Fans of the Sherlock Holmes stories have speculated over the years that Holmes and Watson travelled in Australia at some point in their adventures. Of the original sixty stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, there are eight connections to Australia. The most intriguing is Watson’s comment in The Sign of Four when describing the grounds of Pondicherry Lodge: “It looks as though all the moles in England had been let loose in it. I have seen something of the sort on the side of a hill near Ballarat, where the prospectors had been at work." The 1851 gold rush had drawn many prospectors to the city of Ballarat in Victoria.

While Sir Arthur Conan Doyle traveled to Australia later in his life, his visit had nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes. In 1920 and 1921, Doyle was touring Australia to give a series of lectures on spiritualism.

Now the question has been answered. Sherlock Holmes: The Australian Casebook chronicles Holmes’ and Watson’s adventures in Australia over several months in 1890. The book, edited by Christopher Sequeira, contains sixteen short stories by Australian writers. Those writers include Kerry Greenwood, author of the Phryne Fisher mystery series, and Kaaron Warren, a horror and science fiction writer who authored Walking the Tree and award-winning The Grief Hole.

Holmes and Watson have adventures in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, and Hobart, as well as in some more remote locations. The stories take place across all eight states and territories of modern Australia.

Although Canberra didn’t yet exist in 1890, Holmes and Watson do solve a mystery in the proximity of what will become Australia’s capital city. In the “Adventure of the Lazarus Child” by Dr. L.J.M. Owen, they travel to Queanbeyan Station, identified as a “remote mill-and-mine town in New South Wales as far distant from Sydney as York is from London.”

The stories challenge Holmes and Watson with a punishing landscape and unfamiliar culture as the two grapple with everything from antipodean bushrangers to bunyips. The book will delight Sherlock Holmes fans in every hemisphere.

Jackie French is a must-read author for newcomers to Australia like me. Or indeed for anyone who wants to learn more about the country's history and wildlife. Her range is amazing. She writes both fiction and nonfiction across many genres for all age groups.

I first discovered her when I read her nonfiction book The Secret World of Wombats. Funny and informative, this book and How High Can a Kangaroo Hop? have become my favorite primers on these iconic Australian marsupials. Her famous picture book Diary of a Wombat and its sequels are now my go-to gifts for baby showers. 

Jackie French writes a lot of historical fiction set in Australia as well. The Miss Lily series is set in the years before and after WWI and tells the story of the forgotten women who helped fight the war. It combines Downton Abbey-type social situations with espionage, depictions of life at the front, and meditations on what it means to be a woman. The series includes two novels and a Christmas short story so far. She also writes historical fiction for children and young adults, including the Animal Stars series, the Matilda saga,  A Rose for the Anzac Boys, Nanberry: Black Brother White, and many others.

I discovered that Jackie French has a fascinating origin story too. Her first manuscript, the book of short stories Rain Stones, was read for an unusual reason. As she explained in a 2009  interview: "My manuscript was pulled out of the pile because it was the messiest they'd ever seen—badly spelled (I'm dyslexic) and with all the 'e's written in biro. My wombat had been leaving his droppings on the keyboard and the letter 'e' no longer worked."

For anyone needing more reasons to explore Jackie French's work, check out her website or find her on Twitter.

Next time, I’ll describe other Australian spelling rules that follow British English. No surprise—many American English spelling rules veered away from British English, thanks again to Noah Webster. 

Note: Special thanks to https://pluslexia.com/ for the image used at the top of the post.

The gum tree, owned by the city and trapped in asphalt, belongs instead in nature. The poet compares the tree to a cart-horse that is castrated, confined, and hopeless. The gum tree is a metaphor for indigenous Australians forced off their land. Neither the gum tree nor its “fellow citizen”—the displaced, dispossessed indigenous Australian—is likely to thrive.
 
The author of “Municipal Gum” was born in 1920 on an island in southeast Queensland. Her father belonged to the Noonuccal people. Her family named her Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, and she was known as “Kath.” From age 13, Kath worked as a domestic servant in Brisbane. When she was 21, she enlisted in the Australian Women’s Army Service and soon after married Bruce Walker, a member of the Gugingin people. After a severe ear infection forced her to leave the Army Service, Kath worked at a variety of jobs and became interested in politics, particularly in fighting for the rights of indigenous Australians. She had separated from her husband before their son was born and raised the child alone. Kath began writing poetry in the 1950s.
 
Her first collection of poetry, We Are Going, was published in 1964. It sold well, and other books followed. The poem “Municipal Gum” appeared in My People: A Kath Walker Collection, published in 1970.She continued writing and was known internationally as a protest poet, political activist, and educator. In 1988, she took the name of her people Noonuccal and the tribal name Oodgeroo (which means “paperbark”). Her final collection of poems was published in 1988, and she died on 16 September 1993.

These Australian poets were new ones for me. A.B. “Banjo” Patterson is best known for writing “Waltzing Matilda,” which is an unofficial national anthem. He also wrote a narrative poem, "The Man From Snowy River," which was made into a film. 

A woman named Kath Walker took the name of her indigenous tribe Oodgeroo Noonuccal in 1988. Oodgeroo means “paperbark tree.” Noonuccal was the first indigenous Australian to publish a book of poetry, called "We Are Going," in 1964.

Novelists such as Miles Franklin and Nevil Shute are old favorites of mine. I remember being terrified when I read Shute’s On the Beach as a teenager.

The Writers Walk honors visiting writers as well.

Charles Darwin, best known for his book On the Origin of Species, spent two months in Australia. The capital city Darwin in the Northern Territory is named after him.

Arthur Conan Doyle, who created Sherlock Holmes, visited Australia in 1920 as part of a five-month speaking tour in Australia and New Zealand. While Sherlock Holmes is the ultimate rational character, ironically his creator was here giving lectures on spiritualism.

Sydney also offers guided tours of the Writers Walk, something I plan to do the next time we visit.

All those “n’s”! All those “a’s”! It’s exhausting to figure out where they go. Far too exhausting to finish that final “a.”

Homophones—words that sound the same but are spelled differently—are another headache, especially when apostrophes are involved.

Closely related words can cause
confusion too.

While meditation is a healthy practice in general, it’s particularly helpful for writers.

Meditation increases activity in the parts of the brain related to creativity, allowing writers to process information, make new connections, and generate ideas. (Interestingly enough, boredom has a similar effect on creativity.) Because meditation shifts brain activity to the left frontal cortex and away from the areas responsible for fear and stress, it creates greater calm, less fatigue, and less “noise” from one’s inner critic—all enhancing creativity.

Try this exercise to see the effect of meditation on your writing.

Sit or lie comfortably and close your eyes. For two to three minutes, breathe naturally and try to empty your mind. Pay attention to how your body moves as the air comes in and out. Notice how your chest, shoulders, rib cage, and belly feel with each breath. If your mind wanders, bring it back to your breathing.

After the meditation, imagine a room. When you look at the walls, what do you see? When you look down at the floor, what do you see? What’s the air like in the room? Now look around the room. Is any physical object in the room? If so, what is it? Now, is there a person in the room? If so, what does the person look like? Where is the person in the room? What is the person doing?

A few minutes of daily meditation can help unlock your creativity—and it’s good for you too.

Although a previous post explained the Proximity Rule to determine if a verb is singular or plural, sometimes intervening phrases can confuse people when it comes to subject-verb agreement.

Look at this sentence: The bag of lemon drops costs/cost more than she expected. Should the verb be “costs” or “cost”? Since the subject “bag” is singular, the singular verb “costs” is correct. The number of subjects remains the same in spite of the intervening phrase “of lemon drops.”

A sample of intervening phrases includes:

To avoid confusion, look past the clutter of phrases. Focus on the subject of the sentence to determine whether the verb should be singular or plural. In the sentences below, the intervening phrases do not affect the number of subjects.

Remember, ignore the surrounding clutter in a sentence and focus on the subject to determine whether the verb should be singular or plural.

Stuck on something to write? Or just bored while waiting in line? Either way, try this writing exercise.

First, observe a stranger out in public (not necessarily at night). Jot down the details of the person’s appearance and dress. How does that person gesture or move? If you hear the person talking, how does he or she speak?

Next, use your imagination and ask yourself the following questions. Where was this person an hour before you saw them? What was he or she doing then? What will this person do an hour from now? What is he or she thinking about as you watch them? What desires currently drive this person’s life? Write down these details and then write a general paragraph about the person.

Now observe another stranger and do the same thing described above for the first person.

Here’s the best part. Write a brief scene (250 to 500 words) in which these two characters interact with each other. You can decide if they already know each other or not.

Whether you write more than one scene is up to you, but if nothing else, this exercise will spark your creative impulses and give you practice in creating characters.