It’s been an amazing week with book launches of FLYING THROUGH CLOUDS in Bowral (Southern Highlands), Canberra and at Gerringong (South Coast).
It was heart-warming to be surrounded by family and friends at the Bowral launch of Flying through Clouds at Bowral Art Gallery on Saturday April 1. Marie Fitzpatrick from The Bookshop Bowral was the MC, Maryanne Williams launched the book then I gave a talk about the book and did a reading. The catering was mostly a family affair with friends pitching in to help as well. Thanks to all for making the Bowral Launch such a special occasion.
The Canberra Launch on Wednesday 5 April at Paperchain Bookstore in Manuka may have been a smaller crowd but they were a keenly interested audience, asking lots of questions after my talk. Canberra features in a couple of chapters of Flying through Clouds, and I’ve been a frequent visitor to this beautiful city over the past 20 years, so it was a special event.
The South Coast launch of Flying through Clouds was a few days later on Saturday April 8 at the amazing Gerringong Museum. An exhibition of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith’s landing of Southern Cross on Seven Mile Beach, which I first saw at the museum four years ago, was one of my inspirations for writing the book. Seven chapters of the book are set on the South Coast at the time of Smithy’s landing in January 1933. Thanks to Helen, Matt, Bobbie and the Gerringong & District Historical Society for hosting the event, and to the enthusiastic audience, some of whom have relatives who were there on Seven Mile Beach when Southern Cross landed and took off the following morning on the first commercial flight to New Zealand.
I look forward to all my upcoming events on the Flying through Clouds Book Tour, with events to come in Sydney, Nowra, Ulladulla, Muswellbrook, Quirindi, Armidale, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Lismore, Grafton, Port Macquarie and Taree.