Tag: Dawn Barker

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School Daze – your favourite authors

Playgrounds, pencils and Perkins Paste remain a hazy, crazy, daze for many of us. In Calingarry Crossing this storm season, a school reunion brings home more than memories for publican, Maggie Lindeman, so I’ve decided to ask a few authors to reflect on their own    school daze.

What do you think about school reunions! Love them? Hate them? Do you agree with Maggie (Simmering Season) that such events push you to question everything — your worth, your achievements … your life.

To celebrate the release of Simmering Season, I’m holding a school reunion and you’re invited to catch up with your favourite authors, or find a new favourite author. If you have an Aussie author you’d like me to feature, leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do.

The school bell is ringing, and first in class we have…

Jennie Jones – THEN

“When I left school I also left my best friend, Jane. We each trod different paths after that but had spent our high school years together; dreaming, dodging, wishing, loving boys and getting giggly over just about anything. Our formative years were filled with sighing, laughing, crying, arguing, wondering and planning.  We’re still in touch, after thirty-something years. This special school friendship we share is what I call a seasoned memory.”

NOW: www.jenniejonesromance.com

Sara Foster at school
Sara Foster – THEN

‘Throughout my primary school days we used to play elastics at every opportunity, coming up with more and more imaginative ways of jumping on and over two strips of elastic, which were either wound around people’s legs or tied to drainpipes and chairs. At some stage I’m planning to drag my daughters away from technology to show them how it’s done. (Although let’s just hope I can still do it!)’

 

Rachael Johns at School Rachael Johns – THEN

I’m one of the lucky ones. In my first weeks of high school I found my ‘group.’ You know the people who stick by you through thick and thin, who laugh and cry with you, put up with your crazy and embarrassing sometimes outlandish personality, and whom you feel confident sharing your deepest and darkest secrets? These are my girls – there are six of us. Four of us met in year eight, another came in year ten and the final (but just as important) member of our group found us in year eleven. We spent our high school years hanging out at school and whenever we could outside of school. We shopped for our all important formal dresses together, we were there to laugh over crushes of boys and support each other when hearts were broken. We had the BEST ever sleepovers – where sleep wasn’t on the agenda at all. We scared each other silly with thriller movies, while we ate junk food and drank Fanta. One sleepover we even rung the local radio station and dedicated songs to our then crushes – whether they have heard them or not, we’ll never know. The song was ‘I Swear’ if you were wondering.
Although we now are all married with kids, we are still as close as ever. Maybe closer. We’ve been through joyous times together – weddings and babies – and we’ve been through some tough times too. In many ways we are as different as a bunch of women can get, but we still get together as much as we can. We laugh over old memories and share what’s currently going on in our crazy, hectic lives. Now we even get together on occasions with our kids and there is nothing more amazing than watching my children enjoy spending time with my best friends’ children. I know we’ll be BFFs until the end. Yep, these women are the best thing I got out of high school!

Alison Stuart – THEN

“Unpick it and do it again”… Mrs. Plummer, sewing teacher. But seriously I think I owe my biggest debt of thanks to Miss Robinson who had the misfortune to try and teach a bunch of Year 9 girls English grammar. She was the first teacher who encouraged my creative writing.”

NOW:  www.alisonstuart.com

 

Cathryn Hein – THEN

“I suspect that without Mr Costello as my English teacher I wouldn’t be a writer. He was amazing. He also gave me a B+ for my cringe-worthy short story A Day In The Life Of A Feminist Cockroach. Not quite sure what he was thinking that day…”

 Nicola Moriaty – THEN

I thought it might be fun to quote directly from my diary that I kept all through my schools years, the following extract is from when I was eight years old, I’ve kept the spelling mistakes in!!
“i dont beleav it today mr. Connolly let us talk for a bit! We have this new sports teacher who is mean. But we playd lots of running games. We started school two days ago. We’v done lots of work but Mr. Connolly thinks we’v hardly done any he sais where gonna work our buts off. He already toute us two songs and a poulm. At lunch i got tipped when I was b.a. then everybody said to me that i was in so i said i was b.a. They said there was no b.a. I said i did not know. They said I had to take it. i got mad and cryed. But we made up.”
I think I still remember the injustice of that game of tip! But I also remember Mr Connolly as one of my favourite teachers because he gave me a hug when I cried after getting in trouble for throwing grapes on the school bus.

 

Dawn Barker – THEN

“I had two favourite subjects at school: English and Latin. My reasons for liking English are probably obvious, as even in primary school I was entering competitions reciting Scottish poetry and winning certificates like this! In high school I studied Latin for five years and loved it. Latin opened up the world of literature when I learned the structure and cadence of the language, the mythology, and the poems of Ovid, Cattalus and Virgil. Essential for anyone who wants to understand stories and language, I think!”

 

Fiona Palmer – THEN

“I hated maths and I had some real doozy maths teachers over the years but then Mr Gow came along in Year 11. He was awesome and my favourite. My friend took this class photo, maybe that’s why I was game enough to ‘bunny ears’ Mr Gow.”

NOW:https://www.facebook.com/FionaPalmerRuralAuthor?ref=hl

Christine Stinson at SchoolChristine Stinson – THEN

“I met my favourite teacher in primary school. Sister Justinian looked a lot like a bull dog, with a particularly pugnacious bottom lip and a habit of throwing exercise books out the window (and onto the road) if she wasn’t happy with the standard of homework. Bless her, she gave me pictures to write stories about and didn’t mind how long those stories were, and my exercise book never ended up on the roadway.”

NOW: www.christinestinson.com

Heather Garside – THEN

“Before- and after-school jobs included feeding the occasional poddy calf. My primary schooling was done by correspondence school as we lived too far from town to attend normal school. My mother taught all four of us and often battled with getting us into the school room. One morning we had gone off playing some distance from the house and poor Mum was calling and calling us to come home. How naughty were we! One of our cats came up to join us and began meowing at us. Then he turned around and starting walking back to the house, looking back at us and meowing every so often. We were so intrigued, we obediently followed him home!”

NOW: http://www.heathergarside.com

Jenn J McLeod – THEN

“The strongest memory for me at High school relates to that plot in the playground, our group’s patch of ground that no other group dared occupy. A recess oasis where battles were fought and friendships were forged.”

 

 

School’s out for the day. If you have any questions or 

suggestions, please raise your hand, leave a comment, share!

A word about that OTHER school reunion in Calingarry Crossing. 

Poor Maggie. She has no idea the perfect storm is

Find out more, right here. Simmering Seasonheaded her way.

For emergency alerts and warnings for Simmering Season, subscribe to Jenn J McLeod’s blog before you go, or LIKE her Facebook Page.

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Author Harvest ‘bales up’ Dawn Barker

Author HarvestFRACTURED_left

I’m so excited about  Dawn’s debut novel – out NOW – I’m putting the blurb right up front so you don’t miss it.

  Fractured – all their dreams have shattered.

Tony is worried. His wife, Anna, isn’t coping with their newborn. Anna had wanted a child so badly and, when Jack was born, they were both so happy. They’d come home from the hospital a family. Was it really only six weeks ago?

But Anna hasn’t been herself since. One moment she’s crying, the next she seems almost too positive. It must be normal with a baby, he thought, she’s just adjusting. He was busy at work. It would sort itself out. But now Anna and Jack are missing. And he realises that something is really wrong…

What happens to this family will break your heart and leave you breathless

Just reading that sends shivers up my spine, so you’d best feed me because food comforts… (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, doc!)

What treat have you whipped up for me today, Dr Dawn?Dawn Barker

Jenn, I’m very much a tea person, served in a pretty pot.

(I like tea. I like how the tea leaves  after you’ve drained your cup create shapes. Sometimes I see rabbits and faces… Kind of like ink blots. Not that there’s anything wrong with that — right?)

So about that comfort food, Dawn?

For special guests, I show off my Scottish background by baking a pretty good  – if I do say so myself – shortbread. Sprinkled with lots of sugar of course…Fractured - both

(Ock, mon! A wee bit o’ Scottish shortbread never hurts. Sorry, that’s the McLeod part of me coming out! Not that I have a split personality or anything – okay?  Speaking of split (or Fractured!), Hachette is very clever designing your covers with alternate sides of the face.) 

At home …

My mum says garden gnomes make a house a home! Are you loud and proud in your love of garden gnomes at home, a closet gnomer or with a strict ‘no gnomes’ policy at your place?

There are no gnomes in our garden, I’m afraid, although my three little girls tell me there are fairies in amongst the bushes. I think that beats gnomes any day.

(I think fairies win, hands down!)

What vegetable (or fruit) have you always wanted to grow at home?

We have lots of fruit and veggies growing at home, although very few of them survive the hot Perth summer! At the moment – it’s 37c outside – the only things still going are grapes, lemongrass, cherry tomatoes, chilli, mint and lemons. Actually, that sounds like a good combination. Thai prawns and a mojito anyone?

(Yes please!)

Whose home would you like to housesit and why?

Anyone whose house has a balcony, a view, a playroom and a full time nanny so I can sit and read a book with a pot of tea without my children clambering all over me!

Country curiosities…

The big question… Why did the chicken cross the road?

You should know better than to ask a psychiatrist a question like that! I’m interested in why you ask that. Why do you think the chicken crossed the road, Jenn?

(*gulp*)

About you…

Your turning point: when was that point in your life that you realized that being an author was no longer going to be just a dream but a reality and a career?

In 2010, my manuscript for Fractured was chosen for the Queensland Writers Centre/Hachette manuscript development programme. In some ways, this was more significant than the day that Hachette offered to publish it, as it was the first acknowledgement by the industry that I wasn’t just dreaming, that there was something in my writing and that my story that was worth pursuing. Of course, since then there have been many moments in my publishing journey where I’ve had to remind myself that I am actually now doing what I’d only dreamed of before!

(I’m so excited Fractured and House for all Seasons are coming out together. Not ‘coming out’ as in … well, you know… Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

What is the hardest part of writing for you?

I have three very young children, and so for me, finding the time and space to write is a constant challenge. I try to write every day, but there are some days when I have to remember that I can’t do it all.

Fun stuff…

What does your protagonist think about you? Would he or she want to hang out with you, the author, his/her creator.

The protagonist in Fractured is very similar to me in many ways. I deliberately created a main character that readers could relate to and see elements of themselves in, because the experiences of the family in my novel really could happen to any of us.

If you could trade places with any other person for a week, famous or not famous, living or dead, real or fictional, with whom would it be?

I’d love to be Truman Capote at his prime: living a literary life in New York when writers were really celebrated, hosting The Black and White Party, hanging out with the jet set. But a week would be long enough. I like peace and quiet. I’m usually asleep by 10pm, and I don’t think Mr Capote was…

(Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

How weird are you? Rate yourself on a scale of 1 (not) to 10 (very).

I’m afraid I’m not very weird at all. I spend my day playing with the children, running a house, and trying to fit in some writing and exercise. I think on that scale, I’m a 1.

(Hmm, I reckon only a psychiatrist can say that and get away with it!)

Dawn says you can buy the book in all the usual places: Booktopia, Dymocks and Fishpond! But she likes people to try their local bookshop first.

For the ebook version: http://www.booktopia.com.au/fractured-dawn-barker/prod9780733629853.html

Catch Dawn on Facebook, Tweeting as @drdawnbarker and on her website: www.authordawnbarker.com