G'day Folks,
My name is Owen Clough. I come from New Zealand; I am retired with my wife, we have been married coming up 50 years. It has only since I retired that I have started to write, and once the first book was finished I was lucky to find a publisher who published it. Writing now is a big part of my life, it keeps my mind active, and it is an addiction I can't stop now even if I want to.

We have been on the road eleven years in our motorhome. Our home was rented out, then in 2010 the earthquakes hit Christchurch. We were there and after 14000 earthquakes we decided to move on. Our house was repaired we sold it and bought a small place in the North Island of New Zealand. We still travel and housesit as well. If you stop, you die. We enjoy our lifestyle. I have completed my second book and half way through the third. It is funny, but the stories keep coming, for a bloke that left school at fourteen who could not complete a sentence I'm pretty pleased with myself.

Hello I am Brenda Kay Winters and I found this group by a search for reader groups. I live by Austin, Texas and I have one daughter who is also a published author. I worked many years as a Nurse and teacher and lived in California for a few years. I like to garden and have flowers and some vegetables, and we will be grandparents in about 60 days-it is a boy.

Welcome to BookTalk.org, Brenda.

Thanks Brenda.

Welcome,Brenda and Cluffy

Hi, Brenda

Nice to meet you.

Richard Ferguson

G'day Richard or are you called Dick?

G'day, or maybe I ought to say buenos dias. I've never been called Dick although a few friends have called me Rich. When I played football in high school, the coach told us to put our names on the back of our jerseys. The others all followed directions and put their last names. My mother wrote mine and put my initials: WRF. So, from then on, it was, "Wurf! Get in there!" That's a long time ago though. I did interviews with runners for a few years. One was Al Lawrence who got one of the first field event medals for Australia in the Olympics. We got to be friends. I had run against him in college, but never knew him until much later.

Richard

Well, that's good, you must be the first Richard that doesn't go by the name Dick. Me it was hard for them to do a nickname from Owen, I got called shorty as I was five foot six and Cluffy, now we talk in metric so 1.56 metres. I played footy though not your game. Rugby, I suffer for it now though as I got older, knees, elbows. Though when you are young being tackled is fun, I look at today's blokes and I cringe, I would rather watch it with a beer in my hand. I'm from New Zealand so rugby is in my blood, and I see our national team is playing in Chicago at the end of the year. It is also at the Olympic this year as well. Did you know that the USA holds the only gold medal from the Olympics in Rugby? That was in I think 1924. We could not afford to send a team.

Hey, I've read about a fellow called "Galloping Dick Ferguson." It sounds obscene, but he was a highwayman in Australia. I think they caught him and hanged him. The reason I took up running was I was six feet tall, but only weighed 150 pounds at my heaviest. A lineman who was 6'4" and 240 pounds broke my collarbone and I stupidly broke it again a week later. They wouldn't let me play sports until it healed so I transferred to another school and ran track. It turned out I was a lot better distance runner than football player. I read what you said about getting a publisher for your first book. Good for you! I've always said I admire anyone who can get people to pay them for what they write.

Richard (not Galloping Dick) Ferguson
Hmm...now I think about it, I might not mind being Galloping Dick.