Email from a reader

I often wonder if I have made the right choice pursuing my passion to write.  On good days (it's generally after a quadruple shot of caffeine), I have thought, in time, I might even achieve my crazy dream of earning an income from writing. 
     Writing so far has come at a cost to my health and my family and my total income is not worth consideration.  I am not sure why I have continued writing although it may have something to do with chronic sleep deprivation impairing my capacity to make informed judgements.
     Shortly after I was notified about being shortlisted at the Queensland Literary Awards last year, I had an epiphany.  I was making the children's lunches one evening and I opened the fridge.  My eyes fell upon half a tomato, shrivelled and covered in grey, fluffy spores. I was going to end up like that tomato.  I'd spend the next 20 years writing furiously and end up on the shelf with nothing to show, but grey hair and wrinkles.  
     I turned to Tony and told him I'd give up writing if I didn't win this time. I'd been shortlisted in three other national manuscript competitions and it was looking like a case of always-the-bridesmaid-never-the-bride. I knew when to stop flogging a dead horse.
     Then I won and My Island Homicide was published this year.
     I have spent many hours since, often when the neighbourhood rooster crows for the first time before dawn, staring into nothing and wondering whether this writing business is all too hard and I don't have what it takes.  Then I've fallen asleep.  Waking has fuelled me with a renewed passion for writing and I have forgotten about those doubts as I am either formulating a story or plotting a way to get some writing in between child-related committments.
     Before writing this post I had a quick squiz at the ABC website and, much to my surprise, there was an article about writing in Australia.  It states, among other things, that writers' annual incomes have halved since 2001 to $11,500.  If I was a gambling woman, I'd ditch writing, bury the dream and find a real job tomorrow.  It would make things easier for Tony and the children and of course, our finances.  
     But there is one problem  ... kind words from people who have enjoyed my writing.
     The following is an email from Peter Reiken, a man I've never met, who read Ina's Story, the memoir of my mother-in-law.  His kind words are a small gesture that means the world to me and my crazy dream.

Dear Catherine

I am writing to tell you how much I enjoyed your biography of Ina Titasey.  I came across the book quite by accident while trolling through the history section at the Sunnybank library.  The name"Titasey"  was familiar to me but it was not until I was flicking through the photos in the book that I came across the photo of the young boy "Tony" sitting in the pram and I recognised my old house in the back ground.

I was a young policeman on TI from 1963 to 1966.  Whilst I did not know Ina and her husband personally  I rememebr the Titasey family as such, living across the road.  The kids were always laughing and playing out the front and on the verandah and I recall several occasions been given some of the mangos from the tree in front of their house.  The name was somewhat similar to Tatipata another TI family I knew and I think I recall one of them telling me that their father came from Indonesia to.  

I was 70 last month and Ina's story stirred memories that have been dormant for some 50 yrs.  

I knew many of the people mentioned in the book and most would have passed on now but they all became alive again to me in this book. I remember some years back reading an article on the singing trio the  "Mills Sisters" but I incorectly assumed they were part of the Mills family that I think lived on Hammond Island when I was there.  

Not many books have been written on the history of the Torres Straits and TI and those that have usually talk about events and institutions rather than the simple folk who made the place something special to those who took the time to appreciate it. 

Ina's story had to be told  and I congratulate you on the way you did it. 

Regards Peter Reiken

Peter's house in the background.  Tony in the pram, about late 1960.