Australia's nomadic novelist living on the road a purple and white caravan called Myrtle the Turtle. Come home to the country: House for all Seasons (#5 top selling novel in 2013), Simmering Season (2014), Season of Shadow and Light (2015), The Other Side of the Season (2016), A Place to Remember (2018), House of Wishes (2019)
Oh, look who’s just arrived at the Calingarry Crossing pub. And she’s taking a room, too, but for one night only in honour of her latest novel – FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY.
Okay, what can I get you to go with your beer nuts? (Shandy? Wine Spritzer? Pink Lemonade?)
A bottle of Little Creatures beer, please, and a cold glass.
Here, you go. Now, Phillipa, take a minute to jot down the blurb for your book on the beer coast and I’ll pin it on the book board.
When Ornella vacations in Sicily, she meets Hugh, an archaeologist working on a dig in the beautiful town of Taormina. Hugh convinces Ornella to join him on a trip to
the island of Stromboli, where they hike up a live volcano at dusk.
After a passionate night together Ornella, an actress usually focused on her career, suspects she’s in love. But after breakfast the next morning, Hugh vanishes.
Ornella is left with Hugh’s phone, sunglasses and a sudden end to the love affair she thought she didn’t want. Desperate
to know if Hugh ran out on her or if he’s met with disaster, she wants to search for him. But with an important screen test in Rome and her agent impatiently waiting for her, Ornella faces a dilemma.
Hey, did you hear the one about … Got a joke? (preferably one that comes with a punch line you actually remember!)
Asking me to tell a joke with a punch line is like asking me to tweet something off the cuff and witty.
Well, I’m a beer nut nut! What bar snack would you be and why?
I’d be a potato chip, a smooth chip that tasted of potato and salt – but not too salty or greasy. I have no idea why I would be this chip, but I know I wouldn’t be a chip with synthetic flavouring.
Ahh, that beer hit the spot. Let me slip a drink coaster under your glass while you tell us—on a scale of 1 to 10—as a writer are you a messy desker or tidy desker?
(Hmm, how shall we rate this, folks? – 1 = “Neat nut case” and 10 = “What desk? Where? Is there a desk here somewhere?”)
The publican offers you free drinks all night if you will:
Dance to Gangnam Style
Sing John Denver’s ‘Take me Home Country Roads’ on the Karaoke machine
Spend an hour washing dishes
Which do you choose?
I’ll do the dishes and a have quiet yarn with the cook
Time to liven the place up. Got a buck? We can crank up the old jukebox in the corner. You get to pick three songs.
Zap Bebes by Zap Mama
Spanish Harlem by Aretha Franklin
Route 66 by Nat King Cole
An author, an agent and a chicken walk into the bar… how do you know which one crossed the road?
As a long standing keeper of chickens I can tell you a chicken is more likely to wander about in a pleasant daze looking for tasty morsels than cross a road. Anything requiring sustained concentration is not part of their skill set.
So the bar is more likely to be on this side of the road and the author had to rush in to retrieve a straying chicken.
Therefore the agent crossed the road, most likely to say hello to the author and invite them to share some cold beer and what the hell, let’s send the tab to the publishers.
There’s a stapler on the bar. Tell me what it’s doing there.
It’s there to staple all the receipts together so all authors drinking at the bar can keep track of their spending and claim drinks as an essential work expense
The pub is the heart of a small town and most locals would be lost without one. What are three things you’d be lost without?
My family and friends
A good book
Leafy, quiet spaces
There are a few good prizes up for grabs in the bar jackpot. Do you have a lucky number?
Your lucky number is: 10
Last drinks, my friend! It’s been great. But before we go, tell us how we can find out more about you and your writing/books.
This storm season, in Calingarry Crossing, a perfect storm is heading Maggie Lindeman’s way. For emergency alerts and warnings for SIMMERING SEASON, subscribe to Jenn J McLeod’s blog or newsletter before you go, or LIKE her Facebook Page.
Enough to vote? Because it’s that time of the year when Aussie authors find out who loves them. While the past Annual Booktopia List for Australia’s Favourite Novelist process has been a novelty “vote and watch” thing for me prior to this year, it has kinda been a teensy weensy more exciting and significant as I made the initial list! Not only that, I came 4th in my heat (surprising the pants of many people, I am sure – including me.) And what company!
Look, the online voting process is neither robust nor rocket science in its presentation. this is about showcasing the amazing literary talent in thins country. So, well done to the good people at Booktopia for their continued support of people busting their guts to make a mark in this whacky writing biz. It’s a bit of fun, some good old-fashioned recognition and, most importantly, it is exposure on a grand scale for lots and lots of Aussie authors who might have limited opportunities or means to promote themselves. (I actually had no idea I had that many friends! Maybe I underestimated my readers and myself. I even went and bought friends at Woolies. But when stuck them at the computer and said “VOTE” they said their hands were tied!)
I could have waited until the final TOP 50 results are announced to brag about this. But posting a partial (heat) win is much more fun than posting a major bummer post once the winners are announced.
Voting remains open until 5pm this Saturday. You can vote for any number of authors – not just one. (Just hope I will be one of them.)
I’m so glad you dropped in for a bar yarn with me, Tina. (I realise it was probably only to get away from tidying that desk!)
Here’s a beer coaster, how about you jot down your blurb for My Brother But One the back to kick-start our chinwag.
Scott Decker and Zol Ndhlovu are partners in a private game ranch in Zimbabwe. They have a friendship borne from Africa — a brotherhood that endures the generation gap — and crosses the colour barrier.
Australian Ashley Twine is a thirty-something dynamic achiever and a confident businesswoman. When a gender mix-up secures her a position on a volunteer program in the Hwange National Park, Ashley gets a chance to take stock of her life and reassess her situation. But the chauvinistic Scott — who runs the operation — is adamant she isn’t cut out for the job.
After Ashley witnesses firsthand the devastation left behind by poachers, Scott finds himself torn between wanting to protect Ashley or force her to leave Africa for her own safety…and his sanity. However, nothing can prepare her for being ambushed and held captive by the psychopathic Rodney — an old enemy of Zol’s — from a war fought years ago. But now that their world has been threatened, circumstances take hold of their lives and begin to shape and change them forever.
Set against a magnificent backdrop of Africa across the decades, T.M. Clark explores and challenges the traditions between the white and black families of rural Africa.
Come on then, grab a pew. What can I get you to go with your beer nuts? (Shandy? Wine Spritzer? Pink Lemonade?)
I’m a cheap date – coke? Hot chocolate? Fruit juice would be great – thanks … I don’t drink alcohol…I know it’s not for lack of trying, body just doesn’t let me…
Hey, did you hear the one about … Tell us a joke (preferably one that comes with a punch line you actually remember!)
I’m so bad at jokes… I don’t get them half the time, I often have to smile, then go home and ask hubby what-the-heck was so funny… and I always mess up the pun – so … I’m taking my one life line here okay?
I’m a beer nut nut! What bar snack would you be and why?
They have snacks at the bars you go to? Gee I must try that place sometime… right a bar snack… Would have to be Droevorse…in English – “Dry vors” (said phonetically). Basically a South African snack food, it’s a dried sausage. It’s got a thicker skin, but inside its full of flavours, a little unrefined and can be known to pack quite a punch…( they can came in chilli flavour…) Because that’s how you find me most of the time.. once you get that harder layer off, I’m really nice inside…but fiercely protective and possessive – I guess a bit like chilli…
Ahh, that beer hit the spot. Let me slip a drink coaster under your glass while you tell us—on a scale of 1 to 10—as a writer are you a messy desker or tidy desker? (NB: 1 = “I am a neat nut case” and 10 = “What desk? Where? Is there a desk here somewhere?”) Are you game to post a working space picture right now?
10/10 for messy desker… have been known to have to move my keyboard along the desk to make room for the work on the left – or the cat… .just took a picture…. But it gets worse… look at the side of my desk.. still more to sort through… I would say I am a tower person – I pile things on top of each other until something almost falls over … I hate it if anyone moves things as I know where they are in the mess. But every now and again my hubby takes all the piles and puts them in a box and says – ‘sort… enough mess.’ He is so opposite to me, he is the neat freak and I feel so sorry for him having to share an office with my scatty brained self.
Tina’s desk
Oh my! Was there an elephant stampede?! 😉
Tina’s floor desk! Yes, she has a name for it!
The publican offers you free drinks all night if you will:
Dance to Gangnam Style
Sing John Denver’s ‘Take me Home Country Roads’ on the Karaoke machine
Spend an hour washing dishes
Which do you choose?
Can I please use my second life line here??? Pretty please????
I can’t dance. I’m not naturally graceful at all. Sure, when I dance with hubby he makes me look good as he just leads me around and helps me find the rhythm, he is a great dancer, but me, alone, oh man I look like a spider on a hot stove… not a pretty sight at all.
My singing is so bad my teenagers always tell me ‘ssshhhh mum’ because I sound a bit like a cat getting strangled. I can’t believe I used to sing at school…mind you that was years ago….but incidentally I love that song!
And I am a true African Princess – I hate washing dishes, and will load the dishwasher and run it half full rather than do them myself in the sink…. Please don’t make me do dishes…
Time to liven the place up. Got a buck? We can crank up the old jukebox in the corner. You get to pick three songs.
African Sky Blue – Juluka/Savuka and Johnny Clegg
Wind Beneath My Wings – Bett Midler
Home – Phillip Phillips
Only three, but there are so so many I wish I could play …
An author, an agent and a chicken walk into the bar… how do you know which one crossed the road?
Had to be the author as she was talking to the chicken on the other side, before seeing the agent, picking up the chicken and taking it with her, and then walking together into the bar like friends, even though she doesn’t know the agent and the poor chicken is dying of embarrassment because the author forgot to shave under her arm because she was on deadline and can’t spare the 5 extra minutes in the shower… but always has time to talk to an agent.
There’s a stapler on the bar. Tell me what it’s doing there?
Would have to be because the author was there with the agent and the chicken, and when she was digging in her monstrous bag to grab a business card that she dug from deep inside, the stapler spilled out onto the bar, along with an assortment of pens, note books, and bulldog clips, tatty magazine article tear outs (with hot pictures of scantily clad men) that she stole from the doctors rooms, and she was so busy talking to the agent she left all her stuff there… and that was why there was still a stapler on the bar when the barman put all the other cr** under the bar for safe keeping… but couldn’t put away the pink glitter covered stapler as it made him smile thinking of the owner, hoping she would come back…
The pub is the heart of a small town and most locals would be lost without one. What are three things you’d be lost without?
My iPhone. I know but honestly it has everything in it, diary, phone numbers, email, Facebook, Twitter – EVERYTHING!
My driver’s licence – I live on an island connected to the mainland by a 1km bridge. Everything happens off the island, and the public transport isn’t reliable. ( Read that as I’m not good at public transport…) I’d be lost without my licence to drive to all the ‘writer thingies’ I attend, and the lunches, and book launches and generally all the things one does, like shopping off the island…
My hubby Shaun. Seriously, he is my other half. It’s been a work-in-progress marriage for almost 22 years now, and I would hate to loose him. Not only is he a fabulous critique partner, but he stabilises me – mostly, and makes me laugh. And that’s huge in my world. He should probably go as no 1 but hopefully at placed 3 there is less chance of actually losing him… oh and don’t worry when he does get lost and I don’t know where he is – I just ‘stalk my friend’ on my iPhone and find out where he is…LOL
There are a few good prizes up for grabs in the bar jackpot. Do you have a lucky number?
Your lucky number is: 14 & 46
Last drinks, my friend! It’s been great. But before we go, tell us how we can find out more about you and your writing/books. Oh, and you are giving one lucky reader (anywhere in the world!) a signed copy of My Brother But One. Comment away, folks, and to connect online… NOW CLOSED
I use images a lot when I write so Pinterest has become my new best friend. I used to do collages, but now just flick through my Pinterest page and go – oh yes then start writing.
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