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NEWS ARCHIVES 2007 & 2008
NOVEMBER 2008
The Selwa Anthony Author Management
company held their annual Sassy Awards ceremony at the Novotel Brighton
during November. Juanita Phillips from ABC TV News in Sydney made the
presentations. I was honoured to receive the award as the 'Quiet
Achiever' for 2008 in recognition of my five heavily-researched books
within the space of five and a half years.
Over one hundred authors, publishers, editors and others in the industry
attended the full-day seminar and 170 were there for the formal dinner
and presentation ceremony in the evening.
Selwa Anthony has been organising the seminar and Sassy Awards for many
years in her continuing and very generous support of Australian authors
in general, and popular fiction writers in particular.
SEPTEMBER 2008
The marketing people at Harper Collins went all out in September to publicise my new book – The Last Maasai Warrior.
The big promotional campaign involved the usual material in book stores
(bins, bookmarks, posters, etc), light boxes at the major airports and, a
first – advertising space on the back of capital city bus services.
AUGUST 2008
With my latest book, The Last Maasai Warrior awaiting publication by Harper Collins, it was time to visit Kenya again to research my next book.
Like many friends of Kenya, I had been reading with dismay the news of
the violence that hit the country following the December 2007 elections.
I wanted to see and hear for myself what effect this had on the lives
of ordinary Kenyans.
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I found was a society still in shock from seeing their country torn
apart by a level of inter-tribal violence not seen in living memory. The
centre of the violence had been in the squatter settlements of Kibera -
a Nairobi suburb containing around a million people within a couple of
square miles. Kibera is a no-go area to the uninitiated. Through
friends, I found someone to be my guide and I spent days talking to
people who had witnessed horrific events, and others whose lives had
been profoundly affected by the post-election violence.
I met a painter who was innocently caught between a rioting group of
Kiberan youths and an ill-disciplined police force out for revenge
rather than to uphold the law. An AK47 fractured his hip. He couldn't
afford the operation and barely had enough to buy the crutches he
needed. Now, eight months later, he still needs the crutches and has not
been able to work. Even in a squatter settlement there is rent and
school fees to pay. A difficult life had quickly become unsustainable.
And there was the Kikuyu artist who had grown up amongst his Luo friends
and neighbours. He described the demons of doubt that haunted him every
day. When would one of those friends or neighbours turn on him and
denounce him to the mob?
I came away from that experience with a very different novel to what I
had in mind when I went there. In Kibera there are few formal authority
structures - the police will not enter Kibera after dark. But through
various non-government organisations, community-based groups and the
determination of the many hard-working, honest residents to maintain
the peace, there is an amazing cohesion and order in what otherwise
appears to be chaos.
My sixth novel (due out in April 2010) will attempt to relate some of these stories.
MAY 2008
It was an honour and a pleasure to be inivited to address the May
meeting of the Society of Women's Writers at the State Library of NSW.
APRIL 2008
I'm always on the lookout for stories that are out of Africa, so when I
received an email from a man who said he had lived for many years in
Kenya, I thought I should make some further enquiries. What I received
in reply was astonishing.
Ninety-six-year-old Brian Goord sent me a memoir of his life in Africa,
where he described arriving with his wife and year-old son in 1948. With
no prior experience, Brian set about farming his land at Eldama Ravine
in the highlands overlooking the Great Rift Valley. In the following
years he and his family had to cope with all the usual trials found in
farming, but in addition there was the Mau Mau emergency, the threat of
dangerous predators and stock and plant diseases that few people
understand.
In addition to his busy life managing a farm and the eighty Africans who
lived and worked on it, Brian became a district councillor responsible
for public health and social services in an area covering some 5000
square miles.
I wanted to meet this man and was soon on a flight to Christchurch, New
Zealand, where I met Brian, and we talked for hours while he showed me
his priceless old home movies of the farm and travels around the
country.
I was kindly invited to stay at Claremont (http://www.claremontestate.com/)
with Brian's son Richard and wife Rosie, who was also born and raised
in Africa. Claremont lodge is itself an inspirational setting, ideal for
the great stories the Goord family had to relate.
I was very envious of Brian and his life in Kenya at a most interesting
time in its historical journey - a time that most people can only
visualize through the sepia-coloured pages of history books. With the
Goord's recollections of times gone by, I let my imagination take flight
into stories as yet unwritten.
Read more of Brian's story by clicking here.
OCTOBER 2007
Munich
Good news awaited me on my visit to Munich, Germany for a meeting with
my agent Ms Franka Zastrow and my editor at the German publishers
Droemer Knaur, Ms Christine Steffen-Reimann.
The German hard-back edition of In Search of Africa was featured on the
cover of Weltbild - a very large chain of book stores. You don't get
better publicitiy than that! This is one of the main reasons we are
enjoying such excellent sales in Germany so far.
SEPTEMBER 2007
The autumn weather in the university town
of Oxford was
perfect when I visited the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies
at Rhodes House.
I spent a week in Oxford researching my next book, "The Last
Maasai Warrior" which will continue to explore the fascinating life of the Maasai
of East Africa.
JULY 2007
Speaking engagements in July included an address to a book reader's
group at the Mitchell Wing in the State Library of New South Wales and
an after-dinner engagement at the annual Officer's Mess dinner at HMAS
Waterhen on Sydney's north shore.
MAY 2007
Busy, busy
It's been a busy month.
Following up on very healthy sales figures in April, Roar of the Lion
rose to number 11 on Bookscan's best sellers list in May, making for a
busy round of radio interviews, literary events and press releases.
A highlight was an hour with Richard Margetson in the Guestroom (ABC Radio 891)
German Edition of In Search of Africa
My German publisher, Droemer, has once again licensed book club rights
to Weltbild for a hardcover premiere edition of In Search of Africa to
be released before their own trade paperback edition comes out.
APRIL 2007
Roaring Ahead
The launch of Roar of the Lion got off to a great start with free samplers handed out in the CBD areas of Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne shortly before Easter.
After just two weeks Roar of the Lion has roared up the best-seller's list to lucky number thirteen - even against heavy competition such as Wilbur Smith's latest.
| Emma and Alexus of Results Media handing out samplers of Roar of the Lion outside Flinders Street Station in Melbourne: |
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| Here's Angela and Ruby distributing the Roar of the Lion Book Samplers in Brisbane on Thursday 5th April |
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| Elise and Genevieve in Pitt Street Mall, Sydney |
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Tears keeps coming
The third German edition of Tears of the Maasai landed in my mail box last week. That brings the tally to twelve editions of Tears of the Maasai in all.
Sales in Germany have simply soared.
Tanzania was a German colony many years ago which is probably one of the reasons they have such a passion for Africa. The other reason is that the Kenyan Indian Ocean coast has many delightful beach holiday resorts. There is always a strong German contingent in any of the resorts I have visited.
Beyond Mombasa in German
A few days after receiving my German copy of Tears of the Maasai, the hard copy German translation of Beyond Mombasa arrived.
It's very gratifying to find a readership in another country.
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