140 to Celebrate the Launch of Louisa!

/ Garrulous Gwendoline

The launch event for Louisa is a sell-out! 140 attendees are anticipated to join in the celebration at 2pm on Friday 29th May, at Links Seaside by Warrigal, in Wollongong, situated on the stunning Illawarra coastline.

I’m in conversation with SUZANNE LEAL, award-winning author of six novels. Suzanne is the perfect fit, as her new novel, The Year We Escaped, won the 2025 ARA Historical Novel Prize. Moreover, that book has just been shortlisted for the Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature at the 2026 NSW Literary Awards. It will be a privilege to be on stage with this wonderfully warm woman.

Suzanne is the founder of Thursday Book Club, a relaxed book club connecting readers online. Read more at www.suzanneleal.com

Now the RSVP date has passed, I can “relax” and leave the finer details to Warrigal, who are being exceedingly generous in supporting this event. Historically more associated with residential care, Warrigal also owns a number of what they call “community villages”. In the case of Links Seaside, we are doing a good job of convincing them we are a “lifestyle resort” – and that lifestyle will be on full show on the 29th May. The place will be bopping.

Sadly, my publisher, who is based in Brisbane, will not be able to make it on the day, but here’s also a big shout out to him, David Reiter of IP (Interactive Publications Pty Ltd).

I’m looking forward to welcoming everyone to our “home”.

Footnote:

And now I am turning my attention to library author talks. This is where I wish I had a personal assistant. It’s shaping up that hubbie and I will be on a NSW road trip for the first two weeks of August, so watch this space! Which reminds me, I must create an events page for this blog.

Exciting days!

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21 thoughts on “140 to Celebrate the Launch of Louisa!”

    • Yes. It’s a year ago that we had an online chat about it. I went and dug my photo album out of the garage as I think I have two photos of girls wearing national dress. Wrote a hundred words or so and maybe scanned the photos – and that’s a far as I got.

      FYI, We travelled from Sweden by train and bus to arrive in Trondheim. Boarded the Hurtigruten grocery run vessel to Aalesund. Day tripped to Geiranger Fjord – that was THE day. Then took the local buses down the coast to Bergen. A great trip, which ended with us taking the ferry from Bergen to Newcastle.

      From memory one of the girls was in light blue and the other more of a navy. Either way, it signified the area in which they’d been raised. I will get to it ONE day.

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      • Gosh your memory is superior to mine but one thing I do remember is the regional Norsk Bunads. Each bunad or national folk costume pertains to a particular fylke or province. They are very beautiful garments, very expensive and only certain qualified women are permitted to make and embroider them. My daughter had an imitation version – a dragt when she was young.
        It sounds like your trip was wonderful. You saw some prime Norwegian areas, but then Norway has so much to see around every corner. I would go back to Norway any time. It is spectacular.

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        • The first time I visited Norway was 1978. One thing that struck me was that the locals spoke English with no discernible accent. Quite different to the stereotype of the Swedish “lilt”.

          It was June. The mosquitoes were ENORMOUS. We were camping. Had to burn wet wood to make enough smoke to keep them away 🙂

          My diary shows we visited Notodden, Kinsarvik, Oslo and many, many points in between.

          It is a beautiful country. The early 1990s trip was my second visit, I think. I don’t remember another in between, although I went to Denmark several times as I had friends with a dairy farm there.

          It was interesting watching Scandinavian TV, especially when there were talk shows hosted by Danish, Swedish and Norwegian hosts, all together. At first, they all sounded the same to an Australian speaker. But listen really hard, and you realise there are vast differences. For example, tak so myket versus takk sa mye.

          But in the short times I was in Scandinavia I rarely got past good morning, good night, please, thank you, and … pass the salt 🙂

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          • You did well to manage pass the salt in Norsk! Norway and a lot of the Nordic region is spectacular but I am pretty biased in that regard! There are plenty of good Scandi crime shows on SBS if you can find the time to do so. I watch them on the weekend evening to get my ‘fix’ of the Scandi scenery! Lol. Yes the accents are different but when they speak English there is variations depending on who taught them English. If they had an American teacher or Irish teacher, they will pronounce english words a certain way. My Icelandic friend thinks my Aussie accent is basically neutral! And she has studied linguistics. The Norwegians are very sing songy – like the topography of their country, up and down. The Danes swallow their words ( unless they are from Jylland where they have a softer tone) and the Swedes sound to me like an American-Norwegian with a bit of German thrown in! I have heard about the the mozzies but not experienced them myself – so many lakes in Sweden for them to breed in. It is just as well the summers are short!
            Takk for det! Ha det fint!

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          • So, I wish to say, “Bare hyggelig” but I got that straight off Google Translate and have no memory of attempting anything so unrecognisable to my memory. It has no Latin relation such as “de nada”, or even “de rien”. Nor Germanic such as “es nichts”.
            Which is proof to me that Scandinavians are unique! I wonder if I will ever wander back to that part of the world.
            When I was very young a family from Finland moved into my street. I played often with the two sisters, and heard they eventually moved back home. I wonder if they wish to be contacted by a random Aussie and show me around their world.
            But gosh! Age is arriving quickly … I so hope my wandering days are not coming to an end.
            In 1978 I was in Finland for a very short time on my way to the USSR, but I was very ill with a respiratory disease, so have no clear memoir of my time there.
            Oh! To be 22 again and a world meanderer…

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          • Bare Hyggelig is a lovely saying and Hygge such a beautiful concept. In my time in Norway, one heard Ha det bra or ha det fint or even ‘vi ses,’ literally: have it good, or have it fine or ‘we sees (like the Aussie ‘see you later’). These were said instead of the word for goodbye. The answer was always a shortened ‘Ha det’ in return. But languages change fast.
            I think similar to you about travel in older years. We cannot postpone it for much longer. However, I did travel extensively when younger, precisely so that I would not regret it if I never made it back to Europe again.
            It is interesting about your Finnish friend. You might like to follow Snow, on “The snow melts somewhere” blog. She lived in Brisbane as a young girl and moved back to Finland where she still lives with her children. She has fond memories of growing up in Australia.
            It is a shame you didn’t get to explore Finland. And heading to the USSR with a bad chest must have stymied many of your explorations. I never made it to Moscow – the closest was Estonia.

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          • I took a quick look at Snow. It looks interesting, but I have resisted following, as I am struggling to keep up with those I already subscribed to. Thanks for the recommendation, though!
            I’d been ill for a couple of days before USSR. I was out of it on the ferry crossing from Sweden to Finland and missed all of the Finland sight-seeing which was a brief 24 hours.
            Crossing into USSR in 1978 took all day and was very thorough, they even took the wheels off our coach. I was semi-conscious on the back seat when ordered into the terminal and was chosen as one of the representative inspections. The inspector put his hands at the bottom of my packing and then just flung the lot upwards. Stuff went flying everywhere. I was in a brain fog. I think my friends helped me repack.
            Luckily, they didn’t call in medicos. That had already happened to our group in Germany when one of us was ill. Sent in the quarantine squad dressed in protective gear. But they cleared us of anything that needed isolation.
            Anyways, in USSR I was able to carry on quite well by the next day.
            We were there about two weeks from memory. Leningrad (then), Novgorod, Moscow (23rd Birthday), Smolensk, and Minsk (saw Brezhnev). I always thought we went to Kiev as well but my diary says no 🙂

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    • Thank you so much Amanda. I get so behind in my blogging, but I will give it a shot.

      Believe it or not, I have a half-finished post about the day we celebrated National Day in Norway in the early 1990s. And I’m looking at the source material as I write this. xxx Gwen

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  7. I am sorry I couldn’t apply to attend the book launch as I know Suzanne Leal (used to teach her) and live locally but we will be away in our caravan for the first time in eight months. We squeezed it in between Brian Cox and Teen Sitting duties. Ten days away on the road via Canberra to visit my son for his birthday.
    Enjoy the book launch. I’m sure it will be great!

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    • I wondered if you were on the list, Linda. (I haven’t had the final version yet). I was conscious that any further delay with the date risked seeing people head away for the winter.
      Except you’re heading to it! Enjoy the time. xx Gwen

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