Sometimes it really does take an expert to untangle historical clues. Looking carefully and researching widely can only get you so far without serious expertise in a specific field. I’ve been looking more carefully at our photographs of the pen nib in Georgiana’s workbox and wondering how to work out whether it belonged to her […]
It’s late spring in Western Australia and that makes it difficult to post anything that isn’t botanical! So many WA native plants are flowering profusely and I can’t look through the window without seeing new blooms appearing nearly every day: this morning, blue sun orchids. Among the most vivid colours are the boldly-coloured ‘red and […]
As part of Writing WA’s ‘Cover to Cover’ series, I enjoyed a discussion with Meri Fatin about Georgiana and John Molloy, the research that kept me hooked for so long and the process of writing and publishing the book. The programme is currently being aired several times on the Westlink TV channel (602) and is […]
The Reverend John Besley DCL From Tiverton in Devon, the son of the local mayor, Besley was a talented and charismatic man, educated at Balliol College (Oxford University) and always destined for a successful career in the church. After working in a prestigious but rather poorly paid role as librarian at the world […]
Minutiae… Small pieces of information can fascinate. They don’t usually answer the big questions but they work together in magical ways to bring the past to life. An individual is placed in a more detailed setting and their world is populated with real objects, against a background of colours and sounds. Even now, for most […]
I was very excited to receive an invitation to contribute a Guest Blog to the Biodiversity Heritage Library. I’ve been following this fantastic organisation for a while on Facebook and on their website, viewing the regular postings and information they share. Managed by the Smithsonian in New York, the BHL is a collective of major libraries including […]
One of the most difficult aspects of writing the book was deciding what information to include and what to leave out. Small facts about someone’s life, the minutiae of their world, can seem fascinating to one person and read like boring detail to another. Many of the gaps in Georgiana’s life were found by locking […]
A lovely review by Writing WA in today’s West Australian newspaper. “Bernice Barry’s biography not only brings Molloy’s life and times alive for readers but also shares her years of research.” You can read it in full in The West Australian.
Another great review this week. Thank you to the National Trust (Australia) and to reviewer Dr Robyn Taylor (NT quarterly magazine, ‘Trust News’ August 2015). ‘This beautifully illustrated book is a joy to read’. It ‘has a different approach’ that ‘brings psychological depth to the main characters and greater poignancy’. And thank you to the […]
Dr Green’s name appears often in the settlers’ letters, journals and diaries, not least because as their physician and surgeon he was an important part of daily life. Their comments about his work and their observations about his personal life paint a sketchy picture of the man but, viewed in isolation, the collection of anecdotes […]