Reading and writing takes us deeper and deeper inside ourselves, to better understand what it is to be human.
As the muscles of an athlete need constant exercise, so do those of writers. Writers must write.
Writers write from their view of the world (memory and experience).
Hello. I am so pleased you have found your way to my website.
Before I tell you about its purpose, let me proudly announce my new novel, ‘Between’ set in Rabaul Papua New Guinea and Brisbane Australia which can be purchased from Lily Ellen Publishing https://lilyellenpublishing.com.
I am a writer and therefore a reader, and at the core of much of my writing and reading is the town of Rabaul in Papua New Guinea wrapped around that which is significant to human life: family, memory and experience.
Rabaul is the beautiful town featured in the image above, a photograph taken before 1994 when there was a very large volcanic eruption. Rabaul has been destroyed and re-built a number of times, none less than during World War Two. It has been governed by Germans, Australians, Japanese Military and Papua New Guineans. To quote historian Neville Threlfall (Mangroves, Coconuts and Frangipani: The Story of Rabaul 2012, 16) who was commissioned in 1980 to research and write a history of the East New Britain capital to compensate for the destruction of most written records during the bombings of World War Two:
From its foundation Rabaul was a crossroads where the people of many tribes, races and nations met, in peace and in war. Germans, British/Australians and other Europeans; Chinese, Indonesians, Japanese, Koreans, Indians, Filipinos, Pacific Islanders from Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia; Baining and Tolai, the original inhabitants, and tribespeople from all over what is now the nation of Papua New Guinea; all combined to make it a cosmopolitan community as colourful in its human elements as in its scenery. Most people who stayed any length of time became deeply attached to this town, and if they had to leave, did so reluctantly
Rabaul is important to me for many reasons. Those reasons will no doubt trickle out in the various pages of this site. But who knows what else might pop up?
Wendy Glassby 