Nadine Williams

Publication deal heralds new chapter

A proud moment when I announced my publishing deal.

Hello everyone,   The stars above us must be in alignment because March has brought astounding happenings to set my life on a new trajectory.

Hoorah! I have sold my manuscript, Bon Voyage Mesdames, to Harlequin Publishers.  Adding to the excitement, my agent, Selwa Anthony advised me of this splendid deal a few days after Writers Week here in Adelaide. This will be my second book following From France With Love, published 9 years ago. Yes, it’s a long time ago, but this second publishing deal makes me feel like a real author.

I fly to Sydney to sign the publishing contract on Friday, April 15 with a publication date of April 2017.

My close friends will testify to my jitters over the past 6 months since October when I despatched the second draft to Selwa. It had taken  me almost 12 months to complete a second draft.

My friend Jane, with whom I shared this extraordinary journey back to France after Olivier’s death, never doubted that it would be picked up by an astute publisher.  Yes, its unashamedly Francophilic, as I loved France even before I met Olivier,  but the journey was also the catalyst for my personal resurrection. Paris, worked its magic once more in my life, lifting me out of the  emotionally crippling black cloud of grief to  allow the sunshine in; to feel that delicious joie de vivre once more.  Writing about loss is timely, just like back in the 60s when it was simply the time to write about sex.  But so are the main threads of my  story – the richness of women friends, food phobias, travel adventures in France and how to learn to embrace life again, to laugh and have fun once more.

Once when Baby Boomers were young, the social script was love and romance, marriage, babies and the good life. But  that first wave, born in 1946, turn 70 this year and millions more are moving into their 60s. Almost overnight, Boomers’  easy ride along honey-laden highway of life has come face to face with loss.  Suddenly love is intrinsically linked not to romance, but to loss.   Loss of our ageing parents and for those unlucky ones, as I was, the loss of a beloved spouse.  Sadly, some people never recover from grief.  But I discovered so many pleasures in France that  slowly happiness seeped back into my heart.

Ageing increases risk of breast cancer

It was the telephone call women most fear: The woman speaking calmly to me at the other end of my mobile is advising that I need to return  to BreastScreen SA because my rec ent  mammogram had shown “cellular abnormality’’.

The mind plays terrible tricks with such news and within a noni-second I have imagined the very worst outcome. Breast cancer!  But the other, rational part of my brain knows – and here knowledge is the pacifier – that on average only eight women of every 100 recalled for further X-rays, CT scans or biopsies  are found to have cancerous cells in their breasts.

I also know that the earlier breast cancer is detected and treated, the better the chance of survival.  Survival rates in our time are now very high – more than 75 per cent. Therefore, less  than one in four women die of breast cancer within five years of diagnosis.

However, being diagnosed with breast cancer remains the number one fear of women of all ages.

So, with trepidation I attended recently a clinic for more extensive x-rays, but luckily, following a CT-scan I was told the wonderful news that there was no evidence of cancer in my breast tissues.

The numbers of my female friends and relatives who have been diagnosed with the big BC continues to rise to reflect the fact that if we are fortunate enough to live a long life, one in three of us will receive the grim news.  The promoted statistics of the average age of a woman – before she turns 70 – is one in eight.

One of Adelaide’s leading hospitals – St Andrews Hospital – operates on almost 700 women each year for breast cancer. In any group of women gathered socially or for sport or as workmates, it would be unique if there wasn’t at least one woman who has been recalled or who has had a lump removed or a mastectomy.

These facts reflect why I recently spent an afternoon with a group of women sewing on my machine making under-arm cushions for women who have had mastectomies.   It’s my first time, but my colleagues have been meeting for some years – and get together four times a year to sew up all those cushions.

Wise women will never ignore Breast Screen SA’s reminder letters and will continue to self=examine regularly throughout their lives. And, naturally, any woman of any age who becomes aware of a lump or nipple discharge or any other noticeable change in her breasts, will promptly arrange an appointment with her doctor, or BreastScreen SA. Appointments can be made on 13 20 50, or www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/breastscreen.

Powerful women as change agents in politics and media

Recent appointments and events reflect powerful women at the helm of politics and media. Powerful Google executive, Michelle Guthrie, has been appointed the new head of the ABC following Mark Scott, who has been managing director since 2006.  She has called her new role with the public broadcaster as an “
extraordinary platform’’ to keep  the nation informed of news and current affairs across digital, mobile, television and radio services and to mirror Australian culture in its programming.

And she has hinted on allowing advertising to boost the ABC coffers in the wake of shrinking federal government funding.

Guthrie sees one of the challenges will be to ensure that the ABC adapts and changes to the evolving needs of Australian viewers and to ensure the ABC continues to show “unique Australian stories”

“It’s those unique Australian stories which will keep the ABC  relevant to Australians of all ages,’’ she said.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity to lead this organisation and to face key challenges, to determine what audiences desire and we must adapt and change very quickly…”

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The recent meeting between Australia’s and Indonesia’s foreign and defence ministers in Canberra heralds a whole new ballgame in the evolution of female political power in the tough areas of foreign affairs and defence.

Three of the four government ministers were women – Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop and Indonesia’s counterpart, Retno Marsudi and Australia’s defence minister, Marise Payne.

On the agenda was planning to counter news that terror organisation ISIS has plans to establish a far-off caliphate in Indonesia – on Australia’s doorstep.

The Belier Family – fab feel-good French story

The French film, The Belier Family (La Famille Bélier) by director Eric Lartigau makes you think deeply about the disadvantages of being deaf – and it makes you cry – but mostly it makes you laugh. No wonder La Famille Bélier  was France’s number One Film of the Year. Because the feel-good story about a French dairy-farming family where everyone is deaf except dutiful sixteen-year-old Paula, drips with the delights and idiosyncrasies of French culture.  Village life, local food markets, uninhibited sexuality  and how French students must choose a cultural pursuit, create a wonderful backdrop for Paula’s emergence as a budding chanteuse.

And to endorse this magic mix La Famille Bélier has been nominated  for nine French Oscars including best film, actor, actress and screenplay.  Newcomer actress, Louane Emera, who plays Paula, won the 2015 Cesar award for Best New Actress and the 2015 Lumier Award for Best Actress.  Renowned French actors Francois Damiens and Karin Viard are a formidable team capturing every French couple’s dream – a hot sexy marriage. All that passion portrayed without a word being spoken. However, Paula’s younger brother, Quentin,  (Luca Gelberg) is the only deaf member of the cast.   Adding a huge dose of Gallic eccentricity is Eric Elmosnino (who played Gainsbough) as the bored French music teacher who wrings his hands at yet another year of “this choir of goats”. Instead, he discovers Paula’s extraordinary voice when she joins the choir.  Not that she had any deep desire to be a singer initially, she was merely following a cute adolescent boy named Gabriel (Ilan Bergala) who had joined the school choir.

The charm of the film is that Paula is a natural, loveable character living a normal life within a family with disabilities and torn between love of family and desire for independence. Whose wonderful voice reflects the real-life fact that she was runner-up to the French equivalent of The Voice.  Her emotive rendition of Michel Sardou’s Je Vole would be one of the many reasons she picked up a French Cesar.

Paula has a heavy life of  farm labours, helping parents run the local market’s cheese stall and acting interpreter for the three deaf members of her close-knit family. After morning milking, it’s cycling and busing to school daily, where the awkwardness of teenage crushes juxtapose with rampant teenage sexual trysts. However, the choir master sees Paula’s gift as a ticket out of his boring rural life and encourages her to apply for a Radio School scholarship in Paris, far from the rural cheese-making of her parents. As Paula warms to the idea of a chance at stardom in Paris, her dream becomes the worst nightmare for her deaf parents. Gigi’s desperate bid to keep her on the farm reflects that universal parental problem – fear of the empty nest – exacerbated by their reliance on her ability to hear and speak.

Adding a slice of political village life to the plot, Papa Belier decides to run against the pompous council mayor with the unlikely motto of “I hear ya” and while this is an undeveloped thread, mayoral elections are critical events in French village life.  There are many hilarious moments, when Paula sits between her parents as the doctor explains why curing her mother’s “burning” thrush requires a ban on sex for three weeks. “My crotch is on fire,’’  Gigi had complained in sign language. While a tad crass, the episode exposes the parents’ reliance on their daughter.

The use of sign-language, the noisy clanging of kitchen utensils which only Paula can hear at breakfast and the eerie silence when Paula sings to her parents at the audition so that the audience experiences what it’s like for the deaf parents who can’t hear their gifted child – add depth and feeling.

The film won  “most popular film’’ at this year’s French Film Festival in Adelaide and it will have a general release at Palace Cinema on Boxing Day – December 26, in time to appeal to families on holiday.

Tourists find Katmandu in recovery mode

My Sydney friend has taken her first post-retirement trip to Nepal to do her bit to boost the tourist industry in that impoverished country,which has suffered from   massive earthquakes in May and June this year killing more than 8600 people and destroying more than 500,000 homes.  Here is her first report.

“Well, we are here in Katmandu.   I think it’s one of the
poorest countries in the world and it appears to me that the country has been brought to its knees by the earthquakes. There is dirt and dust and mess (from the earthquake damage) everywhere. No proper footpaths makes it difficult and there
are electricity wires on the ground (not live)
that you step over all the time, which compound the problem moving around easily.  In contrast, we are staying in a palace for the first three
nights. My friend Caroline is an intrepid travelling companion and  she enjoys
everything with gusto. We will be trekking in three days time.  Had a
fabulous thali dinner for $3.50 last night – beautiful food.  The people
here are lovely but you can see that life is tough.  Even in the midst of such chaos, I know it’s such a great
experience to travel here. xxx Jane

Jockey Michelle beats racing discrimination

Is there a greater thrill in November than enjoying a girlie Melbourne Cup luncheon when trailblazer jockey Michelle Payne became the first woman to win at Flemington? And she was riding my Sweep pick – Prince of Penzance! It’s such a cracker of an Aussie story. And the Lyceum club crowd cheered when she publicly berated the blokes who tried to have her removed as the horse’s jockey with a rousing “get stuffed”.

“I just want to say to everyone else, “You get stuffed’, because they think women aren’t strrong enough but we just beat the world,” she said after winning the 2015 Melbourne Cup and dobbing in the part-owners of Prince of Penzance who wanted her removed as the jockey.  And our group of women warmly applauded when she hugged her Down syndrome brother Stevie, a strapper at the stables. Winning because he backed her with his ten bucks bet was far more important to note than the $6 million winnings from the race. Another very high hurdle of discrimination against women jumped over.

EDITOR’S NOTE:  Congratulations to Michelle on being named The Australian’s Australian of the Year.  A well-deserved accolade.