Welcome to the Central Coast Writes Anthology 2022, a collection of personal stories written and illustrated by local residents.
These stories share a deep connection to place and they tell us more about who we are on the Central Coast. The writers engaged their emotions and all of their senses to create vivid, moving accounts from the heart of our community.
Here you’ll find true stories told with honesty and creative flair about love, loss, heroism, challenges, and those tender moments that last a lifetime.
Seeing the care and attention that the talented illustrators have brought to the stories is heart-warming and demonstrates the power of creative collaboration.
To all those who dared to create, remember and record: It has been an honour to guide you in this experience and a joy to edit your words. Let’s do it all again next year!
- Adrienne Ferreira, Director of Central Coast Writes.
The Big Wet, 1990
I don’t know what Rusty loved more: Jack, his cockatoo, or the shiny Pontiac parked in the garage of his two storey riverfront house…
My Beach, 1955
It was the fourth day of my misery. My two sisters felt the same. Why had our parents done this to us?
Return to Terrigal Beach
I imagine the sand at Terrigal Beach sifting through my toes. I am about four years old, in my knitted swimming costume in 1942…
The Shack
It was furnished with everyone’s cast-offs and oddments. No two plates matched, no two chairs were the same, the ornaments were eclectic, and that’s being kind.
Finding Equilibrium
“My father had a gap between his front teeth that was filled with his grandmother’s gold.” Family stories are funny... They take on a truth beyond themselves.
Mama
Her gait was steady, her posture erect; her bright red nails and lipstick little vanities that belied her age…
What is a Community?
At first I thought a community was just a place, an area where you lived. It wasn’t until I had my own home and family that I began to realise what it meant to belong to a community.
Let’s Hear It For Mondays!
The hard slog was over and ahead was a summer of lazing on Maroubra Beach with my mates. The Leaving Certificate was behind us. It was November, 1956.
Heart and Sand
I know a place
By the sea
So many precious memories
The Wrong Order
After weeks of endless rain, the storm clouds relented. Enforced indoor-living, a reflection of our months of isolation, left me eager to be once more in the great outdoors.
My Caesarean Journey
I knew my OB was right, but I felt so disappointed, and scared of having the surgery. Also, I wondered how well the baby would bond with me. I was already feeling like a bad mother.
Providence or Pure Chance
Commos, we called them. Ruskies, under every bed, everywhere! At least that’s what we were told.
Unsolicited Advice
When I turned forty, I thought that I had gained some peculiar wisdom, especially through so many diverse experiences I’d acquired while adapting to a new culture in Australia.
Now You See Me...
It all began when we decided to downsize and sell our old house. We thought the sooner we found a nice new place, the better.
Listen To Me
I was in bumper to bumper traffic, crawling along the wet roads on the way to dropping my grandson at school. I wondered if his life's journey would be as incredible as his uncle Mick’s had been.
A Moment That Changed Everything
It was time to move. We lived on the South Coast and had just sold our beach house. There were so many great memories there, but a new chapter was beginning.
Old Relics
I was a parent helper on our primary school excursion to the Powerhouse Museum and knew very well these strange antiques that the children found so fascinating.
All it Took Was One Dance
He’s here again. He stands out amongst the short-back-and-sides men in camouflage, clutching girls, swaying to the music…
The Favourite Part Of My Day
Ah, sunset, dusk, twilight, with its myriad colours — blazing reddish orange, morphing into hues of pink and purple and turquoise…
That Day!
…he said, ‘If you left the earth today it wouldn’t be a bad thing.” I just nodded my agreement. Now my life has changed forever!