Tin Can Mail and the drive to communicate

Today I delivered a letter to my father Haydn Savage that his father Leslie Savage had written to him almost 75 years ago. I planned to write this up as an example of the enduring power of the written word. But it’s not that simple. The deeper I delved, the more this became a story about the drive to connect through whatever means possible.

The letter came in an envelope with a Tongan stamp and an intriguing array of postmarks, though it was written in Melbourne. Affixed to the letter was an article from The Herald 12 July 1937 inviting stamp collectors interested in obtaining letters with ‘tin can mail’ postmarks to send their envelopes and sixpence worth of stamps to the Union Steam Ship Company. The letters were to be sent on the TSS Maunganui, dropped overboard in tin cans off the Tongan island of Niuafo’ou and returned by the next available ship.

For my grandfather, a stamp collecting, National Geographic subscriber with a passion for what he called ‘the South Seas’, I can well imagine the allure of tin can mail.

Nuiafo'ou from the air, 7 June 2011

It turns out Niuafo’ou is a remote, volcanic rim island of 15 square kilometres with neither beaches nor harbour. A ten kilometre drop into the Tongan Trench makes it impossible for ships to anchor; even landing a rowboat is difficult in the turgid waters off the steep cliffs.

According to Betty Billingham’s history of the tin can mail, in 1882 the island’s sole white inhabitant, plantation manager William Travers, desperate to communicate with the outside world, petitioned the Tongan postal authorities to seal his mail in empty biscuit tins and have it dropped overboard by passing ships. When the captain sounded the ship’s siren, Travers would send a swimmer out to collect the tin and exchange it for outgoing mail.

Philatelist Janet Klug suggests the idea of the swimming postmen was inspired by the Niuafo’ou islanders’ use of buoyant fau wood poles to support themselves while spear-fishing: ‘The traders thought that if the swimmers could use poles to catch and bring back fish, they could easily use poles to go out to a passing ship and to catch the mail and bring it back.’

Photo postcard c 1930 of swimming postmen bringing inward mail

Swimmers could struggle for up to six hours, battling strong currents in shark infested waters to retrieve a mail tin dropped from a ship only a mile off shore. When mail drops took place at night, groups of swimmers would go out, the villagers lighting bonfires on the cliffs to guide them back.

Charles Ramsay, a plantation manager who came to Niuafo’ou in 1921, was the only white man known to swim for the mail, which he did 112 times both by day and by night. I couldn’t find a record of the names of any islanders who swam for the mail, not even the swimmer famously attacked by a shark in 1931, who died after confessing to having tampered with the island’s precious fresh water supply (his death was put down to divine punishment). The Tongan authorities under Queen Salote subsequently insisted future tin can mail drops be collected by outrigger canoe, though this was hardly less hazardous as the canoes had to be thrown into the water from the cliff tops with the crews jumping in after them, and there is evidence to suggest the swimming postmen continued to brave the waters for years to come.

L to R: Pauline Hoeft, Walter G Quensell & his wife Emma Hoeft, c 1922

It was German born seaman turned trader Walter George Quensell who recognised the philatelic interest that could be generated by the tin can mail system. In a letter of 23 January 1947 to a friend in California, Quensell writes “I do not claim to be the originator of that same mail, it was started long before I came to “Tin Can Island” that was in 1919. Still it was me that made it known to the world.”

From 1928-29, using a child’s printing set, Quensell produced a rubber stamp to mark his outgoing letters ‘TIN CAN MAIL’. Over the years, his cachets became more elaborate. He ordered rubber stamps from New Zealand with ‘Tin Can Mail’ in multiple languages. He also stamped envelopes with his own name and the title ‘TCM Man’ or ‘TCCMM’ for ‘Tin Can (Canoe) Mail Man’.

Incidentally, the only woman known to ‘swim the mail’ was Quensell’s sister-in-law Pauline Hoeft, New Zealand’s ‘Champion Lady Swimmer’, who held the fifty- and one-hundred yards world records in the early 1920s, was a match for ‘the speediest of male swimmers‘ in the fifty yard open scratch race, and is said to have worked with Johnny Weissmuller, Hollywood’s most famous Tarzan.

At some point, Quensell arranged with ships’ captains for passengers to mail letters ‘in the tin’, enclosing sixpence worth of stamps to cover costs. Quensell would apply his cachets, then send them on. The ships’ captains added their own stamps and cruising by Niuafo’ou to watch the collecting of the mail soon became a tourist attraction. Through an arrangement with the shipping companies, Quensell’s offer was extended beyond passengers to stamp collecting enthusiasts like my grandfather. In the 27 years he spent on the island, Quensell estimated he sent 1.5 million letters to 148 different countries.

Yet tin can mail was never just a gimmick. Until an airstrip was constructed on Niuafo’ou in 1983, it remained the only way for residents to send and receive mail.

Les Savage & son Haydn in 1938

My grandfather’s letter clearly made it to Niuafo’ou, as the envelope is stamped with multiple cachets including TIN CAN – CANOE MAIL: ISLAND, which is unusual as Quensell was said to have cut out the word ‘canoe’ from all rubber cachets from mid-1935 following a dispute with the swimmers. But why the letter never made it back to the addressee, my father Haydn, remains a mystery.

Indeed, the letter might never have reached us but for the unusual note on the front top left corner: ‘To be opened on 12th Sept 1952.’ In a move typical of my beloved late grandfather, he’d written the letter to his son, then aged not quite two years, and marked it to be opened on what would have been my father’s seventeenth birthday.

The note piqued the curiosity of a Gold Coast couple who acquired the ‘cover’, as they are known to philatelists, as part of a bulk lot bought at auction. Though covers have a much higher value if they remain unopened, the couple took a chance on finding something of interest, that might also help them locate the intended recipient or his family.

“As it turns out it had a most beautiful letter inside,” they wrote to me in January 2012. “We are so glad to have located its rightful owner – such lovely words deserve to be with the intended recipient.”

Haydn reading a letter from his father, 75 years after it was written

They found me on the internet, of course: the previous month I’d written a post to commemorate the first anniversary of my paternal grandmother’s death and tagged it with my father’s name.

Thus the letter travelled via air, ship, tin can, canoe, email, registered mail and train to finally reach its intended recipient nearly 75 years after it was written. The cover probably changed hands many times over the years among philatelists. I was surprised to learn that attempting to return mail to the intended recipient is frowned upon by collectors and dealers who (legitimately) purchase items like Tin Can Mail covers to keep or re-sell at a profit. We were fortunate the last owners didn’t subscribe to that view and elected instead to connect.

After all, what child of any age wouldn’t cherish the chance to read the following:

At the moment you are 1 year & 10 months old and playing happily around me — a constant joy to your loving mother & I. In two months time you will be two years old. Easily the most marvellous years of our life…I know you will always love your Mummy and Daddy and they only live for you.

And from Haydn: ‘My father did this to me all my life, post-dated mail by many years, then refused to let me open it on the date! I was really thrilled to read the contents of this one.’

Photo sources:
Niuafo’ou from the air, Trans Niugini Tours
Photo postcard c 1930, Post Office Postcards
Pauline Hoeft, Walter Quensell & Emma Hoeft, Tonga Tin Can Mail History (1882-1983)

Me and other Aussie authors

It’s New Year’s Eve and I’ve got less than 12 hours to complete the Aussie Authors Challenge I signed up for in 2011. I aimed for the ‘True Blue’ category of reading and reviewing 12 books by at least nine different Australian authors in a year. To date — that’d be nearly 365 days into the challenge — I’ve reviewed ten books by nine different Australian authors, eight of them women, eight of them crime fiction.

Of course, I’ve read more than ten books this year — and more than ten books by Australian authors. Problem is I’m too busy being an Aussie author to write more reviews.

This year I’ve finished a complete first draft of the third Jayne Keeney PI novel and started on the second draft. I’ve written two short stories, one of which won the Sisters in Crime 2011 Scarlet Stiletto Award. The other will appear in an Australian anthology of short crime fiction to be published by the awesome guys at Crime Factory in 2012. Stay tuned for more news on that in the New Year.

I’ve participated in three writers’ festivals and two panels at The Wheeler Centre, and had the pleasure of ‘appearing’ on radio several times to talk books, most recently on Radio National Summer Breakfast (see photo) to plug a couple of my favourite crime novels of the year (you can listen here).

So I’m not signing up for a large scale read-and-review challenge in 2012, especially with a new novel to deliver.

But I am participating as a guest author/reviewer in the Australian Women Writers 2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge, an exciting project to promote the reading and reviewing of a wide range of contemporary Australian women’s writing throughout 2012, the National Year of Reading. I’ll be reading and reviewing at least one book in a genre other than my own and writing a review for the Australian Women Writers blog. You can sign up to participate in the challenge here.

Now you’ll have to excuse me, Thanks to my gorgeous partner, I’ve got a brand new Kindle to play with over the summer and piles of books and ebooks to devour.

Happy New Year everyone. And happy reading.

Ruby Vine

My grandmother on her 99th birthday in 2010

It’s funny the things that remind you of someone. In the case of my paternal grandmother, whom I called Mumma, the sight of garden beds edged in concrete combined with a well manicured lawn bring the memories flooding back. These features of her garden were also symbolic of her personality: she was always neat as a pin and firmly believed in maintaining appearances.

Mumma was born Ruby Vine Wallace, known as Vine, and died a year ago today, three weeks shy of her one hundredth birthday. No one could say she didn’t have a good innings. But that doesn’t stop me missing her.

I’ll always be glad that when I was pregnant with my daughter in 2005, I took the time to interview Mumma about her life. My interviews with her formed the basis of the eulogy my brother Luke put together for her funeral — which we held on what would have been her 100th birthday — while I put together a slide show of 100 years in 100 photos.

My grandmother was born in Charters Towers on 15 January 1911, the second of three daughters born to Maud Mary Victoria and John James Wallace. Her father died when Vine was seven; her mother’s second husband died before she left school. Vine came of age in Cairns a household comprised of her mother, two sisters and two female lodgers.

Costume Ball 1929: Vine is front, left

Mumma told me the years 1928-30 were among her happiest. The house in Abbot Street Cairns was known as ‘No Man’s Land’, though it was filled with boys at the regular Sunday evening parties they hosted, and the girls frequently went on trips to places like Turtle Bay, Green Island and Double Island. My great-grandmother made the girls’ clothes and judging from the photos from that era, costume parties were all the rage.

I never understood why my grandmother gave up her ‘wonderful life’ where she was ‘very happy and very independent’ — her words — to marry my grandfather, Leslie Joseph Savage, a musician and postman on secondment from Melbourne, whom she met at the Abbot Street parties. Her excuse was ‘he was so bloody persistent’ but I suspect there was more to it. Vine was ‘four foot eight in her good shoes’ — to quote my brother — and Les was six-foot-plus, so it may have been genetics. Then again, I wouldn’t have put it past Les to have wooed Vine with a song: perhaps Ain’t She Sweet, a big hit from the era.

Vine on her wedding day 1931

They married on Les’ 25^th birthday, 15 Dec 1931, and left Cairns for Melbourne that same day. Vine moved from an environment that was young, female and innocent, into one that was an older, hard-drinking and patriarchal. Still, she was no pushover: she stood up to her mother-in-law Laura and years later resisted pressure to move in with Les’ father Walter after Laura died. Still, it’s poignant that she says her favourite photo of herself — and I asked her about this when she was 99 years old — was the portrait taken on her wedding day, just before she moved to Melbourne.

Vine was so homesick that when when in 1934 Les took leave from work to fulfil his dream of travelling to Tahiti, she opted to return to Cairns to spend time with her family. Only much later would she travel overseas: to Hong Kong, New Zealand, the UK, France and Tahiti, too.

Vine with Haydn and her mother Maud QLD 1938

Vine and Les were living in East St Kilda when their first son Haydn Joseph (my father) was born on 12 September 1935. The mid-1930s were lean years. The family didn’t have much money, lived in a shared household, and played cards with friends for entertainment. My grandmother developed practices during this period that stayed with her a lifetime, re-using and recycling long before they were fashionable.

She remembered hearing the declaration of war on the radio in 1939 when pregnant with her second child. Les was in the equivalent of the Army Reserves and was encamped within weeks, first at Caulfield and later at Portsea. However, he was able to be home when their second son Clive Anthony was born on 11 December 1939.

Vine spent most of the war years without Les, and her letters to him at this time show her loneliness and sadness, as well as her forbearance and her dedication to the upbringing of her sons. She wrote some 40 letters between 29 June and 14 Sept 1943 alone.

In late-1944, Vine took her sons by boat to Western Australia where Les had been stationed the previous year, but after six months Les was unexpectedly transferred to Mareeba in Queensland and Vine took the boys back to Melbourne. Les finally came home in December 1945. But the years apart took their toll on my grandparents’ marriage.

Vine was always very homesick. When her beloved mother died on 23 August 1949 of pneumonia, Vine was devastated. Just over a year later, her younger sister died, too, at the age of 36.

Mumma with me (right) & my cousin Laura on our 1st birthdays

When I interviewed Mumma about her life, there is nothing after this until 1952, when the family moved to Mimosa Road, Carnegie. In the 1960s, both Haydn and Clive married, the first grandchild (me) arriving in August 1966, followed nine days later by my cousin Laura. In 1967, Les and Vine moved to Railway Road, Carnegie into a house they had built to order.

My brother Luke observed that our grandfather Les — whom we called Father Bear — had very little input into the design of the house. The kitchen and bathroom in particular were scaled to Mumma’s size.

It was at Railway Road that Vine and Les spent their last years together. Us grandchildren enjoyed plenty of parties in Carnegie, eating Mumma’s superlative sausage rolls and jelly cakes and, as Luke put it, ‘always being careful not to trample the hydrangeas, neck ourselves on the very low-hung clothesline and forever wondering why anyone would grow a cumquat tree.’

Father Bear died suddenly on 7 April 1984 while watching his beloved Fitzroy at the Junction oval. Mumma had cared for him through many years of ailing health, but his death came as a shock to us all. Mumma was set back by his death — I have a vivid memory of her chastising his corpse for leaving her alone — but soon regained her pep, especially once the great-grandchildren started arriving.

My grandmother with one of her great-grand-daughters 2006

She lived alone at Railway Road until 2006 when, at the age of 95, she moved into a residential community in Murrumbeena. She spent several happy years there. I know this because when I prepared the slideshow for her memorial service, I was struck by how happy she looked in photos taken at this time. It was a lesson for me to know that there is joy to be found so late in life.

Mumma died on 23 Dec 2010, having recovered from a brief spell in hospital, and three days after being transferred to a high level care facility.

After she died, my brother Luke and I mulled over what we really knew about our grandmother and things that we knew were important to her. This is a slightly abridged version of what Luke said at her eulogy:

Vine loved her mother, never stopped missing her and was deeply affected by her loss.

She believed blood was thicker than water and her family was central to her life. That said, she  practised tough love and didn’t let those closest to her get away with much at all. She could be difficult, obstinate and unreasonable even. She wasn’t the first parent to expect a lot from her children. Still, she stuck by them, through thick and thin.

She remained a proud Queenslander until the end. She never learned to love the Melbourne winter and whenever she could she would sit in the sunshine.

Vine in 1973, gambling like a Chinese person

She didn’t like black racehorses or cats of any colour, and Sean Hart was her favourite footballer because he was no-nonsense and about 5ft’ 2’’.

She enjoyed growing flowers from cuttings, knitting, decorating coat hangers and doing ‘the messages’. She liked to laugh, would take a glass of champagne on occasion and would offer me a beer, always a tinny of Carlton Light, no matter what time of day it was. She was always dressed neat as a pin.

She taught me Chinese people love to gamble, the Americans saved us during the war and that you shouldn’t drink hot drinks with cold meals, or cold drinks with hot meals, I still can’t remember exactly how that one ran. She made a great roast, shop-quality pasties, nasty mayonnaise with condensed milk and the best jelly cakes south of Dandenong Road. As a girl her favourite breakfast was day-old scones fried in butter, served up with golden syrup. No wonder she only made it to 99.

Mumma remained engaged with, and interested in the world; she understood that the most complex problems in the world had a human face that was often ignored or forgotten; she showed great empathy to those who were suffering.

She never looked to the past with any great sense of nostalgia; having lived through two world wars and a depression, and lost loved ones to diseases now easily cured, she knew that many of the good old days weren’t actually that good. I think she would’ve liked Graham Kennedy back on the telly, hemlines slightly lower and the traffic to wait for little old ladies, but she well understood that change was unavoidable.

She was a remarkably tough person. She rarely complained. To the end her mind remained sharp.

The second last time I saw her, she was lying in a hospital bed in the Alfred, looking tiny and frail, and every day of her 99 years. She was distressed because the nurses had removed her dentures to prevent any chance of her choking. Although hard to understand, we knew Mumma was asking for her teeth and several times we tried to reassure her, saying the nurses wouldn’t let her have them until they were sure it was safe to do so. She persisted, completely ignored our ‘we were told you’re not supposed to have them’, and insisted that we gave her dentures. There she was, dying, insisting that she knew what was best for her, determined to retain her dignity, something she had fought hard to preserve for nearly 100 years. When you’re 4’8″ in your good shoes you learn to keep asking, to insist, and when you’re 99 sometimes even doctors should realise that you probably know what’s best for you.

I remember studying her hands, tiny and delicate, but also wiry and strong, and together with Angela we wondered on the century of life that had shaped them, the sausage rolls they had formed, the friends they waved goodbye to, the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren they had nurtured, the cups of tea had they held, the winning hands and the losing tatts tickets. They were beautiful.

Miss you, dear little thing.

– With special thanks to Luke Savage.

Review: The Good Daughter

The Good Daughter by Honey Brown made my list of Top 10 crime fiction by women in 2011. I read it in two days. I stayed home on a Friday night, eschewing TV and social media to finish it. Dark, malevolent, erotic and compelling, I could not put it down.

The ‘good daughter’ of the title is sixteen-year-old Rebecca Toyer, who lives in a flyblown rental property with her truckie stepfather and six dogs — the kind of place where ‘the shed is more impressive than the house’ and the dogs live in a caged carport.

Rebecca’s schoolmate and crush, Zach Kincaid, lives on a nearby property in a homestead, where even the birdbath is ‘scrubbed, pristine — no algae in the water, no slime or the presence of anything remotely organic.’

When Zach’s mother goes missing, Rebecca is implicated in her disappearance. Old enmities are exposed and new passions ignited as Rebecca and Zach are drawn into a dangerous and duplicitous adult world neither is prepared for. As the back cover blurb puts it, ‘Rebecca finds herself in danger of living up to the schoolyard taunts she so hates, while Zach channels his feelings through the sights of his gun.’

Brown writes with an insider’s knowledge of the terrain. Her small town Australia simmers with heat and aggression. It’s a place divided by class, shot through with sexual tension and hypocrisy.

Despite the dark subject matter, the writing is beautiful. But unlike Chris Womersley’s Bereft where I felt the gorgeous prose slowed the pace, The Good Daughter speeds along like a V8 Kingswood with a drunken teen behind the wheel trying to impress his mates.

Brown captures the intensity and angst of teenage infatuation, as well as both the discomfort and excitement of youthful sex. But it’s the misogyny and malevolence that left my heart in my throat.

Simmo comes across and climbs on the couch behind her. He stands on the cushions and takes hold of her shoulders. One of his knees presses against her back. He does some kind of suggestive act. She doesn’t turn and look; his groin would be at eye level. The boys laugh. Their gazes skate over her and settle more easily on Simmo. She sees how they admire the brazen way he touches her. They’d like to be as bold. Simmo climbs off the couch. She rubs her collarbones to erase his touch.

It’s a credit to the strength of the writing that scenes of sexual intimidation like this work alongside intimate and erotic sex scenes.

Some reviewers question whether The Good Daughter can be called a crime novel. Andrew Nette in his review Rural noir, for example, suggests the story has more in common with the literary canon of coming of age novels in rural Australia and only marginal engagement with the crime genre. Even Honey Brown herself, when we met on a panel at The Wheeler Centre, said she saw her novels more as psychological thrillers.

To my mind, it depends on how you think of crime. If you count sexual harassment and intimidation, The Good Daughter more than makes the grade.

Not that it matters. The Good Daughter is one of my fave reads in any genre in 2011. In fact, I’ll be doing a pre-recorded interview for The Book Show on Radio National just before Christmas when I’ll be giving The Good Daughter a plug, together with The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin.

The Good Daughter is published by Penguin Viking. It was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2011, and shortlisted for the 2011 Barbara Jefferis Award.

This review has been submitted as part of the Aussie Author Challenge.

Best crime stories in a song

Winning the red shoe clearly carries prestige. Since my short story ‘The Teardrop Tattoos’ took out first prize at the Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto Awards last month, I’ve done two radio interviews, written a blog post for Murderati, done an interview for the Sisters in Crime website and had Readings Books ask me to list my Top 10 Crime Fiction By Women in 2011.

This is the point where I admit I don’t always stop to reflect on what I am doing. I just do it. So when people ask me how writing short stories compares with writing books and what attracts me to both forms, I have to stop and think.

And when I did think about it, it struck me that secretly, like an actor who longs to direct, what I really wish I could do is write songs. To tell a whole story in three or four verses and a haunting refrain.

Last night I had the great fortune to see Cold Chisel in concert and while I dig Jimmy Barnes’ voice and Ian Moss’ guitar work, the real star of the band as far as I’m concerned is Don Walker, who wrote most of the Cold Chisel’s best songs. Flame Trees. Star Hotel. Saturday Night. Khe Sanh. Songs that tell stories.

(The concert was more or less a two-hour singalong with Barnesy, though I did laugh when the screens flashed with the lyrics to Khe Sanh, karaoke style. My theory is the band is sick of people getting the lyrics wrong).

All this got me thinking about my favourite crime stories in song form. Here’s my Top 10, and it required a Herculean effort to stop at 10. But I want to leave it open to suggestions from others.

I’ve interpreted the crime genre broadly though concentrated on crimes against individuals rather than songs about political crimes (e.g. ‘They Took the Children Away’ by Archie Roach; ‘Bicentennial’ by Paul Kelly; ‘Strange Fruit’ by Abel Meeropol). I make no apologies for the predominance of country songs on this list. Nor can I account for why women seem less likely to write (as opposed to record) crime songs, other than from the perspective of victims.

Please weigh in with your picks.

1. The Long Black Veil – Lefty Frizzell: A man is hanged for a murder he didn’t commit rather than use his alibi: being in the arms of his best friend’s wife. One of the greatest songs ever, crime or otherwise.
2. Red Headed Stranger – Willie Nelson: The red headed stranger shoots the yellow haired lady outside the saloon when she touches the pony that belonged to his late wife. Features the immortal line, “You can’t hang a man for killin’ a woman who’s tryin’ to steal your horse.”
3. Frankie’s Gun! – The Felice Brothers: Frankie betrays his partner in crime after a heist. “He shot me down Lucille.”
4. Nebraska – Bruce Springsteen: A serial killer tells the story of his killing spree as he prepares to die in the electric chair. Chilling.
5. Folsom Prison Blues – Johnny Cash: “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” A classic.
6. John Walker’s Blues – Steve Earle: Sung from the perspective of John Walker Lindh, an American Catholic who converted to Islam, fought for the Taliban and is currently serving a 20 year sentence after his arrest in Afghanistan in 2001.
7. Ode to Billie Joe – Bobbie Gentry: What was it that the narrator and Billie Joe McAllister threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge? And why did Billie Joe kill himself? A mystery in a song.
8. Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis - Tom Waits: The pregnant narrator has stopped taking dope and hooked up with a trombone player who takes her out dancing. Or so she says.
9. Harry was a Bad Bugger – Don Walker: Harry was “a bad bugger all the way” but the aggrieved small town local who narrates this song eventually gets his revenge.
10. Last Night (Behind the wall) – Tracy Chapman: Tragic story of domestic violence and police impotence.

The Red Shoe

Last night I had a wonderful dream that my short story ‘The Teardrop Tattoos’ won the Sisters in Crime 18th Scarlet Stiletto Awards.

Winning grin with stiletto trophy. Photo: Eveylyn Tsitas

Then I woke up and found on my kitchen table a scarlet stiletto mounted on a perspex stand. It looked like some kind of trophy. Not only that, on my phone was a photo of me, holding said trophy with a winning grin on my face. For a moment I toyed with the idea I was the victim of some cruel plot: the trophy a fake, the photo staged. Then I noticed the small plaque, inscribed with my name and the name of my story and realised…

I WON FIRST PRIZE IN THE 2011 SCARLET STILETTO AWARDS LAST NIGHT!

My surprise and delight at the announcement. Photo: Carmel Shute

Winning ‘the big shoe’, as former winner Eleanor Marney referred to it, topped off a wonderful night at the 18th Scarlet Stiletto Awards in South Melbourne. Undaunted by the last-minute cancellation of the scheduled guest speaker, the Sisters in Crime organised a panel of previous big shoe winners to talk about the art of the criminally good short story. Chaired by Lindy Cameron, the panel comprised Eleanor Marney (2010 winner); Amanda Wrangles (2009); Evelyn Tsitas (2008); and Liz Filleul (2004).

Lindy kicked off by posing the question, ‘Why short stories?’ ‘As a mother…’ Evelyn began. Turns out all four panellists are mothers and all found the short story form more compatible with parenting — notwithstanding Lindy’s observation that fictional detectives rarely have children ‘because they have to get a babysitter before they can follow a lead’.

Crowd including several winners, Scarlet Stiletto Awards. Photo: Carmel Shute

Following the panel Sisters in Crime Co-Convenor Phyllis King presented the Judges Report. Though entries come from all over Australia, she noted two common themes in the 2011 entries. On the one hand, ‘Several story titles this year included numbers  – could this be due to some strange psychic phenomena or just to the popularity of the SBS television program, Letters and Numbers?’ On the other was the ‘seriously disturbing’ and ‘unacceptable… gratuitous killing of animals – particularly cats. We ask that authors stick to killing humans in future,’ Phyllis said. ‘The judges love animals.’

More helpful advice from the judges for aspiring short story writers: ‘If you are to have a beginning, a middle and an end to your story – and we judges tend to be a bit pedantic in requiring all of these – use your 5000 words judiciously. Avoid unnecessary complications and extraneous characters.

‘Adjectives in the short story are a bit like spices in cooking. When used judiciously and sparingly, they can make a good dish great. However, too much and it becomes inedible.’

With presenter PD Martin. Photo: Carmel Shute

The awards were announced by Lindy Cameron and presented by author PD (Philippa) Martin as follows:

Special Commendations: Suzanne Gaskell (Vic), Amanda Carmen-Cromer (Tas), Robin Story (QLD), Marian Cox (NT), Kerry James (Vic), Amanda Wrangles (Vic).
Allen & Unwin Young Writers Award: co-winners Mary Evans (WA) and Sarah Robinson-Hatch (Vic)
Judges Award (donated by Christine Leppert): Kim Westwood (ACT)
Scriptworks Great Film Idea Award: Fiona Drury (Vic)
Pulp Fiction Award for Funniest Crime Story: Sarah Evans (WA) (and mother of Mary Evans, Young Writers Award co-winner)
Benn’s Books Best Investigative Award: Anne Cost (Vic)
Clandestine Press Award for Cross Genre: Liz Filleul (Vic)
Cate Kennedy Award for Best New Talent: Marguerite Johnson (NSW)
Olvar Wood Late Starters Award: Anne Cost
Kerry Greenwood Malice Domestic Award: Vicky Daddo (Vic)
Third Prize: Carmela Salomon (NSW)
Second Prize: Liz Filleul (Vic)
First Prize – Scarlet Stiletto trophy: Angela Savage (Vic)

I was genuinely surprised and delighted to win, as Carmel Shute’s photos from the night show. In an impromptu speech, I thanked the Sisters in Crime for being ‘the midwives of my writing career.’ I pointed out to Carmela Salomon, who won third prize with her first ever short story, that the same thing happened to me in 1998 and I went on to publish two novels (so far).

Thanks to my beloved partner Andrew Nette whose feedback on an early draft of ‘The Teardrop Tattoos’ made it a much better story, and also for staying home to look after our daughter on the awards night when all other babysitting options fell through.

Thanks to Lil Topic for being my date and Tweet Adviser on the awards night (see what we came up with via #ScarletStilettos).

I also want to acknowledge Sprinkle fashions, source of the gorgeous Shake & Stir Sheath I wore on the night: I promised if I won, I’d give them a plug!

I wrote in a previous post that the plot of ‘The Teardrop Tattoos’ was inadvertently topical:  ’An anonymous narrator is released from prison into public housing near a child care centre in Melbourne’s inner north. When she receives a complaint about her dog, a restricted breed, she blames a mother whose infant attends the child care centre. Acquiring disguises from the local op shop, she stalks the mother and sets about plotting a terrible revenge for the loss of her dog.’

‘The Teardrop Tattoos’ is the first story I’ve written that is not set in Asia. I’m grateful to the Sisters in Crime for giving me the opportunity to try out a change of pace — or at least place — through the Scarlet Stiletto Awards. To have this experiment rewarded with the top honours exceeds my wildest dreams.

Finally, thanks to my daughter Natasha for keeping it all in perspective: when I told her this morning that I had won first prize and showed her my trophy, she said, ‘Yes, but your biggest prize is your little girl.’ Tru dat.

Now I’m going to listen one more time to Tom Waits singing ‘Red Shoes by the Drugstore’…

Jump cuts

I’m excited to announce that my short story ‘The Teardrop Tattoos’, has been shortlisted for the 2011 Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto Awards.

The story is a change of pace for me. Unlike my novels, which are set in Thailand, with ‘The Teardrop Tattoos’ I set myself the challenge of writing something closer to home, turning what Sophie Cunningham calls a tourist’s eye on my own suburb in Melbourne’s inner north, where black-clad widows rule the streets and people knit covers for bicycle stands and signposts.

‘The Teardrop Tattoo’ is inadvertently topical, the plot involving a restricted breed dog. I submitted it for the competition only weeks before four-year-old Ayen Chol was tragically killed in an attack by a pit bull terrier, prompting the Victorian State Government to strengthen laws on restricted breeds.

The Scarlet Stiletto winners will be announced at an event on 25 November 2011 at The Rising Sun Hotel in South Melbourne. Details here.

In other news, though I’ve yet to read an e-book, my latest novel the Half-Child is now available in e-book format at Kobo Books, Booktopia and in Kindle Version on Amazon. 

A chance meeting on a flight to Sydney last week found me swapping life stories with Kiwi-born personal trainer Anita Clarke, who was on her way to New York to run the marathon. Within days Anita told me she was reading The Half-Child, having downloaded it from Amazon. Wouldn’t have happened if she’d had to rely on an airport bookshop for a copy.

Now if Santa brings me the Christmas gift I’m asking for, I’ll get to experience first-hand what all the fuss is about…

Finally, I’m chairing a session at The Wheeler Centre called Above the Law featuring barrister/media watchdog/crime fiction author Stuart Littlemore and ex-cop/West Africanmusic afficianado/crime fiction author PM Newton this Thursday 10 November 2011. Free event but bookings recommended.

 

Melbourne Cup fever

Efficient winning the 2007 Melbourne Cup

I’ve been studying the form guide for tomorrow’s Melbourne Cup. I’ve weighed up the age of the horse against the weight it will be carrying, it’s track record (so that’s where the expression comes from!) of wins over similar distances, and the experience of the jockey. And it’s my considered opinion that you might as well put money on the horse that’s carrying your lucky number or the jockey that’s wearing your favourite colour.

Then again, is it ever any different? I’ve been betting small amounts of money on the Melbourne Cup for years now, an annual tradition that sates my impulse to gamble, and with one exception, logic has never played a role in choosing the winner.

Back in 1981, my maternal grandmother was visiting from Sydney when a bird pooed on her shoulder through the open window of a car. When she saw the Melbourne Cup line up the following week, she took it as a sign and put her money on Just A Dash, which took home the honours that year.

I’ve always been partial to French names – which served me well with Jeune in 1994 – and Asian connections, which paid dividends with Rogan Josh in 1999.

My beloved partner goes by the nickname Roo. Though not a gambling man himself, I usually place a bet in his honour on any horse that has ‘roo’ (spelling or homonym) in it – hence picking the winner in Brew in 2000.

As both of us are crime writers, that also influences my picks: I did well with second place winner Crime Scene in 2009, though I’m still kicking myself for not going with the crime writers’ dream quinella of Shocking and Crime Scene that year.

Only once did I bet on an outsider based on odds and factors such as age, weight, etc: for Efficient in 2007. I applied the same logic to my choices in 2010 and won nothing.

So this year I’m going for the crime writers’ quinella of Jukebox Jury and Unusual Suspect. I’m liking number 11 Precedence because, you know, its 2011 and the race will take place on 1/11/11. Or maybe Lucas Cranach, which has drawn barrier 11. At First Sight is a lovely name, but so is Lost in the Moment and Older Than Time. And perhaps I should consider Drunken Sailor for a crime writer’s trifecta…

Or maybe I’ll just cut out the middle man and give some money away. There’s still time to donate to the Oxfam East Africa Food Crisis Appeal and the Federal government has pledged to match all donations raised by 30 November 2011.

Double your money. It’s a sure thing.

Shop assistant signing

The perfect companion piece to last week’s Author Signing post, another hilarious cartoon by Andrew Weldon, this one from The Big Issue No 391, 11-24 Oct 2011.

Shop Assistant Signing may indeed be the perfect solution to the problem outlined by Parnell Hall in his song Signing in the Waldenbooks.

With thanks to Sulari Gentill for alerting me to this video, which is all the more hilarious for being true. Sulari says she hums this tune in her head whenever she’s sittling alone at a signing table — not that I can imagine that happening much in her case.

Author signing

It’s October and The Big Issue 2011 calendar hanging on my wall is displaying my favourite Andrew Weldon cartoon of 2010. Is it just me or is this truly hilarious?

Congratulations to Andrew and to author Mary Ellen Jordan on the launch today of their delightful kids’ book Lazy Daisy, Busy Lizzie. Lizze the chook dancing in her purple underwear is rare, but Frankie the cranky dog hogging the remote gets my vote.