Living in tropical climes inspires many people to write. Across North Australia , a vast army of enthusiasts is engaged in literary and artistic pursuits. An unusual insight into the literary output has been provided by the purchase at an open air market of a thumbed copy of Raining on the Sun , the 2008 anthology of works by members of the Tropical Writers Group of Far North Queensland .
It was the third anthology-Between the Leaves ( 2006 ) and Mangoes on Fire ( 2007) the first two-displaying the writing talents of 24 members , residing between Babinda and Port Douglas , some pictured below .
The book includes brief but informative biographies of the diverse group , some additional information added with a green pen , underlining of text . Some were from overseas-Malaysia , Argentina, the US, New Zealand , India , the United Kingdom ; various parts of Australia . Regular meetings held .
A writer of informative rhyming verse had left a career as a mathematics and science teacher in the UK to visit Australia 30 years previously ; another woman lived with her husband , a psycho cat and a bunch of dragons ; the heat and humidity of Cairns unleashed the dormant urge in a woman to write resulting in a children's story book ,The Duck With No Quack ; a great grandmother drew on her own life experience to become a prolific writer of poetry, short stories and scripts.
The anthology opens with the prize winning entries by Susan Ascott- Evans in both the poetry and prose sections of the Cairns Post Weekender Writing Competition. She had lived in Cairns since 1986 ; a naturopath, iridologist and painter , she had contributed health articles to Connect magazine and written two unpublished manuscripts.
