April 2013… catch-up
A lot has happened since I last wrote…Libby realized she has too many commitments, and she’s left us.
We buckled under this blow. But still, there were 3 of us, sharing the work.
Then, two months ago, Louise told us she needed to talk. We sat glumly in a Darlinghurst café, Louise, Bem and I.
“I’ve got too much other work,” she said.
It was one of those moments of such pain, I could scarcely lift my eyes, fixated by the sad scratches on the wooden table top.
“Goodness, Sue, you won’t leave?” asked Bem.
I said, as I’ve often thought, that accomplishing this website will be one of the comforts I’ll want to count on my frail fingers on my death-bed- inspired by a French movie: I’ll be surrounded by relatives bowed with grief and respectful family retainers, elegantly breathing my last on antique lace-edged linen, and in Rembrandt brown hues.
A few sobs, a few hiccups off..
“It’s OK, “ I’ll say comfortingly, my frail but still anarchic fingers delighted with a fraying hole they’ve found in the lace.
“I leave behind the first-ever author-run website for established Australian authors and their readers.”
In front of my river house, Louise had planted scarlet geraniums amongst the wild ferns and grey-green gum leaves that contrarily decided just then to burst into flower. For a fortnight I couldn’t look at their blaze, I had to turn my head away or my heart would sink.
But Jan, Bem’s husband, Doctor Jan, academic writer, designer, computer whizz (and extraordinary professional chef) and with a mind that’s disciplined – has decided to join us.
“I’ll stay, he says, “until wutheringink is up and running.”
So disaster has turned into relief, and now joy. The ASA is ready to house us in its rooms. Our website is almost ready to burst upon the world. We’re accumulating authors who will be part of the founding family – Stephen Sewell, Ian David, Marian Campbell, Gordon Graham. And you, dear reader?