Exploring Louisa’s Legacy Through Fiction

/ Garrulous Gwendoline

My inspiration for how Louisa looked is one of her real sisters. Louisa had six of them: Julia, Martha Elizabeth “Pattie”, Mary Augusta, Lucy Ann, Mercy, and Laura.

Once Louisa left Bradford as a young woman, there is no evidence she ever saw her sisters again.

But she named two of her three daughters Laura and Lucy. They each have a small role to play in the novel.

By chance I came across the “Wrapping up at Bundanon” post I’d written back in April 2022. A rather convoluted explanation of the work I had put into Louisa’s Legacy, a historical novel based on research into my great-grandmother, and other women of her era.

The manuscript has been worked over even more since Bundanon, and along the way lost “Legacy” from the title, for the sensible reason the novel doesn’t actually get to that bit. Spanning 1883-1895, it begins in Bradford England, with the majority of the tale set in Sydney Australia. It also lost its sub-title “No Place for a Woman” (inspired by a Henry Lawson short story).

My feeling is I have unwittingly written the ending as a “choose your own adventure” type, depending on how you interpret the final scene, but being fiction, it is meant to be the obligatory happy ending. It will be interesting to see how readers construe it.

The BIG NEWS is that Louisa is now in the hands of David Reiter of IP Interactive, (a member of the small press network) who offered me a traditional royalty-paying publishing contract. Yaaay!

I completed my final draft during the Christmas break. Now no more tinkering unless the publisher requests editorial changes. I’m waiting to hear where Louisa slots into his 2025 publishing schedule. If by chance that is June then it will be exactly ten years since my memoir. That was in time for my 60th birthday, Louisa will be my 70th birthday present.

The original manuscript split in two, so now to turn my attention to the standalone sequel Florence & Lucy. Hopefully that will also garner enough interest to be published. But I sure hope it doesn’t take another ten years!

So many of my blog followers have given me encouragement over the years. As I reach this milestone, I take this moment to thank you all. And I hope you will all buy a copy when the time comes 🙂

Wrapping up at Bundanon.

21 thoughts on “Exploring Louisa’s Legacy Through Fiction”

  1. This is such wonderful news, Gwen. And what a milestone. Congratulations. You must be so pleased. Best of all, I assume you can relax a bit, before turning your attention and time to Florence & Lucy. Oh, and of course I will buy a copy. Can’t wait!

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