Hello world!

Here I sit in Adelaide at the end of the coldest October for 57 years which is as long as I’ve been alive. It’s been a mean and nasty winter.

A couple of weeks ago I flew to Anchorage, Alaska for six days – there and back – to get warm. Only joking. I went for the Alaska Reading Association Conference, at which I received my first ever standing ovation BEFORE a speech. And two more following each of my teacher-speeches. Wild. Love those Alaskans! Thanks to all involved. It was my 76th trip to the USA and well worth the incredibly long journey.

My 77th trip to America comes up later this week, but I’m also going to work in Calgary in Canada, a country I adore (I think it’s a British Commonwealth thing), and in Sweden as well, promoting my book Reading Magic in Swedish. ‘Lasa Hogt’ is its title in Sweden. I’ll learn how to pronounce it (and what it means!) when I’m there. Can’t wait. It’s not often that I drop into Sweden, as you may have noticed.

I love all this kind of work. Literacy is the consuming passion of my life, along with Malcolm, Chloe, our friends, our dogs, gardening, cooking, reading, and walking on the beach, of course! (Note the absence of ‘writing picture books’ on that list. You know how I feel about THAT horrible job!) Anyway, I’m happy that my message about the importance of reading aloud to very young children for at least ten minutes a day is being understood and acted upon by many in the community. It means that all the tiredness, preparation travel, stress and being away from home is massively worthwhile. For the time being. I have vowed to cool it by 60…

So apart from a vile winter, what else is new? Nothing on the writing front. When Allyn, my beloved American editor, came to stay this year I couldn’t write a thing. Sometimes I just can’t get going and her visit just happened to be one of those times. Am I finished as a writer? I think I am, every year, but then something turns up, finally, to rescue me from the poor-house. I did start a few stories which I think about every so often as I’m drifting off to sleep, but whenever I work on them I seem to kill them even more stone dead that they were, if that’s possible, so I’ve put them to bed for the moment, to let them have a long and restful sleep.

It’s only writing itself that’s horrible: having written is fabulous. I’m thrilled, for example, to have written Possum Magic. Hilarious things happen with this book, especially with people in the 20-25 year old age group, whom I call the ‘Possum Magic generation,’ such as the girl who served me in a shop and looked up and recognised me and said: ‘Oh, my God! Grandma Poss!’ And the waiter at the Art Gallery bistro in Adelaide recently who knelt beside me as if to some kind of goddess and said: ‘Like, are you the REAL Mem Fox?’ It’s kind of embarrassing but I find myself grinning like an idiot and feeling great about it, deep down, even though as a true blue Aussie I pretend it’s nothing important because that’s in our national character.

Last month Julie Vivas (the illustrator of Possum Magic) and I attended the Australian School Librarians national conference in Tasmania. It had been combined with the Children’s Book Council conference so the place was swarming with book lovers. The conference dinner was the first of the Possum Magic 21st birthday celebrations, to alert the gorgeous librarians and their friends to the fact that the famous birthday is on March 31st 2004. We’re hoping that schools around the nation on that day will have at recess time as much Possum Magic food as possible without making everyone sick, so we can all have one big party together at the same time, on the same day!

At the dinner, the entire room and every table was decorated in Possum Magic colours and motifs. It looked divine. An adorable choir of pyjama-clad children sang happy birthday to the book, Julie and I cut an enormous cake, and heart-warming speeches were made. When I got up to speak I was so choked with gratitude for Julie’s friendship and for her exquisite art (the art which has made this book an icon, and has provided her both her and me with so much happiness, fun, and spending money), that I couldn’t squeak out a single word. I thought I was going to sob. Those of you who know me well will understand that I wasn’t lost for words for very long, although it felt like a life time. It was a wonderfully emotional occasion, preceding what I think will be a wonderfully emotional year. Scholastic, our adored publisher, is pulling out all the stops and we are very grateful.

On the family front, Malcolm is only days away from teaching his final class at Flinders University. He has no plans for himself in his retirement since he knows any such plans would be pointless. His role henceforth is to be my obedient, loyal and complete slave. As for Chloe, the thing between her and her beau is over and the less said about that the better, although a certain male person rotting in hell does leap to mind whenever I think about it. She is back home and we are more than overjoyed. And the dogs are great, even though Nell is old enough to be blind in one eye. My little sisters are happy. And as you know, my lovely parents are dead. (But happy too, I’m certain.)

One of the great joys in our lives right now is a fabulous bunch of new friends we have made this year: a family of refugees from Iran who have had a horrific time both in Iran and at Baxter, one of the many APPALLING Australian detention centres for so-called illegal refuges, 96 % of whom are genuine, yet whom we treat worse than dogs. [Will we ever be forgiven as a nation for what we have done? I fear history will judge us very harshly indeed, and quite rightly. I fear we will also be severely judged for our international folly in Iraq which has resulted in exactly the type of disaster I predicted in my "Peace File," elsewhere on this website. Note, I have no hard feelings at all towards the soldiers positioned in Iraq. In fact I feel wildly sorry for them, poor souls, and wish them all a speedy and safe return to their respective homes and anxious families.]

Anyway, back to our refugees. I cannot name them for their sakes, but there are three ‘boys’ in their late teens or early twenties, a mother and a father. They are hilarious. How they have come through their experiences able to smile at all, let alone laugh like drains is beyond my understanding. Of course I will never know what nightmares they have, nor what dread fears they have for their future in this damned yet beloved country of ours.

We visited them yesterday in their rented house, paid for by an incredible “Circle of Friends” who also got them released from Baxter, provided fellowship, friendship, financial assistance, food, clothing, an old car, driving lessons, lifts to and from the factory where two of the boys work nightshift, and so on. We are in this ‘circle’ but only on the edges of it since we live miles away. Friendship is one of our main contributions and the beautiful thing is we have been given back wonderful friendship ourselves, in return. I wish they lived closer. I always feel hysterically happy when we have visited them or when they come to our place for a meal.

Here’s an example of why we have such a laugh together. Malcolm jokes with the boys all the time. He constantly uses the four Farsi words that he knows: ‘ashe reshte’ which means ‘bean stew,’, and ‘hoda hafez’ which means ‘greetings’ (I think), and sends the boys up outrageously about their pathetic ‘unsophisticated village’ in Iran, etc. Yesterday the youngest of the boys turned to me and said about Malcolm: ‘He’s a cheeky little Vegemite, isn’t he?!’ I howled with laughter. Nearly fell off the sofa. Sorry to those of you in other counties but this is exceptionally funny in Australia, especially from an Iranian.

If you’d like to know more about refugees and their treatment in this country (Australia), and what you can do about it, go to Google and type in ‘A Just Australia‘.

I find that refugees are like my family: they are human beings. Refugees are like my neighbours: they are human beings. Refugees are like the teachers I know: they are human beings. Refugees are like the Americans I know: they are human beings. Refugees are like the politicians I write to constantly: they are human beings. Refugees are like the little kids who tear around the beach close to our house, shouting, ‘Mum, look at me!’ at the tops of their voices: they are human beings. Refugees are like the lawyers who have freed them from detentions camps, pro bono: they are human beings. When we realise that, and learn to love them, instead of to fear and to hate them, the world will be a better place. May that day come soon, or even sooner.

Till next time, all the very best!

Mem Fox