Author: Edwina Shaw

THE WORLD OF DEAR MADMAN

/ Edwina Shaw / 4 Comments
Laidley Corn Day

Laidley Corn Day

This is the world I’ve been living in for the past few years as I’ve been researching and writing my latest project, Dear Madman, a novel based on a tragedy that has haunted my family for generations. Laidley is a town in the Lockyer Valley west of Brisbane where the story is predominantly set, one hundred years ago.

I love this photo because it captures just how “edge of nowhere” it was back then. I am especially intrigued by the girl on the pony in the middle on the far right. Pinafore and all. Who is she and where is she going? She could even be one of my great aunts.

For a long while I had this picture pinned up beside my desk to remind me where my characters were living. For them, this was the nearest big town.

I loved living in this quieter time and place where I could hear the thud of horses hooves and my own footfall, not the constant stream of traffic flowing past my home now in busy Brisbane.

I’ve finished the latest draft and have sent it off with fingers crossed and candles lit. But now I’m left, relieved in one way to be free of the madness and violence at the heart of this story, but sad too that I have lost this slower, simpler world.

RETREAT BY THE SEA

/ Edwina Shaw / 3 Comments
Writers on the headland

Writers on the headland

I’ve just returned from another wonderful writers’ retreat with my best writing buddy, Helena Pastor, whose book is coming out with UQP next year ( I will keep you posted about that). For nine years now we’ve been meeting up along the New South Wales cost to read and edit each other’s work, brainstorm, talk writing, swim, walk and relax.

This retreat was special, in a cabin complex we’d never been before and that we had to ourselves except for tame kangaroos that ate out of my hand and cheeky kookaburras that wanted to do the same. Helena read my current project, “Dear Madman” in one day and didn’t find much to fix at all. PHEW!

We both went shopping in nearby Bellingen and came home with pretty new dresses to wear for our next launches (we hope!). Most exciting was a surprise phone call form a cousin of mine who is an emerging film maker who had used a story from Thrill Seekers as inspiration for a screenplay that had interest from a producer! How exciting is that? I felt very famous 🙂

He’s applying for funding form Screen Australia so I’ll keep you posted. But do cross everything.

Now it’s time to get stuck into the final draft (well for a while anyway) of Madman using Helena’s feedback and from other writer friends and family too. I aim to submit to a major publisher at the end of the month. Here’s to many more retreats and many more glasses of JOYFUL WRITER’S TEARS.

Joyful writers' tears

Joyful writers’ tears