Jenn J McLeod - Australian Fiction

Dear Maggie,

It’s 1970, you are twenty-five and about to set off on the adventure of a lifetime. You’ve been teaching primary school for three years, your friends are all married – you’ve already been a bridesmaid three times – and you’ve grown up on stories of the mad Australian side of the family visiting during the war. You have family in Melbourne, but being independent, you’ve decided to go to Sydney where you know no one.

You’re not sure what you’ll find there, but have read lots of Lucy Walker books and it’s only for two years, so it can’t be too bad. You’ve seen the ad with a half-naked man in gown and mortarboard inviting you to ‘Come and Teach in the Sun’. Right now, you may not be living the beach lifestyle you imagined when you stepped on the plane, but it’s waiting for you. You just need to be patient.

What you don’t know is that, initially you’ll feel you’re on permanent holiday, the sky will look like a picture postcard and you won’t be at all homesick. Don’t be too disappointed when you hate teaching in state schools, which you’ve discovered are very different from those in Scotland. Things will improve and at the end of two years, you won’t be ready to go home.

In a few years the government will declare university study free and with the encouragement of the headmistress in the private school you now teach in, you’ll complete the degree you dropped out of in Scotland. You’ll enjoy study so much you’ll continue to further study and eventually gain a PH D. but that comes later.

Your study will lead you to the achievement of your long-held goal to improve teacher education and this will take you to country New South Wales, first to Goulburn, then to Wagga Wagga. It’s there that, at the ripe old age of 37 when, after several disastrous relationships and having almost given up hope of finding your soulmate, you’ll meet the gentle giant of a man who will become your husband and you’ll become stepmother to three teenagers.

Remember to never give up on your dreams, and it’s never too late to try something new. The positive attitude you inherited from your mother will always stand you in good stead, and when you’re facing redundancy in your sixties, you’ll decide to fulfil your childhood dream of writing fiction.

Signed,

Your seventy-one year-old self.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Maggie lives on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast with her husband of over 30 years and, when not writing or reading, loves to walk along the beach in the early morning and have coffee by the Noosa River. She writes contemporary women’s fiction celebrating mature women and the heroes worthy of them. You can find out more about Maggie at:

http://maggiechristensenauthor.com/

Connect with Maggie of Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maggiechristensenauthor/

Madeline House is Maggie’s fifth book and the third in her Oregon Coast Series:
Buy link: myBook.to/MadelineHouse

If you’ve read this far … lucky you! Maggie is giving a copy of Madeline House away, so before you go, leave a comment. NOW CLOSED

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Wanting to honour the lost art of letter writing through this blog series, I also opened my fourth novel with a character writing a letter. And not just any letter. It’s a story — perhaps the most important he’ll ever tell.

The Other Side of the Season

Life is simple on top of the mountain for David, Matthew and Tilly until the winter of 1979 when tragedy strikes, starting a chain reaction that will ruin lives for years to come. Those who can, escape the Greenhill banana plantation on the outskirts of Coffs Harbour. One stays—trapped for the next thirty years on the mountain and haunted by memories and lost dreams. That is until the arrival of a curious young woman, named Sidney, whose love of family shows everyone the truth can heal, what’s wrong can be righted, the lost can be found, and . . . there’s another side to every story.

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