“Before long we are in the field, searching for bodies or body parts. The briefing tells us that the mud is over a metre deep in places and, although now starting to dry under the baking sun, it almost sucks our boots off as we trudge with sweat in our eyes across a large paddock that once grew butternut pumpkins. I tread on one of these spoilt vegetables and it splits open, rotten to the core, spilling maggots onto the searing ground.”
Meditations in Orange- A volunteer life in the ACT Emergency Services by JG Montgomery is the second book to be released by new Canberra based publisher Pendragon Publishing & Design.
From searching for snowboarders in Kosciuszko, to the 2003 Canberra fires, the tragic mud strewn fields of Grantham, and the aftermath of Cyclone Yasi, Meditations in Orange is a personal, entertaining and often poignant recount of the author’s experiences as one of the often undervalued contributors to the essential work of Australia’s emergency service organisations.
Meditations in Orange is JG Montgomery’s fourth book. He is also the author of A Case for Ghosts (Ginninderra Press 2012), the illustrated children’s book The Oomee Mau Mau (Willow Moon Press 2012) and WYRD: a personal journey into the beliefs and philosophies of the known and unknown (CFZ 2014) and contributed to, and edited poetry in, Capital Reflections (Pendragon Publishing & Design 2014).
Meditations in Orange is available at the author’s website www.jgmontgomeryauthor.com and through www.pendragondesign.com.au and will be available in selected bookstores from September.
Also available from Pendragon Publishing & Design – Capital Reflections: a collection of poetry and thoughts from contemporary Canberran and ex- Canberran authors, poets, musicians and artists (2014).