First came Here, There and Everywhere...Memoirs of an Air Hostess. Now i give you Here, There and Everywhere Else; for stories I had to leave out in the first book. Some are from my flying days, during my 11 and a half years as a Flight Attendant; o...
In March 2018 I opened a letter with trembling hands and butterflies in my stomach. The letter came from Ginninderra Press, an Adelaide publishing company. Two or three weeks earlier, I'd sent them my manuscript, 42 chapters long, of my book; Here, There and Everywhere...Memoirs of an Air Hostess. At least I hoped it would turn into a book. I hadn't expected a reply quite so soon. Was that a good or bad thing? I was about to find out.
Go on, urged my husband John. He was dying to find out the result and felt more certain of a positive outcome than I did.
Ginninderra published Australian authors and were always prepared to give a go to the new kid on the block. They were especially interested in poetry, and Australian non-fiction of historical interest. My memoirs fitted the brief, but as we all know, there's never any guarantee to getting something published. In fact, it's pretty difficult, not to mention extremely competitive.
Are you ever going to open that letter? Asked John impatiently. Do you want me to do it?
No, I snapped. I'll do it. I must have sounded like a petulant child.
Finally, I plucked up sufficient courage and read;
We'd be happy to publish' Here, There and Everywhere...Memoirs of an Air Hostess'.
What? Really? I had to re-read several times to make absolutely sure I was seeing straight, but then I am a bit OCD.
I told you so, laughed John and we hugged joyously.
If ever there was a Dancing on the Ceiling moment (love that song) or a champagne moment, this was it. Ginninderra were actually going to publish my first-ever book.
My head was whirling. I felt giddy on adrenaline and had to sit down. As we didn't have any champagne immediately available to pop, John made us a cup of coffee. Yes, it was a double-shot caffeine moment too.
After my coffee, I knew I had to tell Jude, my good friend and editor. She had to be first, as she'd worked hard on editing Here, There and Everywhere.... Jude was ecstatic too. I think part of my book being accepted first time around had something to do with Jude's skilled editing and suggestions.
Then I told my mum, sister and her partner and they were all excited for me. John phoned his sisters and brother with the news and they were also thrilled.
John wanted to shout it from the roof-tops. He now had bragging rights. His wife was going to have her book published first time around.
The publishing process is a long one and the wheels turn slowly. Ginninderra told me that it would likely be about a year before it appeared in print. Of course they had a waiting list of works by other authors too. I didn't care, though. I was walking on air.
That event was the best moment of 2018, as two months later I became ill. I was diagnosed with a large, what was thought to be an ovarian cyst called a terratoma. Even the name is scary. A blood test was done to find out whether or not it was cancerous, which came back negative. However, as months went by, the symptoms worsened and became painful. To cut a long story short, during surgery to have the suspected cyst removed, the surgeon found the large mass was actually a tumour around the bowel and they thought there was a strong possibility that it would be malignant. I was put on a short waiting list for emergency surgery.
All during this very difficult, trying time, the knowledge that my book was to be published kept me going.
Twice I needed to check the manuscript by proof-reading; once after the surgery for partial hysterectomy and then again following the second, longer surgery to remove the offending mass, which turned out to be first stage bowel cancer. The proof reading was hard, shortly after recovering from major surgery, but I kept my eyes on the prize at the end.
In July 2019 the launch of Here, There and Everywhere... was celebrated with a roomful of lovely friends and family at Mitcham Library, in the very room where I now meet for the Saturday writers' group I've been attending since 2022.
That was a champagne moment, but I didn't even get a glass until I got home. I'd been so busy signing books and chatting. Then I celebrated both my book launch and being alive, thanks to modern medicine and finally the correct diagnosis.
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