RSS Feed

Monthly Archives: August 2014

A cup of tea with Louise Saunders

Posted on August 17, 2014 by Samantha Wheeler

 

Louise saundersA few weeks ago, Louise Saunders was kind enough to spend the afternoon with me to talk about bats. With my new story Spud & Charli, about bats and Hendra virus, due out in September, I wanted to make sure I had my facts right. Louise has been a bat carer for over 21 years, and was so impassioned by bats, that she founded Bat Conservation and Rescue Qld. http://bats.org.au

So, Louise, what happened 21 years ago that turned you from successful artist to bat carer?

I went on a Batty Bat Cruise around Indooroopilly Island and fell in love with the bats. When the organisers said they were looking for more bat carers, I offered to raise one. One soon turned into many…

But, aren’t you scared of catching a deadly disease – like Lyssavirus?

BatNo. As carers, we are trained to handle bats properly, and we always take the right precautions. I have been bitten by an infected bat, but because I am vaccinated, I am still okay.

What message would you most like people to receive about bats?

Don’t be afraid of bats. We can live with bats in close proximity without getting sick as long as we don’t touch them. A bat found alone needs help. Report sick or injured bats, don’t touch them, and stay safe.

Louise’s passion and knowledge about bats is inspiring. Here are just some of the amazing batty tit bits she shared with me:

  • One of people’s biggest complaint about bats are their smell. But this comes from their pheromones, not from their poo. The more you stir up a bat colony, the more they will release their pheromones, and the more they will smell. The same goes for noise. The more you stir bats up, the noisier they will become. So, leave bats alone.
  • Bats are capable of pollinating up to 60,000 trees in one night, flying over 100km looking for food. The pollen from flowering Eucalypts and other native trees rubs off on their faces when they feed on the sweet nectar. This pollen is taken to the next tree they visit, spreading the genetics across many kilometres. So, bats are making forests while we sleep.
  • If bats are annoying you, check out the trees growing in your backyard. Introduced trees like Cocos palms produce a lot of sugary fruit, attracting bats to feed in your yard instead of on the native trees. The palm fruit isn’t good for the bats, and the poo it creates is sticky and smelly. Removal of these trees might solve your problem.
  • Bats not only spread pollen, but they also spread fruit. This is because of their raider/resident behaviour. The “resident” bat is the bat who “owns” the food tree, and will eat while hanging on the tree. The seeds drop close to the tree, which is not an ideal place for a new sapling. However, young “raider” bats flying through the area will duck in to the tree, steal a fruit, and fly away with it. This is an effective way to spread the seed of native trees kilometres away from the mother plant, where, if the conditions are right, they will germinate and grow into new trees.
  • The roosting habitat of the bats is their home. Bat colonies are often formed in Melaleuca wetland areas where the micro climate is perfect to keep them healthy. However, if we remove these vulnerable wetlands (and we do), the bats look for other less suitable places to roost. These may be in parks or schools or your backyard. These roosts are unsuitable, for us and for the bats. They have no way of keeping cool in these new roosts, and can often die in their thousands when the temperature soars over 43 degrees. So the trick is to leave the natural roosts alone.

Fllying batHere is what Louise had to say when she was interviewed by Sixty Minutes after their segment on Lyssavirus. http://www.batsrule.org.au/batsrule-helpsavewildlife/2014/3/9/extra-minutes-australian-rabies-interview-with-louise-saunders-bat-conservation-and-rescue

Bats are incredible animals, and according to Louise, probably the most important wildlife in Australia. After 34 million years of evolution, they have hardly changed, and the worst thing we can be is ignorant. Learn more about bats, and be amazed!

Here are some websites I found useful:

Batty Boat cruises, through Wildlife Queensland

Bat Conservation & Rescue QLD

All About Bats

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 Comments

Posted in Interviews, Life, Research, Spud & Charli, Wildlife and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

How the year has flown …

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Samantha Wheeler

signing a bookA year ago this month, a book with my name on it hit the shelves for the first time. Although Smooch & Rose didn’t fly off the shelves like Hillary Clinton’s new book (100 000 copies in the first month), it has done well for a first time author published by a small publishing house in Australia. I thought I’d use this space to reflect on the year gone by, answering 10 questions to explore whether being published has met my expectations.

Was seeing ‘Samantha Wheeler’ in print a dream come true? No, it was completely nerve wracking. I’m not being modest. I could hardly bear to open the package when I received my two ‘advance copies ‘. I held them in my hands, but couldn’t open their front covers for about a week. And when I did, it was like every word was wrong. It was as if it hit me for the first time that people, people I didn’t know, would be reading my story. Those nerves (peaking at my book launch) stayed with me for about three months, until I started doing school visits, and saw I wasn’t a fake. Children genuinely loved the story. That’s when I relaxed and finally allowed myself to feel proud of my very first book.

What has been the biggest joy? Connecting with readers. I’ve met lots of passionate kids, some barely older than seven, who, declaring Smooch & Rose their favourite book, plan to be wildlife carers when they grow up. I’ve heard of fridges with Save the Koala posters, schools doing fundraisers for koalas, and I’ve met many kids who love to write, inspired by the great books out there.

Did a first book bring any other ‘firsts’? Yes. I had my first radio interview, my first article in the Courier Mail, my first invite to speak at a Writer’s Festival. My first royalties pay check, however, is still to arrive …

What has been the biggest frustration? Probably the difficulty in getting local books into bookstores. Walking into a QBD or an Angus and Roberston with a huge stand of Enid Blyton books, (who’s fabulous, don’t get me wrong), when there are so many great Australian writers not on the shelves.

What’s been the hardest thing? Not comparing myself to others. Facebook in particular makes it hard for anybody these days not to feel inadequate. Some one somewhere is doing it bigger and better. However I’ve got better at travelling my own journey in the last two months, and think this quote helps sum up how I feel.

Forget all the rules. Forget about being published. Write for yourself and celebrate writing. Melinda Haynes.

And how about reviews? Initially I sweated on a three and a half star rating vs a four star one, and read all sorts of meanings between the lines, but now that I’ve met so many kids that loved Smooch & Rose, I don’t feel so worried about the ratings. The belief in my story has to come from me, not from others.

Advice for other writers still hoping to be published? It might sound weird, but my advice would be ‘celebrate the writing.’ The true joy in being a writer is the writing. Being published is just the icing on the top.

Was it hard to come up with another story after Smooch & Rose? I’ve always got a million stories zooming around in my mind, and the worst part is trying to get them to wait in line. But settling on the next story to follow Smooch & Rose was difficult. I tried way too hard and completely complicated the story. The editing was huge. My third story was probably easier to write than my second.

Has  life changed? Yes, I think life has got busier, and I spend more time on my computer, mainly due to edits, website updates, that sort of thing. I probably spend about the same amount of time writing, and thinking about writing as I did before Smooch & Rose. I still find myself avoiding the word ‘author’ when people ask me what I do.

Any new skills developed along the way? Thanks to Peter Ball at QWC, I now know what an author platform is, but I’m still no expert. I’ve learnt how to tweet and to load pictures on to Facebook. I’ve also learnt how to be more confident when asking people questions for research. People love the idea of helping when it comes to books.

So, overall, an amazing, rollercoaster year. Can’t wait to see how it feels to have a second book on the shelves, with Spud & Charli out in September. I hope it’s a whole lot less nerve wracking …

 

12 Comments

Posted in Life, Reading, Research, Smooch & Rose, Spud & Charli, Wildlife, Writing and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.