Despite my beginnings as a prolific writer from around age 6 (poems, short stories, a play at age 9, the beginnings of a novel at age 10, and later song lyrics from age 15 to 29…), I hadn’t had anything published until I produced a number of magazine articles from the late 1980s (Psychic and Spiritual Healing was actually published twice by the same magazine—Southern Crossings: Spiritual Development magazine—at their request.

I later made my first anthology contribution to Ian White’s book Australian Bush Flower Healing in 1999. Though, this was an odd experience, as my very rough first trial draft had been written quickly for basic subject approval, and so had been seriously altered (every paragraph!) by the editor (including some critical astrological spelling: I was not referring to the Kuiper Belt “trans-Neptunian” bodies, but the eight Witte-Sieggrün Transneptunian Points—vastly different!).

And that badly edited draft was also published, instead of my third and final draft which also contained corrections to the chart! (Getting asteroid names onto a chart for print in those days was a literal paperprint-scissors-stickytape-scan job!)

There are some ERRORS IN THE NARRATION of the Audible version of my chapter in Planet Whispers. Despite my precise literary efforts to avoid confusion, the word ‘tear’ was mispronounced as though a rip rather than a little wet drop (even though that error made no sense to the plot!).

And also, more importantly, the following Bahasa Indonesian term “maaf maaf” (which I’d explained as “excuse me / I’m very sorry”) was replaced by the narrator with a defiant “Uh-huh?”, which was NOT what had happened in the actual incident!

It mortifies me to think that people hear this as me being rude to a Balinese official! I’d had a lovely exchange with that man — that was the point!

Also, I was surprised to find that there was someone on the planet, especially a narrator, who had never heard of Australia’s iconic ‘Bondi Beach’, so it came out ‘Bondee’ (again, not as I had intended!).

Interestingly, I tested the ebook version on my older, original Kindle (that I still keep as a spare), which has speakers and the auto text-reader, and I found that the Kindle’s ‘AI voice’ handled both ‘tear’ and ‘Bondi’ perfectly! (Surprisingly, two points for AI !)

I haven’t heard all of my chapter narrated, so I have no idea how the narrator handled the astrological terms! You may still be able to hear the first page of my chapter recited in the audio sample on the Amazon Audible page for the book (if it starts with “I smiled upwards at the figure standing behind…”). I hadn’t been aware of an Audible version in existence before I’d found that page.

If you are interested in my chapter, my advice is to buy the paper or the ebook versions (Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo). And when I produce audio versions of my own books, I’ll be the one doing the narration!

Cheers!

 Kerrie