This week I have had a wave of contacts from both students and teachers, mostly from New South Wales and Victoria. It is always great to hear from people. One student had just read, and loved, Graffiti on the Fence. He then went off to the library and found Wild Wind and Someone Like Me.

A teacher who read Someone Like Me to her class last year contacted me to see if there was an audio version available. She is planning to read the book to this year’s class and thought some of her students might benefit from being able to hear as well as see the book. The Association for the Blind in WA is negotiating with Penguin at the moment to produce CD and Mp3 versions so we have our fingers crossed that an audio version will become available again soon. If not she will use the paperback, as she did last year.

It is great to know that there are still people discovering my books for the first time and really enjoying them. I am always happy to reply to emails and to answer any questions that readers might have. So contact me and make my day!

Cover of Someone Like Me by Elaine Forrestal

Cover design by John Canty

Following on the success of Deep Water and Leaving no Footprints, eText Press has now published Wild Wind: An Eden-Glassie Mystery. I am particularly pleased about this because it means that two of the four Eden Glassie Mysteries are now available as eBooks. All those teachers who are using the series in their classrooms will now be able to access the whole quartet again.

Stone Circle and Black Earth are still available as print copies, but as the rights revert to me, they will also become available as eBooks.

Deep Water is also available in CD and Mp3 format from the Association for the Blind in WA. Wild Wind is being produced as I type and the other titles in the series are due to follow shortly.

What an amazing variety of ways we have to tell our stories!

Enjoy!

On Sunday Black Jack Anderson and Straggler’s Reef were featuring in a Writer’s Festival session where participants got to peep into the inner workings of the Battye Library. For writers like me the Battye is the first place I go to check out facts and learn more about a character or place that I think I might write about.

When I needed details of the wreck of the Lancier on Straggler’s Reef in 1839, and the loss of the chest that contained 7000 pounds Stirling worth of silver coins, the Battye revealed just what a priceless treasure trove it is.

Almost ten years later, when all I had was the name Black Jack Anderson and a passing reference to Middle Island, the Battye again came up trumps. The Battye computer ran rings around Google and instantly came up with five references to Western Australia’s own pirate who was ‘the scourge of the Southern Ocean’ from 1825 to 1835 and could ‘disappear with the speed of a westerly wind’ whenever he was being pursued by the law.

Of course I wrote many other books during the ten year period between Straggler’s Reef and Black Jack Anderson. And every one of them required research into some aspect of the story. The Battye Library is almost a second home to me. All my archives are now kept there and it is always a great treat to be able to spend a day immersed in its fascinating collection of West Australian history.

Elaine Forrestal signing copies of Black Jack Anderson at the State Library where the Battye is housed.

Rose de Freycinet going ashore in Dili with her husband, Louis

The modern day journey of Rose de Freycinet has become almost as eventful as her original voyage around the world in 1817. Her story has been to Melbourne, to France, to Fremantle and yesterday she returned to Melbourne, albeit to a different location.

And she still has a long way to go.