"Bowl the Maidens Over" - the perfect gift for cricket fans!

 

I asked author Louise Zedda-Sampson to tell me about her book - the story of research and publication is fascinating! Thanks, Louise.

What inspired you to write this book? You mention finding a story while researching – tell us about that.

When I was completing my Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing in 2015 at Melbourne Polytechnic, the course coordinator asked me if I’d be interested in doing some pro bono work for a local cricket club, researching and writing about the club history. Any experience in a new field is good experience, so even though I had no real interest in cricket, I jumped at the chance. My first published piece in 2013 was a case study and research article on spelling called: ‘Is U a word or do you spell it with a Z: English spelling in Australian schools--are we getting it write?’, published by the Australian Literacy Educators’ Association.  I’ve always loved research.

In researching the club’s history – it was the Youlden Parkville Cricket Club, and it has quite a history of its own – I found all these other fragments of stories, and when I tried to find out more about them (for my own interest) there was little available because the full stories had not been written. One was about a person called David Scott who helped foster junior cricket in Melbourne, and who was also instrumental in bringing the English cricketers to Australia in the late 1800s. I wrote about this missing history in a piece called ‘The Cup, the Cricket and the Custodians’ and it was published by Melbourne Cricket Club Library in their publication called The Yorker. Another story was of the first women’s games of cricket. The fact these important stories were missing from the history books was my impetus to write them. Such enormous achievements had to be celebrated – even if it was a hundred plus years later.

I have a few more such stories up my sleeve but they aren’t on paper yet so I won’t talk about them!

Whose idea was it for two women’s teams to play that day? Was it difficult to organize? What obstacles did they face?

Oh this is a very big question! For context, the game was held at the Sandhurst (now Bendigo) Easter Fair as a fundraiser for the Bendigo Hospital and Asylum. There’s a bit of contention around whose idea it was! In the book I’ve said that it was John Rae’s idea. He was a headmaster and husband of Emily Rae, and father to Nellie and Barbara Rae. A newspaper account states John Rae had approached the clergy to play in a ‘muff match’ for the Easter Fair, but they declined, and then he asked the ladies. The family records held by one of the descendants of Nellie Rae – Chris Cordner – state that it was Emily Rae’s idea to have the women play. Perhaps it was a bit of both.

It did not seem difficult to organise. Advertisements were run in the local Bendigo Advertiser newspaper for a few weeks and teams were established. Permission was granted for the women to train and use the facilities of the Bendigo United Cricket Club (BUCC) where they were coached and mentored by some of Australia’s finest cricket players of the time. There was a lot of local support and enthusiasm for the event. A few reports suggested that watching the ladies train may have been more of a novelty entertainment rather than it being for any sporting prowess, but not a lot was written so it’s very hard to gauge how well they were publicly supported before the game. However, as the day of the game neared, the ‘Ladies’ cricket match’ became more prominent a feature in the Fair advertisements, and on the day of the parade they all wore their uniforms and rode in ornate carriages as part of the procession. The only obstacles they seemed to face in the build up to the game was about the type of costumes they would wear, and if they were really going to consider the ‘dreadful’ bloomer costume over something neck-to ankle!

The real obstacles started once the game had been played, when all of a sudden attention turned on the women rather than the game.

You’ve gathered a lot of newspaper reportage, much of it quite rude, about the first cricket match. Were you horrified to read some of it? (I was!)

A lot of it was terrible. Scathing in fact! It was one of the things that really pushed me on to write this story. When I read the articles that demeaned the women so badly, and I realised how they had continued in spite of all of it, I felt a real sense of pride in these ladies – playing in those conditions, that took guts. And it made me want to pay tribute to their story.

The Maryborough and Dunolly Advertiser had very strong views about a woman’s place and had no qualms about voicing them. A woman’s place was in the home – clearly! – and to be playing a ‘manly’ sport in front of a male audience was likened to a burlesque performance. Slurs were made about the character of the women players. This view was also supported by other Melbourne papers such as The Herald, while the local papers in Bendigo help firm in supporting the women cricketers instead.

A short extract from an article in The Maryborough and Dunolly Advertiser dated 13 April 1874:

TWO-AND-TWENTY females in white calico skirts, blue and red Garibaldi jackets, and sailor hats, played a cricket match in the Camp Reserve, Sandhurst, on Easter Monday in the presence of a considerable concourse of spectators, who paid an entrance fee to witness this unbecoming spectacle.

Fifty years ago, such an exhibition could not have taken place without subjecting all the actresses in it to general scorn and reprobation. But women are falling so rapidly into contempt, and are becoming so unsexed, that such an event as the one referred to excited no more reprehension than does the appearance on the stage of females in a condition nearly bordering on nudity as they can go to without exciting absolute loathing and disgust.

This unfeminine trial of masculine skill at Sandhurst, in which frisky matrons took part with forward spinsters, was engaged as—we are told in the cause of “heaven-born charity.” Nothing else could extort money from the pockets of the male public, but this unwomanly exhibition on a public holiday.

Doesn’t it make you cross? What was worse was one of the local agitators in Bendigo anonymously slipped it into the letterbox of Barbara Rae. Barbara was a captain of one team and the secretary for the match. I think it was reading this article that really made me see red. I had to go to the State Library to get a copy of this particular article because the newspaper records had not been digitised for The Maryborough and Dunolly Advertiser. Prior to seeing the article, I had suspected it was vicious by the other commentary I’d seen printed, but I had no idea how nasty until I read it. So, yes, I was just like you, Sherryl – horrified!

You decided to self-publish the book, and it’s a beautiful little hardback in its first edition. Why self-publish, why hardback, and what was the process like?

Thanks, Sherryl! There are lots of factors in here. I’ll start with the decision to self-publish. I started the process by entering the draft in a few writing competitions because I wasn’t sure what format it should take or how I’d manage all the information, and even though it was undiscovered Australian history, no one was interested. Maybe my applications were terrible, or the assessors didn’t find the subject interesting, whoever knows. Not being deterred, I contacted the Melbourne Cricket Club Library to see if they would another story and they said yes, so I found a way to make it work. It was published it in The Yorker in 2019, the summer before the 2020 women’s T20 at the MCG, and copies of the magazine were reprinted for the monumental game.  But after this the story didn’t seem to go anywhere, and as time passed, I felt there was more to do on it.

At the beginning of 2021 – after the terrible year of 2020 with Melbourne lockdowns, a broken ankle (not recommended) and my mother dying – I decided this year had to include something significant and positive, so I embarked on the process of self-publishing the book so the story could reach a wider audience. I didn’t even try to pitch to publishers because I wanted to get it published hopefully in time for the 2021 Bendigo Easter Fair (which was also cancelled due to covid anyway!). Was this a good idea or not? I’m not sure. My advice has always been to try publishers first before self-publishing, and I go and do the opposite!

Re the format. My typesetter and cover designer, Lorna Hendry, suggested I consider hardback. When I got a sample of each – a paperback and a hardback – the hardback just suited the book. It felt and looked right, like something that fitted the period of the story. One of the issues with that, of course, is that it’s more expensive to produce and therefore it costs more to sell. One thing that’s a real issue is that I can’t get distribution on the book and get it into bookstores because the distribution discount would have me sell the book at a loss. This is something to look at as a factor in self-publishing when you print a hardback.

The process itself was eye-opening! I’ve edited plenty of books, but somehow having your own work go through the publication process is different. For instance, references have never been a strong point and I had to check my own many, many times. I found the whole self-publishing through Ingram a bit intimidating, to be honest, and had to ask a lot of questions in Facebook groups about how to set things up and what to select. In hindsight, I recommend doing a self-publishing course before you start a self-publishing project. I did find the set-up aspect very stressful.

I have managed all of that now, but I haven’t ventured into the e-book side as yet. That’s further down the track. One thing I think it’s important to mention here is to make sure you engage professionals to help you if you are self-publishing. I had no idea what could be done until I was shown, and I’ve learnt so much.

Now that the book has been launched, what have been the best and most challenging things about the whole project?

The launch happened five months after the book was released, delay due to covid. It’s so funny, really. The thing that got me moving also held me up. It was hard to promote things online, with many other authors yelling for space on the airwaves, understandably too, and I didn’t want to be another voice yelling into a saturated crowd. Getting into bookstores has been incredibly hard with shop closures and market uncertainty, and no distributor. I’m basically on sale through a few stockists, my shop and online. So, the most challenging thing for me was how to sell the book in the circumstances. I’m still working that out.  

I’ll say another challenge was the media – to start. I hadn’t done an interview before, and I am sure the first few I did were just awful! Luckily, they weren’t live. And by the time I did do a live one, I’d done a few already. I’m not sure anything prepares you for that.

The best things are a mix of administrative things and feel-good things. Being in control of the whole printing process is pretty satisfying. Even though it’s cost me to pay for editing, typesetting and cover art, it’s been worth it to have a professionally finished product. I also like having a shop because it adds another level of variety to my writerly experience.

Another positive about the whole project was linking with people who really got what I was writing. Dennis Johansen of the Bendigo Historic Society facilitated the meeting with the City of Greater Bendigo who hosted my book launch because he had a passion for the story too.

The ultimate highlight thus far has been the actual launch, and for a variety of reasons. It was held in the historic Bendigo Town Hall – a building built in the 1880s not long after the first cricket match, and only a short stroll from where the first game was played. The City of Greater Bendigo Mayor Andrea Metcalf opened the launch and Councillor Margaret O’Rourke was the MC, and many councillors were in attendance. There was a great sense of pride in the celebration of the first women’s games and it was a real honour to be a part of bringing that history home.

Also, sharing this story with the descendants of the Rae women was great. After Gideon Haigh wrote a review in The Australian, I was able to make contact with some of the descendants directly. Having the Cordners from the line of Nellie Rae and the Potters from the line of Barbara Rae in attendance at the launch was also a massive source of joy for me. Stephen Cordner even got up and said a few words as well. The launch also attracted some cricketing celebrities – Janice Parker and Ann Gordon, women cricketers who had represented Australia. Catherine Mcleod, President of the Pioneers Association – a group dedicated to preserving women’s cricket history – was there too. There were also many others with an interest in the game and the history. Plus, so many of my family and friends.

One gentleman told me – after reading my book – that even though he was familiar with many of the articles I’d referenced, he'd not viewed the games from how the women might have perceived them before. This is also a major highlight for me. Writing about these stories brings awareness and awareness brings change.

Books can be purchased directly online through my shop https://louisezeddasampson.com.au/product/bowl-the-maidens-over-our-first-women-cricketers/

or if you prefer to buy instore or elsewhere, please check the Stockist link on my website https://louisezeddasampson.com.au/stockists/

Louise Zedda-Sampson is a Melbourne-based writer, researcher and award-nominated editor. She writes nonfiction and speculative and literary short fiction. Her writing has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, online, and in magazines and anthologies, and under her own imprint LZS Press. Find Louise at www.louisezeddasampson.com.au  and on Twitter at @I_say_meow

 

Novels for Research

The other day, someone asked me if I ever read novels as part of my research, and my answer was, "Yes." I know some writers would throw up their hands in horror, because there's always the spectre of accidental plagiarism, or the suspicion that you'd possibly end up writing more like the novelist than yourself. But I read lots of books all the time, of all kinds - it's when you stick to one author that problems like that can arise.

So why would I research by reading fiction? The same reason I watch movies. The atmosphere. The setting. A good writer takes me into their imaginary world (even if it's based on fact - which most historical fiction is) and helps me to imagine my characters in a similar world. For me, it's another version of actually going to that place. I was lucky to be able to go to South and North Carolina this year to do more research for my novel, Pirate X (due out in 2011).The trouble was that much of the coastline is now filled with houses and tourist developments, but it still helped when I found an isolated area to imagine it all looked like that once.

However, I wasn't able to go to Nassau, and I'm sure it looks nothing like it did in 1717 when it was a pirate hangout, filled with tatty tents, garbage and empty bottles! However, I did get hold of an old copy of James A. Michener's Caribbean, and skimmed parts of that for a sense of place. I did the same with sailing ships by reading some of C.S. Forester and Patrick O'Brian, and watching the Hornblower series and Master and Commander. I also crawled all over the Endeavour replica ship in Darling Harbour, Sydney.

Some time ago, as part of my research for a completely different story, I tracked down a copy of The Scourge of God by William Dietrich, which is about the Romans and Attilla the Hun. The level of detail and description in this book is astounding, and when I later visited Toulouse, it gave a whole new resonance to what I saw in the museums there. Historical fiction for me began (as it did for many readers my age) with Georgette Heyer, Mary Renault and Anya Seton, among others, but books like Dietrich's go far beyond these in terms of historical detail. I often read something that leads me into new research, and books with good bibliographies are even better.

Authors like Dietrich and O'Brian also remind me that surface research never works - that there's always more to discover, if you persevere. Occasionally Wikipedia has led me to something useful (usually if the entry has a good bibliography), but more and more I'm going back to books as my best source of the kind of in-depth information I need. What I'm finding the internet useful for now is images! I use old photos and images and maps a lot, and these can be both easier to find (thanks to library collections) and more valuable for things such as finding an image of a character.

Currently I'm working on the Australian Girl series, and I now have a collection of old photos I've printed out of children around 1900. In those, I have at least three characters - when you know your character really well, you can look at photos and think, Yes, that's Abigail. She doesn't usually look that tidy, but I think her mother made her dress up for this! It's a lot of fun to do it this way.

Our Australian Girl (TM)

Over the past few months, a few people have asked me what I've been working on - and probably regretted the question! Because my answer was to launch into a description of the series I have been writing - four books in Penguin Australia's Our Australian Girl (TM).* It's quite a job taking on a series - there are lots of things that you might not think about in the beginning, or if you do, might assume it would be a breeze. Like keeping a book under a certain word limit. If you're a big blabbermouth writer like me, that can be a problem!

I didn't used to be. I used to think a word limit was an excuse to stretch a bit. Not any more. But writing this series has been more than just word limits. It's been an incredible amount of research. When the series was first proposed, and I was given the opportunity to throw my hat in the ring, I thought about the various periods in Australian history that I knew something about. What I didn't know anything about was Federation - and wouldn't you know, that's what I was given! Good grief, I thought. So the states all got together and became one country. So?

But along the way, I've discovered many fascinating things - that's the nature of research. The deeper you delve, the more you see and the more stories you read and the more snippets and anecdotes you discover. For instance, before Federation every state in Australia "did its own thing". Which meant if you wanted to travel by train from one city to another, odds were you'd have to change trains at the state border because most states had built rail lines of different gauges (widths). And there were referendums to see if everyone thought Federation was a good idea, and NSW didn't because they thought Victoria would demand that the capital city be Melbourne (the insults flying around at the time are hilarious).

In the end, of course, the compromise was that an entirely new capital city would be built, which became Canberra. Despite finding out all of these interesting facts, I was writing a series that was historical fiction, so my job went a lot further than research. I created a character, Rose, who features in the four books, along with her family and friends. Rose turns eleven as the first book opens, and her birthday on 9th May 1901, closes the fourth book as this is the date of the first sitting of Federal parliament. There were amazing celebrations in Melbourne, with huge ornate arches in the city streets and light shows (for a city that had just started moving from gas to electricity, the lights were fabulous to the people there).

My main question as I planned out the books was: how on earth could I make Federation an interesting background? The answer came from more research. This was also the time of the suffragette movement in Australia, with Vida Goldstein leading the charge in Melbourne. How perfect! Rose has a 'spinster' aunt, Alice, who is a suffragette and goes to protest meetings and debates, and shows Rose what having a say in her country's future is all about. What would I do without a feisty aunt who causes trouble in the family?

But really the story is about Rose, who has her own battles against a corset (yes, at her age!), a horrible governess, and her overbearing, social-climbing mother. It all feeds her keen desire to learn and go to school and, eventually one day, to university. I'm still working away on these four books - they are all in different stages. It's exciting to see what the Penguin team are doing with covers, extra materials, page illustrations and the iconic charm bracelets. I'm devastated that I cannot find the silver charm bracelet I had as a child, but on the other hand, now I get to create a new one with the charms that are most meaningful to Rose.

There are several things that are significant in Rose's story - cricket, for a start. At that time, women's cricket was laughed at by most men, which is not surprising considering most games were played in long skirts and hats! Bicycles were ridden mostly by men, and women who did ride them often wore pantaloons (scandalous!). Rose gets to ride on her first cable tram and watch the grip man operate it, and she also has a hankering to ride in an automobile. A visit to St Kilda beach means a paddle with skirts held up - no full-length swimsuit just yet. And Rose also visits Coles Arcade in the city, with books, monkeys, parrots and toy machines.

I have a fascination with the food of the time. There was plenty of game on the table (Rose's family is well-off) but like most kids, Rose has food hates, especially sardines and tongue. You can probably see why I'm having trouble with the word limits - there's so much I want to include! But I spend a lot of time with the hatchet out, trimming and hacking as needed. If I can get young readers to enjoy the era as much as I do, I'll be happy.
* That's a trademark sign, because it's the way series go these days. You might be interested to look at the American Girl books and website as a comparison.

10 Research Tips for Fiction Writers

If you'd asked me ten years ago how much research I did for my fiction writing, I probably would've said "Not much at all". I guess back then a lot of what I wrote was based on my own experiences, or my imagination, and what I didn't know, I made up. Then I got hooked on a pirate story which was based on a real person who lived back in 1717, and research became my new passion! Over the past nine years, I think I've gathered more material on pirates than I ever thought possible, but the supporting information has been as detailed, if not more so.

Some of the things I've researched include: money in the southern US - what currencies were used, how they were compared for value, what one guinea or one shilling would buy; sailing ships, with a particular interest in brigantines; clothing, food, houses, drinks; medicinals and diseases; what books were published back then; what language was used - I've had a great deal of fun with all 13 volumes of the Greater Oxford Dictionary! Along the way, as well as pirate stuff, for other novels and stories I've researched horses and horse riding, ballet, tunnels and underground houses, country policemen, city homicide detectives, remand centres, and various types of head injuries, to name just a few topics.

So the tips I'm offering come from experience, and are aimed at fiction writers who need to obtain good background information that is as accurate as it can be.

* no matter what information you find or where it is, record the source. I keep a big notebook and I put book titles and authors in it, as well as websites and journals. You never know when you might need it again, or might need to verify where you found it.

* don't rely on the internet for everything. Yes, it's handy and you can find heaps of things there, but it should only be one of your sources. Wikipedia is a starting point - I look at it because these days it comes up first in a search half the time - but from there I branch out and look at at least ten sites. There are many, many websites that are created by people with a specific interest in a subject. That doesn't mean they're an expert. I've found many sites with inaccurate information, or pushing a certain point of view. I like to find sites maintained by government departments (in the US many states have a department of history and/or conservation, for example), universities and/or academics with specific knowledge, and local history sites.

* even books can be wrong, often because new knowledge or evidence has been discovered. Check the publication date, and compare with other books. I try to verify important information I want to use in my book by finding two other sources that confirm it. Not always possible, though.

* interview people, if you can, and if it's relevant (no one who was alive in 1717 was available for me). But I have done interviews that have enlightened me on ballet, horse riding, frogs, injuries and country policing, for example. Prepare good questions beforehand, tape the interview, and take good notes. I've had two occasions where the tape recorder has died halfway through.

* collect anything and everything. I particularly love stories about the people who lived in my era (the tour guide at Como was an amazing resource - thanks, Betty!), and how they lived. Odd little snippets can become part of your novel and add more interest - and sometimes more humour. You never know when a tidbit can come in useful. Again, I keep all this kind of stuff in my notebook, either as notes or pasting it in.

* go to the places you are writing about, or something similar (see my previous post about Ripponlea). I have a friend who writes fantasy for whom a particular beach is the beach in her novel, and walking along it helps her to write those scenes with more authenticity. I'm excited to be going to South and North Carolina in a couple of months to research more about pirates.

* use the libraries all around you. Not just your own public library but all the others. For example, I went to Hawthorn Library the other day to look at some things in their local history section, and the librarian informed me that as long as I lived in Victoria, I could join their library for free and take out books. We also have State libraries with huge collections, and often you can access the collections at university libraries. And don't forget that libraries these days have more than books - they have newspapers on microfiche, photographs and ephemera.

* don't think that if you're not writing historical fiction then you don't need to research. I think every book benefits from good background research. My horse stories really came alive for me (and, I hope, the reader) after I'd had a riding lesson.

* don't forget movies. Yes, I've watched all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies! But I've also watched a lot of old pirate movies, all the Hornblower TV series, and anything with old sailing ships or set in my era (for the clothing and houses). A lot of movies aren't exactly accurate with their costumes and architecture, but they help to give you the 'feel' of the time, at least.

* you can also read published novels set in your era, to see how other writers deal with inserting the fact into the fiction. It's a skill, to weave the setting and background and historical information in without lapsing into info dumps. We can learn by reading the best and the worst.

I'm sure other writers can add to this list, so please do!

Research on the Internet 2009

After four hours on the internet yesterday, researching a range of topics I needed information on, I began to wonder what had happened to the world wide web. If I knew exactly what I wanted (e.g. the Qantas website or a particular university course), I came up with the right website in a minute or less. However, if I was looking for information, rather than a site, what I discovered was a huge range of sites that were useless. That didn't respond to my search terms. That redirected me to other sites that were irrelevant. What has happened? Is it Google? Should I start using another search engine?

I remember around seven years ago when I was doing historical research on pirates in the Caribbean (pre the movies). There were plenty of sites, many with a lot of information on them, and my main task was to work out which ones were accurate. There are a lot of people with pirate sites! Usually any sites based at a university or historical research facility or government history facility were good, and gave me not only a wealth of information but lists of further references to pursue.

What do we get now? For a start, Wikipedia. I have nothing against it, but it's really only a starting point (not always accurate) for further, deeper research. What I am finding is that the truly useful sites are now buried under a hundred other sites that try to offer me merchandise or other rubbish, or that have used my keywords in some kind of cunning way to get me to their site, no matter what my real search is about.

I've also found that even refining search terms to be as accurate as possible doesn't work. One search I did was to try to find a cheap or reasonable-cost hotel in a particular area of a large city. I estimated that 70% of the sites that came up on the first two pages of Google were for hotels that were either way outside the area I specified or were way too expensive. This happened with a couple of other searches I did for different things.

The other thing I have found is a paucity of material. Yes, I know that website analysts are pounding into our heads that sites need to have short bursts of information that are readable on screen. That might work for a recipe or tourist site, but if I am researching, for example, the first cars in Australia and what they were and what they looked like and who owned them and who made them, one paragraph was hopeless - and that was on the museum website.

Has the internet finally got to a point where, if you want quality and quantity of information, it is useless to us? Have the merchandisers (i.e. anyone who wants to sell us something via the net) finally made the internet so cluttered that it's no use at all if you are doing real research? What do you think? (What I think is thank goodness for books and libraries! That's where I'm heading tomorrow.)