Three Remarkable Women

Some time ago I read a wonderful book called The Woman on the Mountain - the author, Sharyn Munro, lives alone on a remote property in the Upper Hunter Valley, NSW. She's completely self-sufficient in her mudbrick cottage, has turned her property into a wildlife refuge and is regenerating native species in the bush. It really is a fantastic read - I'm actually quite surprised that I didn't blog about it when I read it. Once I read the book, I wanted more lol, so I searched for her blog and found it. I leave the odd comment on there, as you do :)

Our library regularly presents a "Look who's talking" series of talks by authors, so when I found out that Sharyn was going to be one of them, I booked in! I've never been to one of the talks before - I always look at them and think "wow, that looks interesting", but arranging babysitting etc is just always too much hassle to bother. Not this time, I didn't want to miss it!

So off I went today for "High Tea" at our library, to listen to Sharyn and 2 other authors talk. The talks were all wonderful.

It was called "Three Remarkable Women" and I think it was put on to tie-in with Mother's Day. As well as Sharyn, the other 2 authors were Jane Mundy, author of Cholas in Bowlers and Cheryl Keonig, author of Paper Cranes.

Jane Mundy's book is about her journey to the other side of the world - in her late fifties, she met a man who asked her to go to Bolivia with him, so off they went for an adventure! It was a really interesting and amusing talk - I can't wait to read her book now.

Cheryl's talk was quite heart-wrenching - I'm positive I wasn't the only one wiping away tears as she spoke. At the age of 12, her son was hit by a car and was severely brain damaged - she was told he would never walk, talk or eat again. They took him home and cared for him, gave him intensive therapy, and now at the age of 22, he can walk, snow ski, is learning to drive, and is doing a course at TAFE (tech college). It's a remarkable story and I've added it to my library list too!

I purchased Sharyn's book, chatted to her afterwards and asked her to sign it. She recognised my name from the comments I've left on her blog which I thought was very cool!

It was such a great morning!