Welcome to my new blog!
My patient husband is dragging me kicking and screaming into the 21st century, and taking me step-by-step into the cyberworld of the author blog. Either we sell more of my pirate books, or I swear I am back to the eighteenth century and snail mail.
Yesterday I posted off a screenplay, 'Black & White' to the Australian Writer's Guild annual Monte Miller award. This is based on a true story, the bones of which I found at the Agnes Waters Museum seventeen years ago.
A hundred years ago, a pretty young white girl called Edie Anderson left her isolated lighthouse home in Central Queensland to work as housekeeper on Turkey Station. Despite her social obligation to marry well, and provide for her poor family, she fell in love with a handsome, charming black stockman called George Daniels. This was an illegal relationship at the time, so they kept it secret. Being the only marriageable female for many hundreds of miles, Edie was swamped with other suitors, some very eligible, some just ridiculous. But her secret was finally discovered, and in disgrace, she dropped George, and let her most eligible suitor escort her home. They never made it. We know from police evidence that George met up with them, and that Edie's escort was ambushed and shot in the back. George and Edie were never seen again, and her escort was found dying. Fred bowton, the man who found him raised the alarm, and claimed that Edie's dying escort named George as the killer. However, the police ignored vital evidence, such as George's gun being only able to fire one round at a time. Apart from the unlikely scenario of a killer taking a defective gun instead of stealing one that worked, this does not account for the evidence of multiple shots fired in quick succession. If there was a shoot-out, then there was someone else there. The only conclusion is that fred Bowton was lying, and had killed them all.
Here's hoping that the Australian Writer's Guild likes the story as much as I do. I'll let you know next month.