GETTING TO KNOW MARGARET TANNER

 

Margaret Tanner reporting in for my very first blog at The Roses Of Prose. A proud moment indeed. I will be posting here on the 11^th and 23^rd of each month.

Well, I guess I should introduce myself to those who don’t know me. I come from the land down under, Australia. The land of the kangaroo, koala, platypus and emu, just to name a few of our unique animals. Much of our flora and fauna is found no where else in the world.

We have a fascinating landscape, beautiful white sandy beaches, rugged mountains that are snow-covered in winter. We have rain forests and deserts. In fact, believe it or not, Australia is one of the driest and oldest continents on earth. We are English speaking with our own special Aussie slang.

The first white people to settle in Australia (1788), came mainly from England, Ireland and Scotland. We started out as a penal colony. Somewhere for the English to dump their unwanted convicts, and thus our early history is a blood-stained one.

Slowly a British society evolved based on the distinctions between convicts and free settlers, but as some of the convicts prospered once they gained their freedom, they tried to erase the stain of their convict blood and many of our early documents were destroyed. The discovery of gold in the 1850’s caused another wave of mass migration, this time comprised of many nations, although those from the British Isles were still the most dominant.

I am multi-published with Whiskey Creek Press and The Wild Rose Press. I enjoy delving into the pages of history as I carry out my research for the Australian historical romance novels that I love to write. No book is too old or tattered for me to trawl through, no museum too dusty, or cemetery too overgrown. Many of my novels have been inspired by true events, with one being written around the hardships and triumphs of my pioneering ancestors in frontier Australia.

In the course of research, and also because I have always been interested in the 1^st World War, I have toured the battlefields of France, Belgium and Turkey. A truly poignant experience. I spent time (10 minutes was long enough) inside an old historical jail, just to see how it felt, because one of my heroine’s was imprisoned for a crime she did not commit.  The thing that affected me the most was the cold. It was absolutely freezing in this stone cell, even though it was hot outside.

I am a member of the Romance Writers of Australia, the Melbourne Romance Writers Group (MRWG) and EPIC.  Oh, and I have won a few literary awards along the way too, but being a modest little violet, I won’t bore you with a blow by blow description.

If you would like to find out more about me and my books, my website is:   http://www.margarettanner.com/

My publishers are:

The Wild Rose Press    http://www.thewildrosepress.com/margaret-tanner-m-281.html

Whiskey Creek Press    www.whiskeycreekpress.com

My next visit at The Roses of Prose blog will be on the 23^rd August, so I hope you will drop by again and say G’day to me and my fellow talented roses of prose.