Excuse Me, Are You The Stubby Holder Lady?

I have created a monster.

Darcy at the Corner Store ran out of stubby holders to sell, so he asked if I could do 50 Meekatharra stubby holders for him, which I did. Then Chris at Paddy's Flat asked me to do 100 stubby holders for the Veterans Legion Of Meekatharra. Then Gary mentioned at Freemasons that I was doing stubby holders and souvenirs, and next time I was in Mt Magnet I had the butcher, plumber and local emporium people coming up asking, "Are you the stubby holder lady?" - and they all want 500 each of custom design holders. Then the Royal Antediluvian Order Of Heffalumps asked for some. Then the fire brigade. Then Cam. Then the Commercial Hotel. Then Jim the builder. Then they started asking for drink coasters to go with the stubby holders.

So I am madly churning out designs for all these people, and have just got an order to design wedding invitations for the big Howden wedding out at Murchison Downs Homestead, plus someone else wants big stickers for their wheelie (rubbish) bins (!!who would have thought!!).

"Can you make me some bumper stickers? Wine glass coolers? Drink coasters? What about t-shirts?" It's out of control. With all this demand, I have become very good at graphic design in a hurry!

And even though it's slow season, all the Meeka shops have nearly sold out of their first souvenir orders and I have people coming up to me in the street asking where they can buy stuff. It's exciting and scary.

On top of all that, I'm getting a huge following in the Dust newsletter and our local radio station wants to interview me, which will be hilarious. Meeka FM operates sporadically whenever anyone remembers to go down and turn it on, and they play some great obscure music and local garage bands etc. (whatever's lying around in the shed). Apparently people have been nagging the shire council office, who publish the Dust, about when the next issues are coming out - and, quote - "We just buy it to read Anna's funny stories!"

A really nice story is that apparently Tom, our local baker, was seen laughing for the first time in 2 years since his wife died - he was reading my "Emergency Sock" scorpion bite story in the Dust.

So who knows where all this is going to lead! It's GREAT that I can just set up an informal little business without a whole bunch of fuss and have so much local support - totally different from fighting your way to set up a business in the city. With every Dust story I do, I try to mention as many locals as possible with a bit of "in-joke" town humour, and while focussing on the funny side of things I also work in lots of positive aspects of what it means to live in Meeka and how much we all look after each other - it's a winning combination, and people tell me that seeing Meeka through my eyes gives them a fresh perspective & appreciation of our town. Isn't that great?

Next on the list: Dingo Magazine

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