Story List and
Biography
For Karen Treanor
In 1970 we
joined the Peace Corps and spent most of the 70's in southern Africa.
You can read about that adventure in "The Magic Stove" and other
stories on the site.
One
of two things happen to Peace Corps Volunteers: they go 'home' and
settle down and now and then look at old colour slides and smile--or
they realise that home isn't home any more, feel foreign in their own
land, and seek someplace else.
In
1978 we realised change was coming to Southern Africa (I still get
homesick for Swaziland and Lesotho now and then, but less so since we
settled in Tassie), and that we had to face facts
and grow up and be responsible parents to our three children. We could
not put down any more roots into a place that could become unstable and
dangerous. The headmistress of the children's school was a 5th
generation West Australian who recommended Perth as a place with great
weather, nice people, and career opportunities. It was, but not quite
as expected--there was a period of church mousery before we got settled
and moving forward.
In
2012 I had some major health scares that made me consider mortality. In
2013 I went to visit my son in New Zealand (another long story) ,
taking the twin granddaughters with me. We were entranced by the lush
greenery and great scenery and I returned to hot dry Western Australia
somewhat less than content.
In
January 2014 the Perth Hills experienced another huge fire; friends
were burnt out and only a west wind stood between our house on a
dead-end road and a similar fate. In April 2014 Gene and I took the
first holiday we'd had in decades and came to Tasmania for a week.
Bliss! We went home to W.A. and I said "I don't know where you're
spending next summer, but I'm not spending it here." We realised that
for a decade we'd been talking about upping stakes and going somewhere
cooler, perhaps the deep south of Western Australia, but inertia had
held us back. "We haven't had an adventure for a long time," I said.
Gene
worked like a Trojan fixing up our house, it went on the market in
June, sold in July, our car and truck were on a car carrier in August
and we were on a plane to Tasmania on 3 September.
*****
New
England born Karen Treanor lived in the hills above Perth, Western
Australia, for many years, where she shared a home in the woods with
her husband, two cats, eight bandicoots, assorted brush-tailed possums,
lizards, and an occasional kangaroo. She has contributed stories about
her adventures with the various wildlife there to Storyhouse.
She is the proprietor and entire staff of a small publishing company, Quenda Books,
which printed its first children's book, "Scoot,Scoot, Bandicoot" in
2004. Karen reports, "After the success of the first one, I
did another four books in the series: “The Big Red Bucket”
“Pounce’s Special Friend” “Bounce’s Sore
Tummy” and “Where’s Our Dad?” I also put
into print five mystery novels which had been published as E-books by
several of the early e-publishers. Getting braver, I began
accepting books from other people and have published
“Zora’s Kitchen” and
“Animalimericks”. One of the best sellers is “A
Tree in Mundaring” which is a collection of real-life short
stories about the wildlife in my yard, including several chapters that
appeared in Storyhouse. Given
the outgo in printing bills and artist’s fees, the company has
yet to make anything resembling a profit, but most years it breaks
even.”
Karen,
her husband and the two cats, recently packed up their lives and moved
across Australia to the small island state of Tasmania, having decided
that they’d had about as much of hot weather as they need for the
time being. “It’s been quite an adventure moving from
the biggest, richest, driest state to the smallest, greenest, poorest
one, but we have met some marvelous people and are enjoying the cooler
climate,” she says. She’s already met an echidna,
five wallabies, and a pair of eagles on her new property; we expect
some new stories to issue from her keyboard soon.
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