I am just at the point of preparing my third novel for publication. What I have is a 346 page document, undergoing its final edit and I am about to contact Ross McLennan of Book Covers Australia, who does my covers for me and then Jarrod Egan at Fineline Print to produce the document in book form. After much deliberation, I have decided to go with the story entitled “Turn on a Light”, set in and round Kalgoorlie in 1974. The reason is that I still can’t come to grips with “Life on a Ferris Wheel” in terms of whether it is fictional or what people call “creative non-fiction”. If it is the second one, then I need to consider carefully if some of the characters could be misinterpreted in relation to the story it tells. If so, I have some rewriting to do.

But I love “Turn on a Light” anyway. It took me back to teaching experiences, because the main character is sent to a remote community to teach. But it is also a story of political intrigue in towns, and how the main character runs foul of people of extended backgrounds in Kalgoorlie. It is fictional, but I am sure it is a story that many who live in rural towns would comprehend. And like “Hiding Place” and “The WILUNA Solution”, there is intrigue and romance in this story and plenty of both.

The central focus of the story is the death of eleven children over four years in the community, the last two after the main character turns up to teach. He is immediately introduced to life in the community which includes Catholic brothers and sisters and an Aboriginal language group who had left Kalgoorlie four years before. I think I have said that I first heard aspects of this story when I was working in Alice Springs, and I have relocated the era and site of the story, while retaining the history of gold as crucial to the tale.

I’ve decided with this novel to not only have a hard copy and an ebook version, but to move into an audio-book version.

More updates shortly.