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OTTWAY, Meredith

Jan 27, 2021 | *, *Featured books, *listed, Adelaide, Fiction \ Novel, Music, South Australia

meredith ottway author baton of courage book
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ISBN 978-1-922452-36-8 PAPERBACK

Baton of Courage

All profits go to the Eye Surgeon’s Foundation

GORDON HUGHES, A BLIND VIOLINIST, LOSES HIS SIGHT IN HIS MID TEENS DUE TO A TRAGIC ACCIDENT.

Born in Moonta in 1896 to a family of fishermen, Gordon shows an early talent for music, playing both the violin and pedal-organ with an ambition to become an orchestral conductor, contrary to his father’s wishes.

After his loss of sight Gordon experiences disappointment, hardship, romance and eventually gains successes and wisdom from the multiple characters he meets and works with along the way.

Gordon spends his earlier teenage years as a student attending the ‘The School for the Blind, Deaf and Dumb’ founded in 1874 at Brighton, South Australia, and later to be known as Townsend House, before then attending the ‘Blind School’ at North Adelaide where he learns basket weaving, the usual occupation for the unsighted in those times.

On leaving boarding school, Gordon has to now face the hardships of not only being unsighted, but of finding suitable accommodation and fending for himself in a sometimes harsh world.

All profits go to the Eye Surgeon’s Foundation

B. BOYD, Ian

Jan 7, 2020 | *Featured books, *listed, Fantasy Fiction, Fiction \ Novel, Music
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ISBN 978-0-6482394-9-9
EBOOK
ISBN 978-0-6482394-5-1
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Mandilla: The Spirit of U’Katang

Madilla is a contemporary Fantasy about a young girl who teaches herself to improvise on an old piano. Her village has been under military occupation for hundreds of years, and Madilla’s piano reveals a spiritual connection between herself and a wild mountain sparrow. While Madilla is learning the truth of her family’s faith, her abusive uncle is losing himself to the evils of the soldiers. Madilla’s story is one of spiritual and musical discovery against a tide of contrasting beliefs. What she learns is that the magic she feels through playing her piano is only the beginning.

About the Author

In a past life, not so long ago, I spent my days laying pavers, building retaining walls and designing gardens. For large parts of each day, there was just me and Jono, looking for any conversation to kill the time as we traipsed back and forward doing the repetitive grunt work. Jono’s glorious brainchild was a book he intended to write entitled 101 Uses for Pavelok; the magical gap filling sand. From that first idea, we began solving many of life’s most pressing issues with appropriately themed books.

Several years passed, and through each twist and turn, it became increasingly obvious to me that I needed to start writing. In learning the art, I have written a number of short stories about whatever inspired me at the time, one such inspiration being The Empty Nested Dragon. The story draws on bits and pieces of a thousand conversations with Jono, and like most stories I write, I have no idea what it all means until I reach the final paragraph. That has been the most rewarding part of what I take from writing. Discovering that even the most nonsensical conversations can amount to something meaningful… to me, anyway.