Working from home series: simple tips

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A lot of people think that I write books all day (actually most of you know by now that at the moment I’m NOT writing books all day given that I haven’t published a novel since 2017!) – what many don’t know is that I have owned my own media and marketing company for more than 20 years, mp|media solutions.

Here are some tips on working from home inspired by conversations with many of my clients who have shifted into their home offices and I’ve been helping them adjust to this ‘new normal abnormal’.

I’ve been working from home for 20 years, always with children underfoot, at my elbow, on my lap or calling out from the next room. Here are a few things I do to make it work:

  • Make the bed
  • Get dressed and brush your hair
  • Don’t forget to eat lunch, try and keep it healthy. Also work out in the morning what you’re having for dinner that night
  • Try and exercise every day
  • Take regular breaks and go outside when you can
  • Set your work hours. I’m better in the mornings so I start really early, I might take a couple of hours during the day for a walk or bike ride, and even when I am super busy I try and finish at 5 because I’m not producing valuable work after that time!

Okay, this is what it would be like in an ideal world, it doesn’t always turn out like this, but each new day is a fresh start.

Photo memories of Ursula

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I have a different kind of thank you to send out today. This one is to the people who have shared photos from their old albums and their memories of Ursula this week after seeing ‘Forever Young’ on Australian Story.

One of the hardest things for me during my very public quest that started in 2013 to find Ursula was finding photos of her. The morning of the first Picnic for Ursula in Bell Park, Quirindi, our Nanna Elle presented me with a package of photos found in an old cottage where Ursula used to live of photos including the one you’ve seen everywhere of her wearing a yellow T-shirt, her favourite colour. Plus the precious photos of her with her school friends that you saw on Australian Story.

But now I have so many more, and I am so so grateful to the people who have contacted me to share them!

Here is a photo of Ursula on an old car from one of her neighbours Lee Hartigan that she loved to drive (like all farm kids she could drive as soon as her feet reached the pedals). It was taken in 1983.

The second is another photo from Lee, at a girl’s sleepover, when Ursula was much younger. This photo was taken in 1979. Sadly Lee’s sister Sharon, back left in this photo, passed away unexpectedly a year after this photo was taken. I was quite young at the time so I don’t remember but I know that Ursula would have been absolutely devastated. My memories with Lee and Ursula are on our motorbikes as we raced our way through the mountains, at pace!

The third photo is from a complete stranger named Renae who watched Australian Story and thought she recognised Ursula from when her family billeted Ursh in 1980 during a school exchange. Ursula was at Manilla Primary School at the time. Renae says “I can still remember her liking to talk a lot and a loud belly laugh!”

I have received more precious photos of Ursula  that I will share with you at some stage, but for now I’d just like to let everyone know how grateful and appreciative I am that they have taken the time to get in touch and share their memories of our bright and bubbly Ursh.

#ursulabarwick #foreveryoung #photooftheday #photoalbums #childhoodmemories #wallabadah #farmkids #australianstory #memories

The Kings Cross Detectives who never gave up

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Continuing the #cupoftea theme for Ursula, and the thankyous, someone sent me this photo from her memorial of drinking cups of tea with Kings Cross Detective Sergeant Kurt Hayward. This was a very emotional time and felt quite surreal, and at the time it was still difficult for me to accept that Ursula had been found. Kurt made these cups of tea, or what I like to call cups of kindness, just as so many others have done over the years as a gesture of support when I needed it most.

The day Mum and I first met Kurt in August 2014, me with my spreadsheet of dates, times, names and other pieces of information that I was hoping would reinvigorate her case, is one we will never forget. It was the first time Mum had ever been interviewed by police about Ursula’s disappearance 26 years earlier.

Thankyou Kurt for all that you have done for us, we will be forever grateful.

Thankyou thankyou

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Thankyou to everyone for the most incredible messages and support in the search for Ursula. I will respond personally to you all over the next few days, my heart is full 💛 I would like to make an extra special mention of my friend Chantal Scarlett who turned up on the doorstep to hold my hand and pour me a heartwarming drink (love your guts! ❌⭕️) She is one of many who have been by my side through this incredibly difficult quest for the truth … I have so many people to thank! But for now I would like to thank Ursula for teaching me what unconditional love and being brave truly mean 💛💛💛💛💛

Fire recovery film on how books make a home

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How books make a house a home is the focus of a film about recovering from the trauma of Reedy Swamp, Vimy Ridge and Tathra fire through new books.

The Book Love for Tathra film, partly funded by a Bega Valley Fire and Resilience Grant, tells the story of how more than 3000 new book donations have created positive and long-lasting impacts in the fire-affected community.

Authors, publishers and individuals from across Australia donated more than $100,000 of new books to Book Love for Tathra after fire burnt more than 70 homes and damaged many more on March 18, 2018.

Local author Melissa Pouliot, who started the collection, presented the books at a community event in February 2018.

The Creary family, who were among the first Tathra residents to move into their new home just before the one-year anniversary, are among those who feature in the film.

“To be able to move into the house and straight away have new books to put on the shelf makes the house feel like a home,” Alexis Creary says.

Esteemed Australian author Jackie French, AM, who donated over 200 books to the collection and instigated significant donations from Australian Women’s Weekly and several major Australian publishers, also features.

“Every single book in this room has been given with the most enormous love and joy and incredible admiration for the community of Tathra, who is determined to survive,” French says. “You actually need joy as much as recovery…and this is joy! And this is more important because hopefully in a year, five years or 10 years, something like this is going to be the much more powerful memory than the hard things. You will look back and you will smile because you will remember the things done with friendship, love and community.”

Bega Valley Mayor Cr Kristy McBain says Book Love is a wonderful example of the humanity and generosity Australians have for each other.

“Seeing these books and seeing people excited to restock a library, no matter how small or large it may have been, is really heartwarming. From my point of view it’s one of the great reasons we live in the Bega Valley Shire is because of these amazing people that come together to help out their friends, their families, their neighbours,” Cr McBain says.

Sapphire Coast-based film maker Brent Occleshaw produced the film. Brent, who is also a volunteer fire fighter and was part of the fire-fighting effort at Tathra, said it was a privilege to bring the Book Love story to life on film.

“As firefighters, we defend life, defend property, and importantly, restore normality. ‘Restore normality’ involves helping this community become strong again and replacing books, the heart of people’s homes, plays a central role in doing that,” Brent says.

Melissa said the generosity from the Book Love donations continued, with leftover books still circulating in the community.

Books have gone to the Tathra Public School library, Tathra P&C Association for fundraising events and Bega Rotary Club. Proceeds from books sold at Rotary’s Winter Book Fair have purchased garden vouchers for a Garden Recovery and Open Gardens weekend in Tathra on the weekend of August 24 and 25. Book Love books will also be available on the Saturday at Tathra Surf Club and organisers will screen the Book Love film.

“Any funds donated for books at the garden event will go back to the community for garden projects, truly making ‘Book Love for Tathra’ a gift that keeps on giving,” Melissa said.

WATCH

Writing, wellness and my return to my passions

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found, crime fiction, melissa pouliot, book launch

During National Missing Persons Week 2018 I caught up with the lovely Samantha Moir from Warrior Women Radio, and we covered a lot of ground.

If you have a spare 12 minutes or so…

It is my first radio interview for a long time, as this year I have been having a break from writing and a break from talking publicly about my journey of the past five years with my missing person Ursula, who is now FOUND.

It was such a lovely chat and the perfect way to get back into my true passions – writing, missing people and keeping kids safe.

We pre-recorded, with a view to taking out the bits that didn’t work so well! But I love that Sam shared this in its entirety with a few stumbles by us both because isn’t that what life is? A few stumbles, but then we pick ourselves up and move along.

We honed in on the search for Ursula and my work with the Daniel Morcombe Foundation to keep kids safe. We also talked about writing and how writing fiction is a fantastic outlet for dealing with life when it gets too big.

books Write About Me Found

Unleash the Beast October 10

And here is my perfect segue into the Unleash the Beast event in Toowoomba on October 10, World Mental Health Day, where I am one of the guest speakers. This Writing and Wellness Symposium is absolutely packed from sunup to well past sundown. Ray Martin, Peter Fitzsimons and Mia Freedman will be there, along with so many other talented writers from all around Australia.

Here’s a little bit more about this great event which is raising money for Lifeline – you can book HERE.

Unleash the Beast is a writing and wellbeing symposium aiming to share, promote and propagate the conversation about mental health in a relaxed, entertaining and engaging manner. Why writers? Writers are able to articulate what it is about mental health that affects us as individuals, and at a family and a community level.

And on that note, it’s back to the writing for me. Book number 7 here we come!

LINKS

Books I read on holidays

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And they were all fabulous!

I’ve just been on holidays and I took my iPad in case I felt the urge to write, and four novels that have been sitting on my bedside table for several months. The holiday was much needed, as I have been feeling complete burnout since about August when I launched FOUND, and I needed nothing more than to sit by the pool and read (or write). I didn’t write, although ideas still sloshed around inside my head, and instead I read.

These couple of weeks of reading reminded me of why I have always been such an avid reader. Since I was a young child reading Dr Seuss right through to now, I have always found peace and comfort inside the pages of novels. Now that I write my own, I am seeing books through completely different eyes and further appreciate the skill and absolute brilliance of other writers.

Everyone has their own unique way of saying things but the one thing good writers have in common, is that their words become part of you. They draw you into their characters, both real and fictional, and you are right there, in the moment with them. Crying and laughing, holding your breath and hoping things turn out okay when you know they won’t.
Then walking around long after you’ve finished thinking about what you’ve just read and mourning for what you’ve lost when you reach the end.

I generally don’t read many memoirs or non-fiction books, as my love affair has been with fiction from a very young age. But as I aim to become a better writer myself, I’m making a genuine effort to read more non-fiction and memoirs. There is only one fiction in this group of what I’m recommending highly for your holiday reading, and I must say I’m thoroughly enjoying expanding my reading horizons.

1. Bush Doctors by Annabelle Brayley
Bush Doctors is a brilliant collection of short stories, truly Australia, truly unique. Annabelle is a wonderful storyteller and has the ability to find the story behind the story, then brings that to the forefront to grab and hold your attention, before delicately filling in the back story. By the time you reach the end of each doctor’s story, you are completely engrossed in their lives and in awe of their courage and contribution to their communities. I have a personal link with Annabelle that we only discovered last year. My mother-in-law Lyn Pouliot, a retired teacher, used to volunteer as part of an outback angels program where retired teachers went to isolated properties to be in the classrooms of School of the Air children. The Brayley family was one of the families she spent time with, and so it was with great delight that Annabelle and I discovered each other through our writing, then realised the link! I absolutely loved this book and am now going to read all her others which include Bush Nurses, Our Vietnam Nurses. Outback Vets and Nurses of the Outback. I have gifted several copies of her books for Christmas and birthdays, highly recommended!

2. Love Your Sister by Connie & Samuel Johnson
This year I lost a long-time friend to cancer, and like Connie Johnson she was a wife and mother, and an amazing woman who we all miss very much. I have also been an avid follower of the Love Your Sister journey, like many others, and am in such admiration for the bravery it has taken for both Connie and Sam to make this journey such a public one. I love how Connie tells the story from her side, then Sam jumps in to tell it from his. The story is both inspiring and heartbreaking, heartwarming and devastating. The chapters I found most harrowing were the ones they added after the initial book was finished. Their updates after Sam finished his epic journey around Australia on a unicycle are raw, real, honest and compelling. Cancer spreads its reach far beyond the person who is suffering cancer itself and Connie gives us a no holds barred insight. Yes we’ve seen both Connie and Sam speak passionately on television, we’ve read Sam’s beautiful tributes to Connie since she died but until you take the time to read through these pages, you’ll never fully be able to comprehend just why Love Your Sister (which to date has raised over $7 million) is so vitally important as a vanquisher of cancer, both now and into the long-term future. DONATE HERE

3. Wimmera by Mark Brandi
Having spent more than 15 years living in the Wimmera in Western Victoria, it’s no surprise this novel jumped off the shelf and into my hands. Since it’s release this year I have enjoyed following its author Mark Brandi on social media, whose debut crime fiction has attracted broad praise, and I wanted to savour every moment once I was finally able to pick it up. Wimmera will stay with me for a long, long time. Its dark themes, beautifully crafted characters, strong sense of place and its ability to make you feel hot when it’s hot and feel scared when it’s scary. I am not going to sugar coat this book, it’s covers several very disturbing sides of everyday life. I deliberately didn’t read reviews or detailed synopses of the book before I read it and so it caught me by surprise in so many ways. I couldn’t put it down and anyone who tried to speak to me while I was reading got no response. I absolutely loved it.

4. I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell 
At a recent writer’s course a word of advice stuck in my mind, read what you don’t normally read. This was a reminder of the philosophy of the book club a friend and I started in 2000 where ‘popular’ books were discouraged, but as the years passed I fell into the trap of reading mostly in my comfort genres. I Am I Am I Am was my foray into Memoir, and I chose well. There is so much to love about this book. It doesn’t follow a logical timeline and jumps from a young Maggie to an older Maggie back to a very young Maggie. But it is so cleverly weaved together that these jumps are connected in another, more meaningful way. Am so in awe of the writing, the language and the way the words take you deep into Maggie’s heart. I adore this book and can’t wait for a friend to read it so we can talk about it over wine.

Books & Bikes

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For me, a bestselling crime writer based on the stunning Sapphire Coast, where you’ll find some of the best mountain bike tracks in the world, they are intrinsically linked. As part of the launch of my fifth crime novel FOUND, I shared with Sapphire Coast Tourism how the bike trails I ride inspire my writing. I also shared some excerpts from my new book, which the Australian Federal Police launched in Canberra on July 27, 2017.

BUTTERFLY

The morning is warmer than usual and it won’t be long before I won’t need my gloves or beanie beneath my bike helmet. I look to my right and admire the swans gliding gracefully on Wallagoot Lake.

The water is so still it looks like glass. To my left I hear a rustle in the thick bush and wonder if it’s the lyre birds I see from time to time, building their nest, or something more sinister.

I shift gears as I reach a slight incline and look down at my handlebars. Something flashes past my face and my heart skips several beats as wildly look around to see what it is.

It appears again, then multiplies. Butterflies. One, five, ten, twenty. They dance around my head then disappear into the bush. A few moments later they return, then they’re gone again.

They follow me like this as I ride past the boat ramp, along the corrugated dirt road and to the entrance to Bournda National Park. I stop for a drink and admire their quiet presence, wondering if I will be quick enough to capture them on my camera. I’m not.

I keep riding. There’s a steep section and I’m so distracted that I forget to change gears and nearly don’t make it up. The butterflies are still with me when I reach Wine Glass Bay, and they follow me to the steps leading down to Turingal Head beach.

My thoughts flutter to the fifth book I’m writing and by the time I’m back home, I have a new chapter already written in my head.

Ant was ahead of her, gesturing and pointing out things while Andy quizzed him. Occasionally Andy would crouch down, Ant standing awkwardly by his side. Rhiannon walked silently, also in front, and Christine watched a butterfly land on her shoulder. It was bright yellow with small dark spots on its wings. It was a Eurema smilax or small grass yellow butterfly. Quite common, but something Christine had never noticed in the city.

She watched it cling onto Rhiannon’s white cotton shirt with its tiny sticky feet, a slight breeze making its wings move ever so gently. Christine focused on the butterfly to calm her mind. She became transfixed, wondering in her foggy drug-induced mind, if it was a sign from Annabelle.

Annabelle loved yellow. The butterfly was yellow.

Annabelle was here!

She was trying to tell her something. A strong gust of wind dislodged the butterfly and Christine watched with panic as it flew away. She raced after it, convinced it would lead them to Annabelle.

Nobody noticed at first, until Andy called Rhiannon over to show him something and Ant looked back to see Christine running in the opposite direction.

‘Hey, Christine! Where you going?’ Ant called.

Christine didn’t answer, it was taking all her energy to not lose sight of the butterfly which was leading her deeper and deeper into the bush. She pushed through shrubs, she was off the path now, panting heavily from the exertion. She rolled her ankle as she scrambled through the dense undergrowth and pain shot up her leg, but she kept running.

Ant tore after her. ‘Christine, what is it?’

Rhiannon and Andy started jogging after Ant, while Christine dashed and darted after the speeding yellow butterfly, pushing through branches and around trees.

‘Show me Annabelle, show me where you are,’ she whispered hoarsely.

Finally the butterfly stopped. It settled on the flower of a Christmas Bush, its yellow standing out strongly against the white. Christine hunched over, trying to catch her breath.

Within minutes Ant was behind her. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

‘Shhh,’ she said. ‘Don’t move.’

Rhiannon arrived next; a few minutes later Andy crashed through the forest.

‘Shhh,’ Christine hushed him. ‘ Quiet! Don’t come any closer.’

Her eyes remained firmly fixed on the butterfly.

Ant leant in close, clearly annoyed. ‘What. Are. We. Doing. Here?’

Once Andy stopped the loud puffing of a detective who was unfit, overweight and spent far too much time at his desk, Christine spoke. ‘See that yellow butterfly there?’

They all peered amongst the mass of flowers on the bush, eventually making out the tiny yellow shape. ‘Yes,’ they said in unison.

‘It’s a sign from Annabelle! It landed on your shirt when we first arrived, and now it’s brought me here. To this spot.’

Silence.

‘ Well? Don’t you get it? Yellow is her favourite colour. The butterfly is yellow. The butterfly has led us to Annabelle. The butterfly is Annabelle! This is where you need to look. Don’t you understand, this is the spot. She’s here, somewhere! Start looking!’

She was crying and shaking, clearly distressed. ‘She’s here, I know she’s here. Have a look, you’ll find her. I’m sure of it.’

Ant stepped in close and wrapped his arms around her.

Andy walked away first, then Rhiannon. Ant stayed and hugged Christine tightly. Through her tears, she stared at the tiny yellow butterfly, before it lifted gracefully off its flower and disappeared deep into the forest, never to be seen again.

BONES IN THE BUSH

It’s the first time I’ve ridden this track on my own; it’s always made me feel slightly uneasy but with a riding companion, there’s nothing to worry about. Right? Right.

I duck to avoid a low hanging branch then quickly swerve to avoid a large stick hidden underneath the thick mat of crunchy leaves.

I’m getting deeper and deeper into the bush and start to feel disoriented as I come to a fork in the track and wonder if I should go left or right. It’s a common theme in my book; my runaway teens including Annabelle Brown and Keely Johnson never know whether to turn left or right, and more often than not, take the wrong track.

I stick left. I nearly fall off my bike when something hits the back of my helmet at full force. I’m terrified. The track narrows and the bush closes in around me. I hear a buzz over the loud crunching my wheels make. It gets louder and louder, then something hits my helmet again, and again. I scream, and get off my bike, flailing my arms about, fighting with the giant buzzing creature that is swarming around my head. I can’t get away from it.

I jump back on my bike and pedal as fast as I can to escape, but it keeps up with me. It won’t leave me alone. My legs are burning and I can hardly breathe. I feel it land on my back and I writhe and wriggle to free myself from its dangerous grip. There is no sun in here, and I am completely spooked.

I keep pedalling, searching for the light at the end of the tunnel. I know it can’t be far away. Something catches my eye on the ground, tangled in the leaves and undergrowth. It’s a black jumper. My imagination is going wild. What is the jumper doing here? Who does it belong to?

I’m not sure if I’ll ever escape the ‘the spooky forest’, and it becomes a recurring theme in all my books. It’s where terrible things happen, deep in the Australian bush.

teph’s daughter Sara, Annabelle’s best friend, was home for a school friend’s engagement party, so first stop was her room.

‘Hey, Sairs, got any plans tonight?’

Sara looked up from the book she was reading, leaning over her bed at full stretch to turn down the volume on her cassette player. ‘Not really. Why, what’s on?’

‘Want to come out to Lee’s with me?’

Something in her Mum’s tone scared Sara. ‘Don’t tell me,’ she said, snapping her book shut and getting off the bed to move closer.

‘No, not that. But Lee’s in a fret. The news tonight, more bones in the forest.’

‘ Annabelle,’ Sara said quietly.

‘Maybe,’ Steph wrapped her arms around her daughter. ‘Best place for us is with Lee, on the couch, with chocolate.’ ‘And cups of tea,’

Sara tried not to go into a panic. They’d been here before. Waiting, watching, wondering. Watching every news bulletin for that glimpse of information that might connect bones to Annabelle. Daring the phone to ring, wondering how long it would take for detectives Andy Cassettari and Rhiannon McVee, and the seemingly slow-turning wheels of the police system, to match bones in the forest with Annabelle’ s.

Within half an hour Lee and Steph were on the couch, Sara in the kitchen making tea and preparing a platter of sweet treats.

‘I hate this Steph.’

‘Me too, Lee. The not knowing, it’s so hard.’

‘Should I call Rhiannon and ask?’ Lee posed this question every time. She and Steph went around in circles, like they had many times before, and eventually talked themselves out of it.

‘You’re right,’ Lee said, after they’d been over it from all directions. ‘They’ll have it in hand. Of course they’ll be checking against her file. Rhiannon will let us know.’

Sara handed them their steaming cups of tea, slipping easily into her role of chief carer. She never contributed much to the conversation, letting their words wash over her while she did everything she could to cheer up Lee and look after her every need. Sara kept her thoughts for her diary, the one she was planning to give Annabelle when she came home.

Sara stubbornly refused to entertain the possibility these bones could be Annabelle’s. She refused to let conversations like these filter through to her inner belief that Annabelle was still alive and well. That didn’t mean she didn’t feel paralysed right now. With so many bones being discovered, and all this talk of a serial killer on the loose, her hope of seeing her best friend again was at risk of shattering, piece by tiny piece.  

Saying goodbye to Ursula

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Words have real power. Words can wound, words can heal. And in my case, words can find people.

In 2013 I put a whole bunch of words together in a crime fiction novel I named Write About Me. After I finished all my made up words I wrote some real words about my cousin, Ursula Dianne Barwick, who went missing in October 1987 when she was 17 and I was 15.

After reading all my words, one of my best friends wrote to me: “Just finished your book! Fantastic job you should be so proud. I feel like giving you a big hug after reading the author’s note. Love and hugs to you.”

And my best friend from high school wrote: “Give up your day job now. I have 20 pages left and I don’t want the book to end.”

Those words, among many others, spurred me on to keep writing, and to keep searching for the truth about Ursula. Four years and four more books later, around half a million words, and I am staggered by how much words have changed the course of my life.

Finding Ursula was a team effort, driven by two dedicated detectives from Kings Cross – Detective Sergeant Kurt Hayward and Detective Senior Constable Amy Scott.

I had a small but strong support network every step of the way, encouraging me to be brave in my pursuit of the truth. Initially thinking it was too late to solve the mystery of her disappearance, my quest started as a way to honour her memory. To show her, no matter where she was, that I had not forgotten about her, I had not stopped missing her, I had not stopped searching for her. An amazing groundswell of support followed, and it soon became clear that Ursula wanted to be found.

On July 19, 2017 I tried to say goodbye to Ursula, who, nearly thirty years after she went missing, is FOUND. Her lifetime was 17 years, two months and thirteen days.

I stood with my family, some of Ursula’s school friends, the people who worked so hard over the past several years to find her and the people who have supported me along the way. Ursula’s Mum, my Aunty Cheree, wasn’t with us, although I like to think she and Ursula were reunited when Cheree died in 2004.

Yet, the journey is not over

To be completely honest, I am at sea as to how to say my final goodbye, as the long journey of her death is not over yet. We are still trying to join the dots that connect Ursula and the fictional character of Jessica, who she created for her new friends in Sydney that were with her when she died on the Hume Highway at Tarcutta on October 27, 1987.

I am unable to gather the words to describe my grief at discovering that Ursula died in a car accident only a short time after she went missing. During that first horrible, painful, devastating year after she went missing, words refused to settle into neat sentences. Then they raced around in circles for the 29 years that followed, all those years when we held onto hope she would come home to us. But she couldn’t. Because she was long gone.

I haven’t fallen into a crumpled heap onto the floor to sob my broken heart out. My stomach doesn’t twist in pain. I still wake up each day with fresh hope for a new day, and my life is moving forward at its usual rapid pace. Instead of the raw volcano of emotion that I expected to go with the news that Ursula is dead, I carry around a dull ache across my shoulders, behind my eyes, in my right leg and in my lower back. My grief moves and shifts around, quietly, reminding me every now and then that she is really gone. There are other signs of my grief. I forget things. I fade away in the middle of an important conversation. I lose concentration while riding down a steep, rocky hill and nearly end up in a pile of trauma at the bottom.

What we remember about Ursula

Every person who knew Ursula, both those who grew up with her, those who were close to her, and those who only said a casual hello to her in the school yard or up the street, all remember the same things. Ursula was always laughing, always smiling, always having fun.

The circumstances surrounding her death are now in the hands of the NSW Coroner and I look forward to having clearer answers to the questions we cannot answer at this time. Maybe then I will be ready to say my goodbye.

Her legacy, the thing that will inspire others for many years to come, is that it is never too late to find your missing person.

Yes, words certainly do have power. They can wound, yet they can heal. And as I have shown, words can find people.

Ursh, I love you and always will. I will never stop missing you, and I will always remember your bright blue eyes, soft blonde hair and lovely loud laugh. Let the good times last forever. Dance all night and shake the paint off the walls. Forever yours, Lissy x”

  • This was my speech at the official launch of FOUND, my fifth crime novel. The Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Debbie Platz launched my novel  at Canberra Muse on July 27, 2017 as part of National Missing Persons Week. My closest family, friends, parents of missing people and keen readers wrapped me in love as I spoke publicly for the first time about Ursula being found.

 

Missing persons: Crime writer walks line between fact and fiction

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TO THE thump of leather on willow, crime writer Melissa Pouliot delves into the heartache of families with missing loved ones.

As her children play Saturday morning cricket, Melissa imagines life in Kings Cross in the 1980s and the unremitting grief felt by families of missing people.

Melissa doesn’t have to delve far to find empathy — her teenage cousin went missing in 1987 when Melissa was just 14 and her disappearance was never solved.

It’s this Saturday morning routine that has allowed her to become “a book writing machine” as her children, Jake, 17, Tom, 12, and Laura, 7, describe her.

She has published four novels about missing people, Write About Me (2013), Find Me (2014), When You Find Me (2015) and You’ll Never Find Me (2016).

The former journalist, originally from Quirindi in NSW, now lives near Merimbula on the NSW south coast.
She has never given up hope there will be answers to her cousin Ursula’s disappearance.
“Ursula went missing when I was about to turn 15,” Melissa says. “She caught the train from the central coast of NSW to Sydney and nobody heard from her again.”

Melissa is hopeful her cousin’s disappearance might be solved by the 30th anniversary of the date she went missing, but she is aware of the limitations of the original police report.

“There were only six pieces of information about her disappearance, such as her hair colour, eye colour, height and where she got on the train,” Melissa says. “And some of that information was wrong.”

Melissa’s first book, Write About Me, is fiction but was inspired by Ursula, and Melissa drew on her family’s experience. She admits it was somewhat cathartic.

“The main character, Rhiannon, she is what I wanted for Ursula,” Melissa says. “She is someone who is so determined when police have limited resources.”

At the last minute before publication, Melissa decided to include an end note about Ursula.
The publication of the book led to fresh leads and Melissa was determined to get the inaccurate records changed.
“Ursula’s case was never closed and in the past few years it was given to a new detective and it has been a whirlwind since,” she says.

As a journalist, Melissa says she had always wanted to write, but never thought fiction would be her style.
Melissa started her career at a newspaper in Charleville, Queensland, before a long stint in the Wimmera where she worked in journalism before launching her own public relations company.

She started to write about Ursula, her missing cousin, but there was too little information about the disappearance of the 17-year-old to hold up a book, so Write About Me became a blend of fiction inspired by real-life events.
As a journalist who sticks to the facts, Melissa says she found writing fiction liberating, although she brought some journalism skills to the research.

“I have police officers who worked in the 1980s who check my police sections and my brother lived in Potts Point since the late 1990s so he helps me find the Kings Cross history,” she says.
Melissa says her family still grieves for Ursula, as many families of missing people do.
“There is a term ‘ambiguous loss’ where you grieve for your missing person but there is no end point because you don’t know where they are and what’s happened. So the writing has helped me understand and make sense of the emotions that go with missing Ursula for so long.”