With To See the World; a voyage of discovery aboard the sailing ship Uranie now with the editor at the National Library of Australia it is time to start thinking about my next big project.

Elaine Forrestal with some of her published stories

I have always found it rather puzzling to look back at how my stories develop. Some just fall into my lap. They seem to arrive out of nowhere, push everything else out of my head and demand to be written immediately. Others begin with an idea that sits, quite patiently, at the back of my mind until another idea comes along and collides with it. Then the two ideas work together and eventually the story takes shape

Under my desk I have an ‘ideas box’. It is full of bits of paper. There are shopping dockets with writing on the back, pages from different notebooks and odd sheets of recycled paper – anything that happened to be within reach when I needed something to write on. Sometimes my rough scrawl describes an interesting person I have seen in the street, a dream or a sudden thought I have had in the night or part of a newspaper article that has caught my eye. Anything unusual, quirky, different. I very rarely open this box because I know that, when I do, those ideas will come flooding out and at least some of them will demand to be turned into stories. When I am already working on a book I can’t afford to be distracted by this buzzing hoard of fresh ideas. But, as I have been typing this, the temptation to look inside the box has become increasingly hard to resist. Perhaps it’s time to open the lid?

Stay tuned to find out what pops up next.

The cast of the play, Black Jack Anderson, (Elaine Forrestal in black – centre)

What a great performance!

Congratulations to the drama students from Esperance Senior High School. With the help of Luke Robson and their teachers they performed twenty three scenes from the book, Black Jack Anderson during the Festival of the Wind in Esperance at the weekend.

Bare footed and dressed in appropriately scruffy shirts, jeans and hats they brought to life the story of Australia’s most notorious pirate with flare and enthusiasm. Even the kissing scene, which Luke tells me did elicit a few protests early on, was carried off convincingly. And there was not a black eye-patch in sight! For me this is particularly important because Black Jack Anderson was a  real pirate, living off the land on the remote and windswept Middle Island, raiding passing ships to supplement supplies of essential goods (as well as any valuables that might come to hand) and, as their clothing wore out, improvising garments and even boots, from seal skins. I think it is necessary to portray Anderson and his men with historical accuracy, rather than cliched misconception, and Luke and the students did this extremely well.

The Perth Writer’s Festival is over and preparations for another exciting Festival are now underway.

On Wednesday I went down to Esperance to work with the drama students at Esperance Senior High School on their improvisation of my Black Jack Anderson book. They will be presenting two performances of their work

Lighthouse overlooking Esperance Harbour from Don Mackenzie’s Garden

for the Festival of the Wind, which is happening over the weekend 15th, 16th and 17th March. The theme of the Festival is ‘Our Nautical History’ and Black Jack Anderson fits right in to that. Although Middle Island is three hours away by sea, Esperance is still the closest town to the place where Australia’s most notorious pirate made his base. Stories of the exploits of Anderson and his men abound in the town, passed down from fathers and grandfathers of the current residents. And Dorothy André, curator of the Esperance Museum, is arguably the most knowledgable person in the world when it comes to information about Anderson’s time on Middle Island. The Museum contains artifacts and articles, paintings and documents that trace the history of the island which remains today very much as it was when the pirates abandoned it in 1835; remote, wild and unspoiled.

I can’t wait to see how the drama students, with expert guidance from Luke Robson and their teachers, translate the book into a stage performance.