The February Nutshell

The London Edition: J.T. Williams, doorways in old brick walls, posing robins, and a violin that plays itself

Dear Reader,

I’m back from London — I’m home from home — and can no longer cite jet-lag as the reason I can never think of the word I want.

I was there to sort through my parents’ overstuffed attic before they move to a new place, which is attic-less but as my dad pointed out several times a day has a garage, Emily . . . to store all of the things that a family of history-loving gatherers are unwilling to surrender.

While I was there I had time to write two pieces for paid subscribers: a short response to the Robinson’s Bookshop fiasco in Keep Notes and Carry On, and a rave about an Irish novel, Trespasses by Louise Kennedy, which helped me nose out a story about my Irish ancestors, in A Mind Is Like An Attic. Since my return I’ve written a piece about how I came to make a fictional character out of Ned Kelly’s little sister: Finding Kate Kelly.

The Attic

I found a small violin belonging to my brother. The story goes that he had lessons at home and my parents were pleased with the progress they could hear coming from his room. But one lesson, astonished by how quickly he’d come on, my mother entered the room to find that it was not Ed playing but his teacher. Ed was on the floor fiddling with Lego. He couldn’t play a note, it turned out, but was such a charming boy that each lesson he’d persuade the teacher to play to him while he got on with something more interesting.

I put two Victorian domed cases of tropical birds on eBay — as a child I was scared of these but they went for a pretty penny and the man who came to buy them said he has a house full. He took them home on the tube.

That’s right, two of these, on the Northern Line.

More Birds (Unstuffed Variety)

Birding was never on my mind during my thirty-plus years in the UK. Now it feels strange, bordering on betrayal, to know more than the average punter about Australian birds and still be at the “what sort of tit is that?” stage with British birds.

So within hours of landing, and after being the only person overjoyed to be on the Piccadilly Line with a suitcase during rush hour (a surge of “I’m home”, when everything Londoners take for granted or find annoying looks rosy to me), I got out my camera in the local park.

Top l-r: robin (aka the most willing posers in London town), rose-ringed parakeet, magpie, blue tit. Bottom l-r: great tit, robin, coal tit, woodpecker.

I’ve tried to articulate why birding is part of my creative process in Birds Are Like Ideas. To bring it back to books, let me recommend a wonderful British children’s series by M.G. Leonard, The Twitchers Quartet. You may know M.G. Leonard from Beetle Boy or her Adventures on Trains series. Starting with Twitch, this one is about a twelve-year-old bird-watcher whose favourite nature reserve turns into the location for a man-hunt when a murderer breaks out of prison. Main character Twitch gains friends across the series, which concluded recently with Feather.

Am I irrationally jealous of this series? Absolutely green. All part of the job.

Twitch, Spark, Clutch, & Feather by M.G. Leonard

Staying on detective series, I recommend The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries by J.T. Williams, set in 18th century London and great for those who enjoyed Robin Stevens’ Murder Most Unladylike series.

The protagonists are an imagined friendship between two real historical figures. Lizzie is based on Lizzie Sancho, daughter of the real-life Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780) – a writer, composer and abolitionist, born on a slave ship, taken to England and given to three unmarried sisters, who became the first black person to vote in Britain and the first to have his political letters published. Belle is based on Dido Belle (1761-1804), who was also born into slavery and lived as a lady’s companion in the London suburb next door to the one I grew up in.

I couldn’t love this series more.

J.T. Williams and her two detective novels, Drama & Danger and Portraits & Poison

Speaking of detectives, I’m deep into Davitt Award judging. These are Australia’s crime and mystery awards for works by women, and judges read across all six categories, which is both thrilling (the range!) and daunting (the number!). Therefore my thoughts about awards and judging are swirling this week, and more so after the release of the CBCA Notables (Children’s Book Council of Australia longlist, for those elsewhere) which always generates a frenzy of discussion among those listed or not listed, or friends and fans of those listed or not listed. Swirling thoughts need time to settle so I’ll hold onto them for now.

Huge congratulations to every children’s book author, illustrator and publisher whose work has been acknowledged this year.

The Horses Are Coming . . .

Outlaw Girls, Bea and the New Deal Horse, Finding Wonder, Out of the Valley of Horses, The Homecoming Horse, Pony, The War of the Heavenly Horses, Race to the Death, Horse Girl, The Grimmelings.

My spidey senses were twitching in my New Year’s Eve Edition with several new horse-based middle-grade novels on the horizon, such as New Zealander Rachael King’s The Grimmelings, fresh out of the box, Lauren St John’s Finding Wonder, and only days ago our Outlaw Girls. I love a themed list — it’s those years as a bookseller and working in a school library — so I’ve started a Goodreads list called Horse & Unicorn Middle-Grade Novels of the 2020s. Feel free to add to it — it’s pretty decent so far.

I’ve never been as close to horses in reality, or as comfortable with them, as I have been in my imagination. It’s awe and wonder with a dash of fear. As a kid in London in the eighties, horses were for the police or the rag-and-bone man who clopped up our street ringing his bell and calling “Rag and bone!” to tell us to bring out our junk for his cart. I had a few riding lessons towards the end of primary school which ended with me falling off a horse called Mary who was in a foul mood that day. I loved National Velvet by Enid Bagnold, the 1970s TV series Follyfoot, and never got over Artax in the Swamp of Sadness. (No horses come to harm in Outlaw Girls.)

Horse stories, like time-slips, will never be out of fashion but it’s always heartening to see a new surge.

Rag-and-Bone man, London, 1980s

“It is difficult to speak adequately or justly of London. It is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or cheerful, or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent.” -  Henry James

On this winter trip to London I doted on the squirrels and felt terrible for the scabious rats, loved the postboxes and the doors in old walls, the lanterns, and sunsets on Oxford Street, the street performer in Leicester Square who recreated E.T. using his bicycle, a white towel and a willing child from the audience, and the most delicious cardamom buns that made me think of “buns for tea” in The Railway Children — if you remember, the mother writes stories and whenever one is accepted Peter goes down to the village to buy a celebratory treat . . . “Whenever an Editor was sensible, there were buns for tea.”

I hope you’ve got buns for tea. Thank you for reading Voracious. To gain full access to my pieces, consider taking out a monthly or annual subscription, or a free trial.

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Goodbye February, here’s to March. X