Writing | Fiona Palmer

Archive for the Category »Writing «

Jul 2010

Tony Parsons

Being a big fan of rural/outback books, I, like many others, have Tony Parsons’ books in my bookshelves. The Call of the High Country, Return to the High Country, Valley of the White Gold and Silver in the Sun. I was talking with friends on facebook about what Tony was up to as we hadn’t heard from him in a while….surely a book must be close? So I contacted Tony and we had a chat! Firstly, I let him know I was also an author with Penguin and we had the same publisher and secondly – and most importantly- that I had all his books!!

He was happy to chat with me and I was amazed to find out he would be turning 80 in a few months!! So of course, being a fan, I asked him what he was working on. Tony has just finished a 700 page book called “The Kelpie” his biggest dog book yet. It is his forth Kelpie book and is published with Penguin, due for release in September this year. For those who didn’t know Tony is a bit of a legend in regards to the Kelpie dog. He established “Karrawarra” one of the top breeding kelpie studs in Australia. He was also awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 1992 for his contribution to the propagation of the Australian kelpie sheepdog. I have a kelpie also and love her to bits, she’s so clever.

He has since passed on his stud of Kelpie dogs so they will continue on. (I also found out from Tony that a bloke not far from me in Wagin has his Kelpies, so I will be checking them out next time I’m at the Woolorama!)

Tony is very proud of his book “The Kelpie”. He said it is full of great colour photos, has a vet section as well as little stories about the working Kelpie. All his other kelpie books are out of print and can fetch a penny or two on ebay.

As for another novel, Tony has written one which is currently with Penguin and he’s hoping to hear from them soon. Not bad for a bloke who’s nearing 80! I asked him what he likes to read and he said Hemingway, and a few others but he doesn’t read while he writes in case it alters his writing.

Well that was about it for my chat with the great Tony Parsons (although we may have strayed on dogs for a while and chatting about our publishing house!).

We will have to keep an eye out for his fifth book!

Big thanks to Tony who gave me his time, all the way from QLD to WA. Cheers mate.

Category: The Writer's Life, Writing 6 Comments

Jun 2010

Hopetoun

By Fiona

We meet family in Hopetoun over the weekend to celebrate our niece’s 1st birthday. We arrived friday night to a mess as the caravan park had huge amounts of rain a few days before and our anix showed just how much. Hmmm….a bit of cleaning was needed but thankfully we had it sorted quickly. We had rain most of the first day…wish I could have brought some home with us as we still have a few farmers who haven’t done any seeding yet. No hair pulling and screaming going on yet but the stress is still there…and the question about wether to seed or not! Come on mother nature…spare us a little bit!

But our last two days were great. This picture is where we fished one afternoon and we couldn’t have asked for a better day. No wind!! Amazing in Hopey. And salmon was caught for tea. *yes – my eating to walking ratio was blown out of the water but it was a weekend off…and it was too cold so I had to eat lots!*

Well we have booked our tickets, we are off to Melbourne and Sydney…mainly to visit family and so I can attend the RWA conference in Sydney. I’ve never been to one before andIi will finally get to meet Bronwyn Parry and Helene Young. Bronwyn is also up for a Romantic Book of the Year award and I’m glad I will be over there for all the excitement! Fleur McDonald is also up for the same award….so even more reasons to be excited. Congrats to them both along with all the other finallists!

As for my own news…at the meeting I got the thumbs up for my next book, offer will be on its way this week and then into the nitty gritty. Book cover, title, final edits and working on the book trailer also. I might even get back to work on book 3 if I have time.

But for now I have pumpkin scones that need cooking as I have a friend coming over this afternoon, I can’t wait!

Category: Family, News, Only in the country, The Writer's Life, Writing 2 Comments

Feb 2010

Connelly Cartoons

By Fiona

I wanted to share these couple of cartoons from the Connelly Cartoons book I have. Brett Connelly has done a great job drawing moments from the bush and these two I particularly like.

I can tell you how weird it is to be harvesting in the dry heat only for it to begin raining to the point headers are getting bogged. Its a real scratch your head moment.

And the other cartoon is at the sampling hut, which I write about in The Family Farm. Now days they use automatic spears to get the sample but when I was a sampler, at the age of 17, I used to have to manually spear a truck, which meant climbing into the back trailer into the grain. At the start of the year you can bet many farmers have a bit of trouble getting a sample through because of high moisture, due to green grains or the other time will be after rain and the grain is wet.