Hazel Edwards's Blog - Posts Tagged "weary-dunlop"
Finding Heroes in Books
Who is your hero?
I admit to reading biographies to get inside the lives of other people, especially feisty females. Motivations fascinate me.
At a recent literary event, most students named badly behaving footballers as their 'heroes', just because these 'celebs' photos were on front pages of the newspaper.
Notorious is not heroic!
Surely a hero does something for their community, solves a problem , invents , creates or comes up with a better way to change attitudes?
As an author I'm also intrigued by historical figures, even the modest ones. Asked to contribute to the Aussie Heroes series for 10 year old readers, I've enjoyed researching surgeons 'Weary' Dunlop and Fred Hollows and more recently Edith Cowan, (who is on the Australian $50 note) and was the first female elected into the Australian parliament.
So, at the same Australian regional literary festival of 200 teenagers, no-one knew who Edith Cowan was, one had heard of Dr Fred Hollows and one thought 'Weary' was a brand of tyre.
Maybe we need to share more inspirational personalities in formats young people will read? And recommend accessible books about 'real' people from history?
Sir Edward Weary DunlopProfessor Fred Hollows
I admit to reading biographies to get inside the lives of other people, especially feisty females. Motivations fascinate me.
At a recent literary event, most students named badly behaving footballers as their 'heroes', just because these 'celebs' photos were on front pages of the newspaper.
Notorious is not heroic!
Surely a hero does something for their community, solves a problem , invents , creates or comes up with a better way to change attitudes?
As an author I'm also intrigued by historical figures, even the modest ones. Asked to contribute to the Aussie Heroes series for 10 year old readers, I've enjoyed researching surgeons 'Weary' Dunlop and Fred Hollows and more recently Edith Cowan, (who is on the Australian $50 note) and was the first female elected into the Australian parliament.
So, at the same Australian regional literary festival of 200 teenagers, no-one knew who Edith Cowan was, one had heard of Dr Fred Hollows and one thought 'Weary' was a brand of tyre.
Maybe we need to share more inspirational personalities in formats young people will read? And recommend accessible books about 'real' people from history?
Sir Edward Weary DunlopProfessor Fred Hollows
Writing a Non Boring Family History & Memoirs
Suddenly readers are mining history for the terrific factual stories from and about their own families. So there's been a boom in reading biographies as a kind of apprenticeship to see how others have written about facts and influential personalities. Some of whom may be relevant to the lives led by your family.
Which bits to include? Which to leave out? How to make anecdotes interesting? The context or setting matters too.That's why reading how others have written about that period, place or personality can help.
A workshop which includes hints for crafting historical facts in ways others might want to read can provide short-cuts.Saves time for the reader and the writer PLUS shares stories about extra-ordinary, so-called ordinary relatives.
'Memoir' is one of those elastic terms which cover any length writing. Often readers and would-be writers claim they want to share family history with their younger family members, but child-readers need to have material crafted in formats which appeal to them.
Recently I've written for the Aussie Heroes series which is aimed at 10 year olds. Fred Hollows, Weary Dunlop and Edith Cowan (from the $50 note) are some of the notables. Each of these books required the same amount of research and even more crafting of the writing than an adult book.(Often adults read kids' non-fiction books as an easy introduction to the subject or the historic period)
So keep mining ideas from history, because this enriches all our minds.And find yourself a workshop.
