Thirty Years in the Making
Welcome to The Back Verandah.
I'm writing a new book.
It's called Write It Down: A Guide to Writing Family Memoir for Regional Australians, and it has been percolating inside me for thirty years, since the night in October 1996 when I sat in my bed on a station west of Longreach, and wrote in my bank diary about the death of a man called Arthur Egan.
Arthur's story is one I'll share with you properly next month, because it deserves more than a paragraph. For now, I'll say this: his death planted a seed that, unbeknownst to me, has been quietly growing ever since, and this book is what grew from it.
Write It Down is being written for regional Australians who believe their stories are not worth telling. For the publican and the nurse, the retired police officer and the station hand, the woman who followed a book from Adelaide to central Australia and built her life on a remote cattle station, and the man who crossed the world to serve as a priest in a small Queensland mining community. For the adult children who have started to notice their parents' memories fading, and understand with cold clarity what this means.
Write It Down grew from that diary entry 30 years ago, and from every regional Australian I've sat with since — every person who arrived uncertain, underprepared, or unsure where to begin, and left knowing they could do it.
The manuscript is underway.
I'll be sharing more about the book here as it comes together — including Arthur Egan, next month.
In the meantime, if you're not yet on The Back Verandah mailing list, I'd love you to join.
Just head to my website and subscribe. Monthly, no more.
With care, Natalie
Natalie Stockdale, The Memoir Writer
