Debut author Rosemary Lewis, age 93, taps into a world women know

Rosemary Lewis is a vivacious and straightforward woman, and very proud author of life's not a paragraph, a memoir about the 13 years of her life when she created Colville Cottage, a successful bed and breakfast establishment in Battery Point in Hobart, Tasmania.

She's been an astute writer of notes her entire life, and those diary books were a valuable resource when she started the journey to tell this story, at age 87, after she had finally truly retired (after Hobart, she operated the Newcomen Bed and Breakfast on Newcomen Street on The Hill in Newcastle).

The 262-page book, published by Catchfire Press, is a vivid read. Most chapters are five pages or less, each a compact short story in itself about visitors to the Hobart lodging house, or a challenge Rosemary faced as a newcomer to the bed and breakfast scene, or an insight into another aspect of her life (she went to Hobart to take a position as a drama professor at the University of Tasmania).

Of course, there's also myriad Hobart locals and culture, and a spicy love interest.

The book's tone is very much like Rosemary's own personality, witty with a hint of surprises to come, matter-of-factly with colourful turn of phrase, full of small details that all add up to the big picture.

The book was published in December, with great encouragement by everybody from her hairdresser, Kimberly Martz at Wow Hair in Wickham, to Rosemarie Milsom, director of the Newcastle Writers Festival, who spoke at the book's launch at Newcastle Library in December.

Rosemary is conscious that it's a woman's story she's telling, from her sudden decision to move to Hobart by herself in a life-changing moment, to learning how to survive and thrive as a single woman running a business and handling an academic career at the same time.

When Rosemary finally retired from her Newcastle bed and breakfast and retired to her apartment on Darby Street in Cooks Hill, she was determined to stay busy and writing was on top of her mind.

"I started writing, I joined Hunter Writers Centre group," she says. "I wrote the stories of guests in my Hobart bed and breakfast. They were interesting. A mixed bunch, you know. From all over..."

Rosemary enjoyed the writers' group. She was a little stunned when one of the facilitators said "but your stories don't go anywhere Rosemary."

"Why do stories go somewhere, I don't know that," she says. "The blokes in the group said, 'trouble is, you need a bit of romance in your story - What about the old bloke who lived opposite, brought you cakes, couldn't you bring him in?'. I said no.

" And so, I thought about it. And after a while it occurred to me, that I did have a lot of real love story in my real life in Hobart. So that's what happened."

Rosemary had three editors and went through five rewrites in the process of writing the book. The first editor, Carol Major, who she met through Varuna, the National Writers' House in the Blue Mountains, was vitally important.

"There would never have been a lot of this, and without the amazing influence and success this book has had, if it hadn't been for her," Rosemary says. "She's like all good editors that I have found, they know how to purr... 'I love your stories, they are so interesting... you can feel them.

"And then comes the claws out, and she did it all with tone of voice. She said, 'but you didn't really mean to write a book of short stories, did you?' And I could almost feel the contempt. She said, 'you've got to show why you went to Hobart, you've got to tell the truth'. Unless you're upfront with your readers, you'll get nowhere.' You do that and you will have an influence. It will change things."

Reflecting on her early success (the first run of 150 books sold out), Rosemary recollects her editor Carol Major saying to her 'you will touch hearts, you will influence people'.

"I find that is so," Rosemary says. "The amount of feedback I've had has been astonishing.

"Only yesterday someone said to me, 'it was the perfect book for my Christmas holidays because I knew at the end of the day I had a chapter I could manage because I'd be tired and it just so inspired me'.

"Good hint to a writer: keep your chapters manageable.

"Others have said 'you made me feel bold, you made me feel I could do things. I'm now going to start doing things instead of putting them off. The kind of feedback you get...

"What I've done, and I didn't mean to do this.. You tap into people's dreams, and if you do that, you have no idea the affect it has on people."

The book has a positivity about it, although there are twists and turns. And it has such a ring of truth about it, particularly in the detail, and probably in the unpredictability of events.

"More and more I'm thinking, old age matters, and why," Rosemary says. "And It's because of stories, actually. We tell each other stories, all the time. I don't know whether men do as much, but certainly women. It kind of resolves conflict a lot, by talking things out. It happens all the time. And I think this kind of passing on of stories, that's what makes our culture. That's what aboriginal people do.

"And so, storytelling is a really important part of who we are. And when I can think of that, and this a book of stories, it makes a lot of sense to me that it has some kind of influence. I don't know how you'll ever gauge influence, but it makes a difference. When you know somebody's problems, what's happened to them, it can change your perspective."