Writing and Launching My Book

Writing and Launching My Book

About our Greek House and Garden

During the time we’ve been renovating I’ve been writing bits and pieces, planning to turn them into a book, and because these bits and pieces have been written over ten years the subtitle of the final compilation is ‘a memoir’. More recently, as I’ve been concentrating more on turning these notes into a book, I’ve arranged the chapters and then got the whole edited.

The book begins at the beginning of our project, in 2002, when Takis got the idea. Then there are chapters about buying the house from the 36 owners. (This was not easy as most of them were Takis’ cousins and it took us about seven years.) Then there are chapters about the island, the renovation, the garden, and others about neighbours and guests.

 

In the last two years, with publication in mind, I’ve approached a number of Australian agents, but they all came back with the comment that too many books of the same sort have been written recently. (See list below.) So I decided to self-published. Many call this vanity publishing but in the publishing climate of today, when bookshops are closing and online publishing is growing, this is becoming a good option. I found my own editor, and an excellent desktop publisher, and I’m pleased with the result.

It Began with the Watermelon

 

This is the story of our back and forth life, and it covers our last ten years of living part time in Greece and part time in Australia. And while, in this book, I concentrate on our time on the island of Lemnos – discussing the renovation of an old house and garden – I set these activities in the context of our peripatetic lives.

We are both hyphenated citizens, so I also mention our travels back home to Melbourne, Australia, and then, six months later, back again to Lemnos, Greece. The reason for this is that it highlights the complications of taking on a renovation project on the other side of the world, and that feeling of displacement a life of continually leaving one home for another leaves with you.

Those of you who read some of my earlier blogs know that from the beginning I proposed calling the book, It Began with the Watermelon, and this is its title.

 

There are chapters dealing with what it has been like to take up this renovation project in our retirement, and others dealing with the joys and woes of renovation, but underlying the whole story is that other dilemma, the one of living in more than one place, and feeling the need to be at ‘home’ in more than one place.

Launching before Christmas

 This week I will be launching this book here in Australia and maybe later in a digital form and after ten years of thinking about it I’d like to get it out of the way before Christmas, and be able to concentrate on other writing projects!

This is not a money making exercise, though I’m hoping to be able to sell enough books, to a few people, to recoup some of my outlay. It’s not a big deal as I’ve only got 100 copies printed but it’s been a rush to get even this small launch organized in the two months since returning from Lemnos – the ISBN, the bar code, the printing and the flyers.

  The Mediterranean Garden Society

                                                           www.mediterraneangardensociety.org 

The Melbourne branch of the Mediterranean Garden Society are helping me by sponsoring the event, and I’ll be using a Uniting Church hall. There are about 25 family members that said they would come, and I would not be surprised if a number of Greeks who have heard about it come, but I’ve no idea whether there will be 25 or 65 there! Takis and I are making cakes and biscuits and we will be showing slides of the house and garden. I think it will be a fun evening. I do hope it stops raining before Thursday!

Other Contemporary Books by Australians about Greece

There are a number of classic books about Greece written about living in Greece. Everyone quotes Charmain Clift’s, Mermaid Singing (Indianapolis, 1956), to me, or Gillian Bouras, who wrote a few books when living there with her Greek husband. There was A Foreign Wife (Penguin Books Australia1986) and  A Stranger Here (Penguin Australia, 1996), a novel that looks at the lives of three women and their feelings of displacement at living in Australia and Greece.

But in addition to these there have many other books by Australians about Greece written since 2000. Here are a few I’ve come across.

Arnold Zable, in his book Sea of Many Returns (Text Publishing 2010), discusses the seagoing life of many who live on Ithaka. Although this island is far from Lemnos, and set in another sea, the story shows how many journeyed to the Black Sea to trade around its shores.

Susanna De Vries  Blue Ribbons and Bitter Bread (2012) This book tells the the life of Joice Nankivell Loch  helping refugees in Europe, and then living in Greece, attempting to revive the old skill of carpet making for the villagers on the Halkitheki Peninsula near Mount Athos. Joice adopted Greece after a very inspiring life and settled down to live there until her death.

Claire Lloyd, My Greek Island Home (2012). This is a personal documentation of daily life in a village on the island of Lesvos. It is filled with photographs and tells of her life journey from Australia, to London, and the buying of a house on the island of Lesvos; a house which is now partly home and partly part of a business enterprise.

Lana Penrose, To Hellas and Back (2012) Lana was born in Sydney, Australia. She moved to London and a along the way she moved to Greece with her boyfriend and experienced some less than welcoming aspects of living in Greece. She parted from the boy and later returned and experienced a much more enjoyable holiday.

And, Spiri Tsintziras’ new book Afternoons in Ithaka is due for release with ABC

Books.