'The feisty octogenarian'

Betty Birskys says her main 'call to fame' is not so much that she has recently published two Award-winning books, Homeland and At the Island, but the ages at which she has done it - 79 years and 82 years respectively. It is this age factor that has given her her brief moment of glory, with appearances in the local media, and the sobriquet of 'the feisty octogenerian'.

Regardless, she is glad her books are 'out there'. She maintains that real history is not the story of the 'powerful and great', but of the 'ordinary people' who have made this country. These are the people whose lives she has woven into both her books.

More about Betty Birskys

Betty was born in Toowoomba in 1925, of an Australian-born mother and an English father - all pure Angloceltic stock.

During World War 2 she served in the AAMWS (Australian Army Medical Womens Service) and on discharge she worked as a radio copy-writer at 4BH and an assistant librarian at the South Brisbane Library, before going to Queensland University under the PWR Training Scheme for ex-service people.

In 1951, while employed in the Commonwealth Public Service, she met and married Antanas (Anton) Birskys, a Lithuanian displaced person immigrant. Their marriage, not favoured by all at the time, lasted for over 51 years.

Betty had always loved writing and on retirement began to write seriously and with some success, particularly about the post-war migrant experience, a story she felt passionately should be told. Her stories won numerous prizes and were published in prestigious literary magazines such as Meanjin and Southerly. She and Anton collaborated on the Lithuanian section of The Baltic Peoples in Australia, part of the AE Press Ethnic Heritage series, which is still a reference book on the subject.

In 1992, the couple went to a newly independent Lithuania, and she incorporated this experience into her writing. When Anton died in 2002 she brought much of her 'Lithuanian' writing together, in Homeland.

Homeland

Homeland, a fictional memoir, was one of three manuscripts on the Short List for the 2004 Queensland Premiers Literary Award. It is part of 'the real history of Australia'; the story of its extraordinary, 'ordinary' people.

After the war, Australia badly needed new immigrants. Not enough Britons - the preferred candidates - were coming. In Europe millions of Displaced Persons still lingered in refugee camps. Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell went to Germany and chose the Balts as the new Australians. Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians, mostly blue-eyed and fair; and stateless because their tiny countries had been incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1944 - were judged least likely to scare the then Anglophile Australian population.

In December 1947 HMAS Kanimbla docked in Melbourne with 843 Baltic migrants, mostly men, on board. The 'beautiful Balts', some called them; their arrival marked the beginning of modern multicultural Australia. The 'Baltic experiment' was a success. Over the next three years 170,000 Displaced Person came here - Czechs, Poles, Yugoslavs, Ukrainians..

Antanas (Anton) Birskys was one of these 'New Australians'. Born in free Lithuania in 1918, he came to Australia in 1948 on SS Svalbard. After a brief stay at Bonegilla Migrant Camp Anton was sent to complete his two-year's contract labour: cutting sugar cane in Ingham, and working in a railway sleeper mill at Barakula, (The contracts were often in bush doing the hard physical jobs the locals scorned).

His contract finished, Anton came to Brisbane, where he worked at General Motors Holden and in the Murarrie abattoir. He met and married Betty Williams. Together they bought a house, they ran small businesses: a general store, a milk run, a newsagency. They had two children. Later Anton sold real estate and Betty trained and worked as a high school teacher. When Anton died in 2002 she brought much of her Lithuanian writing together in Homeland, as a fictional memoir, and -considering her age and the uncertainty of mainline publishing and her passion to see the story told - decided to publish the book herself.

The QPLA judges said:

Betty Birskys writes about the Lithuanian community in Brisbane with insight, affection, and a strong sense of identification. Her novel is a moving study of cross-cultural marriage and migrant life in Australia, where the author, using the device of a fictional memoir, constructs a very personal and poignant story. It succeeds because of her ability to both distance herself from the story and to reach into its core. This novel tells a familiar but often untold urban story.'

Readers' comments have included: 'Homeland recaptures the flavour of the period excellently in all its small but precise details.' 'I really loved this book. I loved the descriptions of Brisbane and the honesty of the writing.' 'What a wonderful story! I could relate to a lot of the Brisbane icons, such as Cloudland, tram rides, the German Club, Mama Luigi's at Spring Hill..' 'A moving study of migrant life.. a love story about cross-cultural marriage at a time when it was not very common in Australia..'

At the Island

A synopsis

At the Island won the Sunshine Coast Literary Association's inaugural WARM Fiction Writer of the Year Award for 2007.

The novel is set in Queensland in the late 80s - near the end of the Bjelke-Petersen regime. It is a love story, revolving round a planned development on the Island (which many will recognise as Bribie Island) and opposition to that development.

But this is not a conservation novel. The main interest lies in the interactions between the characters who, in the first few chapters are seen living in apparently permanent tranquility, with a strong sense of community - despite the material poverty of many of them. The novel is redolent of sun and surf and sand, the tang of the bush.

Ruth, single, long-term unemployed (unemployable?) shares a home with hopeful, anxious single mother Pam, and her little daughter Kasey. Elderly divorcee Sally Richley is 'comfortably off'; she is an artist, pleased by small recognitions. She and Jurgis Zilys, a New Australian widower, are lovers. Other characters are typical of small seaside villages of the time, before 'Sea Change' began in earnest: Jan, a retired school teacher; Arthur, a widower and survivor of Changi prison, living in their modest seaside cottages. Guy Forester, reluctant architect and would-be writer, arrives from Sydney. He and Pam become lovers, to the distress of Ruth.

Families visit, bringing glimpses of former lives and past traumas, but implicit is an assumption that the worst is over. 'Lotus eaters', Sally's younger son calls them, but trouble comes with the planned development. There are betrayals, persecutions, prosecutions, attempted rape, family divisions. The wet arrives late, and the weather affects emotions and actions and outcomes.

The WARM07 judges said:

It is no wonder that someone who has the depth of experience of this writer has been able to craft a book of profound emotional integrity. Set on Bribie Island, the novel's plot is simple - it revolves round a planned development, and opposition to that development. The work explores the societal and personal impacts of such developments, and in the words of the judges is "a great read".

Readers' comments have included: 'A lively workmanlike novel with real interest, particularly in the characterisation, the conservation theme, and Queensland politics.'

'A very professional piece of writing, with characters one cares about, dealing with social issues without being heavy-handed..' 'The novel engages in contemporary culture as this impinges on ordinary people.' 'I was happy to follow this author through whatever may come; her characters were good leaders, and interested me.'