Hello, friends! Today we have another guest visiting the blog. Throughout the next week I’ll feature a series of holiday posts from authors who will share a little about themselves and their books. I asked them each to answer a few holiday-related questions. Let’s meet author Meryl Brown Tobin. Welcome, Meryl!
–What’s your holiday “specialty?” My mum used to make shortbreads, I make shortbreads and I taught my children and grandchildren to make them. We pummel the dough the way we’d pummel playdough and make balls into shapes, such as our initials or snowmen, snakes, tarts or whatever or use cookies cutters to cut shapes such as Christmas trees, birds or shortbread men or women. Then we’d decorate them with cut pieces of glace cherry.
–A favorite holiday travel story to share? This is a prose poem I wrote about a true funny Christmas ‘disaster’ that happened in our rural area shortly before one of our Christmas school holidays which occur in summer in Australia.
A Rural Christmas
Faces as expectant as cattle
welcoming rain after drought
schoolchildren face the school gate
sing Jingle Bells
pause, wait.
Cupping his ear, the teacher calls,
“Sing louder, children––
Santa can’t hear you.”
Children sing louder, pause again.
Still no Santa.
Frowning, the teacher leads the children
parents into another carol, and another.
He tries Jingle Bells again.
It’s deafening.
A fire engine roars into the school ground.
On its back, like a frenzied windmill
a red-faced Santa waves.
The teacher reaches up to pump his hand.
Santa leans down, whispers, “Sorry.
One of my cows decided to calve
and I couldn’t leave her.”
Meryl Brown Tobin is an Australian writer who writes fiction and non-fiction for adults and children, poetry and educational puzzles. She has published 21 books and had hundreds of poems, puzzles, short stories and articles published in more than 150 publications.
Book blurb: On a working holiday in Australia’s cosmopolitan Outback town of Broome in 1986, Jodie, a young book designer and artist is open to romance and adventure.
At the holiday village where she is staying, she meets Joe, a young man who works there. Despite the strong attraction between them, the many unknowns about his earlier life keep them apart. To try to uncover his mysterious past, they travel to Perth and back to Broome and are drawn into not only bizarre but also dangerous situations.
Is Joe the person she thinks he is, or is he some alter ego? Can Jodie and Joe stop their relationship from developing until they have answers and know if he is free to love her?
A favorite short quote from the book:
The storm whined and screeched about her, and the roof creaked and scraped.
“Oh, my god, the roof’s going to take off any minute!”
Joe’s arms enveloped her. “Hush, everything will be all right. But will you be okay if we have to make a run for it?”
“Yes.” She let out a sob. “But I like our chances better in here than out there.”
Joe kissed her forehead. He pulled her closer, and they lay locked against each other while the storm raged around them.
Connect with Meryl: https://sites.google.com/view/merylbrowntobin-author
Thanks for joining us, Meryl! Love the Santa-and-the-cow story! Happy holidays, everyone! And happy reading!
darlene deluca 