My Next Book To Be Published - "Plague Invasion - Creative Writing Responses To Covid-19"

Back in April last year, I felt I had to do something, something about this awful virus that had invaded our lives, killing people, and forcing us to huddle up at home, keeping away from family who didn't live in the same home, and from our friends, as well as our work, for a great many people.

I felt this was a new thing, an invasion of something sinister in our lives, and felt there would be many creative writers, like me, who felt they had to do something, something important, to tell how things were for us, as the Coronavirus seemed to take over our lives. The phrase - Plague Invasion - had come to me, and I had to do someting with it!

I know many other writers, and am a member of many groups, and have many connections around the world, via my blogs, including this one www.carolyncordonwriter.wordpress.com . So I made a post on that blog, asking for poetry or prose, of a specified number of pages, or lines, and I waited, hoping to get a few poems and prose pieces, to do something with.

So I had the makings of something, and then the responses kept on coming in, up until the end date I'd given, hoping there would be enough works to make a reasonable sized book. I was thinking fifty pages would be enough, to make a slim volume of words. But the works reached that amount, and kept on coming.

I received poems and prose from all around the world, not just Australia, where I live. I knew some of these overseas people, because they followed me on my blog, even though I didn't know them in person at all. But they were so giving, I felt like we were already friends, especially after reading the things they'd sent to me.

I received over a hundred pages of material, and was able to obtain a written foreword from the Mayot of the biggest town near my home. She is a nurse as well as being a mayor, and so had interesting thoughts about this whole Covid thing, and how it is affecting her community. I thank her very much for that, and will be pleased to give her an early copy of this book, so she can talk about it, when she launches the whole Festival for the writing group.

And now, I have it, the book, almost ready to have one hundred copies printed, so I can distribute them at the book launch, that will happen at the Festival mentioned above. This Festival of Words, will be the eighth such Festival of the writing group I'm the President of, Adelaide Plains Poets, and the book launch will happen on the final day of the Festival, and I hope many of the contributors will be present to pick up their free copy of this book.

I've been saving up my money, and have enough to pay for the printing, but I hope to actually sell the other copies of the book too, at a reasonable price, cheapest to contributors if they'd like further copies, but also to libraries, and interested potential readers of this book.

And whether or not I recoup my costs, I feel in my heart and mind, I will have done a great job, by bringing this important historical document into the world! Money isn't everything, people and their thoughts and words are the most important thing in life! Today I visited the printer I chose to print this book, and he handed me the first 'proof copy' of the book, which I photographed to get the image above.

The book looks good, and though I've come across a few minor things that need to be changed, I've sent the details to the printer, and they will be fixed in plenty of time, so Plague Invasion can be released into the world at the end of July! I'm so excited about this, probably my most important book produced ever!