Time to celebrate a New Book, the Old Post
and Telegraphy Office, and Newcastle, New South Wales.
As the long journey to the publication of
my first novel draws to a close, and my book is being prepared for printing, it
is time to reflect back on the good things that being here in Newcastle has
provided me with over the past years, leading to this last year as a publisher.
For a start there is my house, the old post
office, after which the publishing house is named, Postmistress Press. This was
by chance, we found out through seeing an article in the local history section
of the Newcastle Herald, way back in the mid 1990s, when we first started
living here (my ex, now grown up children and myself) that the cottage we had
moved into was the first post and telegraphy office in Adamstown, an inner city
area of Newcastle.
The house had not been built as a post
office, it is a humble weatherboard cottage, of the style of a miner’s cottage,
with a verandah on the street, a front door in the centre and two windows on
either side, if you are looking at it from the street. When we arrived it was
very bare and unprepossessing from the street. We planted three ‘street trees’
that the council was giving to residents then to green the city. They are now tall trees, which provide shade
and foliage on the street, three Echinaceas which have vibrant yellow
blossoms. Our neighbours opposite also planted Echinacea trees, with red blossom,
and next door have Echinaceas outside the house with red and yellow
blossoms, so we have coordinated quite well.
The street which when we moved here was
treeless is now an arbour.
I also planted a fern garden on the street
level outside the house, with a few red flowering geraniums, and with the strip
of grass under the trees, it gives the street more of a garden feel.
I found out by chance, or rather through
the Lost Newcastle facebook site, that there was a postmistress here at the old
post office for many years. I have photographs of her, and her husband and
daughter, and a line up of locals on the front verandah from over one hundred
years ago, which I will scan and post – or at least include in a publication
soon.
That is the inspiration for the name of the
publishing house, or one of them. I was attracted to the concept of ‘postmistress’
as women who worked in telecommunication, post and telegraphy offices in the
late nineteenth and twentieth centuries were able to work on a more or less
equal level with men, especially during times of crisis such as wartime. So
telecommunications and telegraphy offices signify an opportunity for women to
play a vital role, at least that was how it eventuated in new forms of
communication. There are further resonances of female emancipation- from the
mistress- and also the resonance of equality in education, a post grad is a Master,
why not a Mistress. All these resonances will chime with the themes of the
books I publish.
Which brings me to the new publishing house
I have set up here. I am using the newest form of publishing, online publishing,
to publish my books as both print books, available in shops and on global platforms such as
Amazon, Kobo and more, and as eBooks.
I have now spent the last year (and prior
to that another year in research) researching and working in the production of
the first books.
There have been trials and tribulations
that I have recorded here on this blog, and in social media, which I won’t
reiterate now.
However the first year, and the worst of
the trials seem to have almost been passed, and my first novel Australian Fugue: The Antipode Room, has
been published and sent to supporters of my crowdfunding campaign, as a Special
Collector’s Edition PDF eBook.
Now the printed book is in the final stages of production. It
will be available on Amazon in the coming two weeks, I hope.
I am also in the process of producing my
PhD book, The Writers Fugue: Musicalization,
Trauma and Subjectivity in the Literature of Modernity (Thesis 2006) as a
printed book, to be available via Amazon and other platforms, as a print book,
and as an eBook very soon.
The first Postmistress Press Anthology,
with contributions from writers around the world, is in production.
So despite the trouble, trials and
tribulations, no less the grinding lack of money (though we hate to mention it)
in the past year, and most especially in the past six months, since April when
things began to get rather tough, it will soon all be worth it.
This is certainly not for the faint-hearted
I have found out. But I hope that it will all come to fruition soon, and may
prove to be a sustainable business.
So, despite the difficulties I feel I owe
my thanks to the Old Post and Telegraph Office, and to Newcastle, and to the
New Enterprise Initiative Scheme, which is designed to help new enterprises
start in Australia, for the chance to do this. Even if at times it has felt
like being in a grueling and impossibly challenging reality TV show. It was
always my strong wish to publish a print book, and that is about to happen,
so it will all be worthwhile.
Ruth Skilbeck
Publisher and author
Postmistress Press
The Old Post and Telegraph Office
Adamstown
Newcastle
