August Newsletter

​Welcome to the newsletter from Distance Families

DISTANCE FAMILIES NEWS

As readers will have gathered, I'm a great cheerleader for authors who write about global mobility. After all, I'm one of them! Writing a book is a brave enough undertaking, but navigating the publishing world afterwards can feel like a minefield. That's why I enjoy shining a spotlight on fellow authors and the valuable books they bring into the world whenever I can.
 
One way I've been able to do this is through my role as Co-Chair of the Australia/New Zealand Affiliate of FIGT (Families in Global Transition).

​Each year my colleague, Sara, and I host our annual FIGT Author Panel, bringing together writers from around the world to talk about their latest books and the stories behind them. This year's panel features authors from Denmark, Italy, Kenya, Germany, Australia and Singapore. Finding a time slot that works across all those time zones is almost as challenging as writing a book!
 
If you're interested in global mobility, cross-cultural life, or internationally mobile families, we'd love you to join us. Everyone is welcome.
Check out the 2026 line-up here.

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BOOK SERIES NEWS

Writing a book may seem like a solitary pursuit, but no author does it alone. Behind every book is a team of professionals who help bring it to life—editors, proofreaders, cover designers and interior book designers.

An interior designer asks an astonishing number of questions. What font would you like? What size? Should longer words be hyphenated at the end of a line? What trim size will the book be? The list goes on!

I was fortunate to find someone who could design both my book covers and the interiors of all three books. Even better, Cath Brew is also a talented cartoonist. She has published her own global mobility cartoon book, so she immediately understood the world I was writing about.
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I was delighted to put Cath's artistic skills to work by asking her to create a series of sketches that appear throughout all three of my books.

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ON THE HOME FRONT

​It is hard to believe that we're coming up to two years of apartment living.
 
For most of our married life we lived in standalone homes with gardens and lawns to mow. Choosing to move to an apartment was a big decision and, if I'm honest, one that came with more than a little apprehension. Looking back, I'm glad we made the leap.
 
Apartment living has taught me something that applies to many parts of life: focus on the good and don't let every inconvenience become a problem.
 
There are plenty of little adjustments. Grocery shopping comes upstairs in a trolley. Rubbish and recycling have to make a trip down to the Refuse Room. When visitors arrive there's the inevitable "Press our apartment number on the keypad" conversation, and visitor parking can sometimes require a little creativity. None of these things are major problems—they're simply part of learning a different way of living.
 
Then there's the view.
 
Each morning we wake to the upper reaches of Auckland's Waitematā Harbour, with birdsong at treetop level outside our windows. It's a reminder that every lifestyle has its trade-offs, and sometimes the rewards far outweigh the inconveniences.

​I was interested to read this recent Washington Post article about why lifts in the United States are generally much larger than those found in Europe and many other parts of the world. Our apartment building has one of the smaller-style lifts, so the article struck a chord. 
 
Perhaps that's also true of being a distance grandparent.
 
There are undeniable downsides to living many hours from the people we love. But if we can learn to see the opportunities alongside the challenges, we discover unexpected gifts—the privilege of becoming familiar with places we might never otherwise have visited, the joy of experiencing different cultures, and, above all, the satisfaction of watching our children and grandchildren build happy lives wherever they happen to call home.
 
Sometimes the challenge doesn't disappear. We simply learn to look at it from a different angle.

Take care until next time
Helen Ellis
 
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