message on our phone from an editor at Penguin Books asking if I ’ d be interested in speaking to them about a project .
I didn ’ t know then that this wasn ’ t entirely unusual . One of the publishers had read a story I wrote in OUTBACK about rural and remote health and asked me if I would like to collect , edit and collate a selection of stories about nurses working in rural and remote Australia . No way was I ever going to say “ No ”! So BUSH NURSES evolved , published in March 2013 . It ’ s a social history of nursing in inland Australia , based on anecdotes collected from various people and sources across the last hundred years .
After that , NURSES OF THE OUTBACK seemed a natural progression . It is biographical stories of fifteen amazing nurses who work in the ‘ modern ’ outback . They ’ re gutsy , committed , resilient people and their stories were mesmerising and a privilege to write . They are , in fact , ordinary everyday people , albeit well trained and highly experienced , who step up and do extraordinary things when needed . In my view , nurses are the backbone of the country and , along with other emergency service workers , they are the real heroes of the world . It was
an absolute joy to tell their stories and celebrate the enormous contribution nurses make to the sustainability of the inland .
Likewise , writing OUTBACK VETS made perfect sense to me as so many nurses did vet work I wondered where all the vets were . They ’ re definitely ‘ out there ’ and they ’ re an incredibly bright and intriguing
“ Nurses are the backbone of the country and , along with other emergency service workers , they are the real heroes of the world . It was an absolute joy to tell their stories and celebrate the enormous contribution nurses make to the sustainability of the inland .”
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