Barry’s biography not only brings Molloy’s life and times alive for readers but also shares her years of research.”

You can read it in full in The West Australian.

August news

Another great review this week. Thank you to the National Trust (Australia) and to reviewer Dr Robyn Taylor (NT quarterly magazine, ‘Trust News’ August 2015).

‘This beautifully illustrated book is a joy to read’.
It ‘has a different approach’ that ‘brings psychological depth to the main characters and greater poignancy’.

And thank you to the Biodiversity Heritage Library, one of my favourite online browsing places. A fascinating article popped up on Facebook this morning.

My own research showed that the Leach family were close friends of the Kennedys and the reason Georgiana met her future husband. John Molloy and Jonathan Leach fought together in the Peninsular Wars. The other two brothers, George (a lawyer) and William Elford Leach were also close friends with Georgiana’s parents and she knew them from childhood as house guests in her home near Carlisle. William Elford Leach was a very talented zoologist whose work influenced Darwin, but he died tragically at a young age. Georgiana’s youngest brother George was entrusted with some of Leach’s precious specimens. You can read about this on Page 111 of ‘Georgiana Molloy: the Mind that Shines’ and if you’d like to know more or to see images of the beautifully hand-coloured pages of Leach’s most well-known publication, here’s the link. Thank you BHL!

https://www.facebook.com/BioDivLibrary/posts/10152889273631566

‘History West’ August 2015 (RWAHS)

A big thank you to the Royal Western Australian Historical Society and to Gillian Lilleyman for her review of ‘Georgiana Molloy: the mind that shines’ in ‘History West’, August 2015, which describes the book as ‘an even closer study of Georgiana and ‘a sensitive reappraisal’ that ‘will assure this fascinating pioneer heroine a new generation of devotees’.

Writing about the strand of anecdotes that relate highlights from my own research story, Gillian Lilleyman says, ‘Anyone who researches family and social history will relate to her excitement at chance discoveries, the fragmented pieces of information that suddenly fit together’.

‘Although the author maintains a presence she has a light touch. Her elegant prose is very readable. Particularly eloquent are her descriptions of the gardens and landscapes of Georgiana’s past which, accompanied by Georgiana’s own words, convey a greater appreciation of how, along with her strong religious faith, Georgiana’s love of nature gave her the fortitude to adapt to pioneer life.’

A wintery update

The beginning of June is the beginning of Winter in Western Australia. The native plants in the garden are coming into flower and there are lambs in the paddocks but the rain isn’t stopping for a while yet so time today to get on with some indoor jobs – like posting an update.

Good news yesterday. In the Bookcaffé (Claremont, Perth) newsletter for June, ‘Georgiana’ was in the top four best-selling non-fiction books for May.

It was wonderful to hear from Mr R Richardson-Bunbury, a descendant of John and Georgiana Molloy, over the weekend. He sent  a photograph of ‘Fairlawn’ that he took in the 1990s and he’s given kind permission for me to share it here. Comparing this photograph with the older image opposite p 247 in my book shows that the shape of the house as it was around 1860 was still evident in the 1990s.

Fairlawn 1990s

It might be a cold one… but today’s an exciting milestone. We received the proof copy for the second print run of ‘Georgiana Molloy, the mind that shines’ less than 12 weeks after the book first arrived in bookshops. So if you spotted that missing space – no more worries. Lots and lots of boxes will be arriving very soon from the printer in Perth  – and just in time!

Proof copy June 2015