One of the undeniable benefits of travel is the opportunity for chance meetings and experiences that can be motivating, if not life-changing. In the years before 9/11, flying first class offered many celebrity sightings and even occasional interactions. Nowadays, the famous and wealthy fly privately, and commercial first class cabins are filled with airline employees and upgraded businessmen and businesswomen.

The spark for my decision to commit myself to novel-writing came in the bush of South Africa a few years ago. Soon after we all arrived at a game preserve in the early afternoon, my wife and I were seated next to an older (than us!) couple for lunch on a deck overlooking a watering hole. Our two new friends were very open to conversation. With a bald head, a white beard and a winning smile, the gentleman was particularly inquisitive, peppering us with questions non-stop.

This being modern Africa even the dining tent had Wi-Fi, so after our lunch-mates departed for their own tent, my wife did a Google search using the only three things we had learned about them: they lived in Australia, his name was Tom, and he was a writer.  

Up popped his name and a photo. He was Thomas Keneally, author of more than four dozen books including Schindler’s List for which he won the Man Booker Prize. His other awards and honors are too numerous to describe. His bio mentioned that he had been designated an Australian Living Treasure! 

We enjoyed his company for the next four days. A gregarious and garrulous character, he kept us entertained through several rounds of after-dinner drinks each evening. It was such a delight to listen to his stories. Nearing his eightieth birthday, he was still roaming the earth, looking for things about which to write.

One of his stories was about how he had come to the story of Oskar Schindler in the first place. He was in Los Angeles, on his way home to Melbourne from a book-signing tour, when his briefcase clasp broke. He went into a shop in Beverly Hills to buy a new one. During a long delay in the approval of his credit card, the shopkeeper learned he was a novelist and said, “I have a story for you.” That man was Leopold Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor who was, along with his wife, among the factory workers whom Schindler had saved. The couple had a large trove of documents and photographs they shared with Keneally that formed the basis of the extensive research that the author subsequently undertook with his own wife in Germany. 

Talk about serendipity! Those hours I was lucky enough to spend with Thomas Keneally in a tent in South Africa convinced me that I should wait no longer to embark on my writing sojourn. My first book will be dedicated to him and, God-willing, I’ll hand over a copy in person over lunch at another watering hole somewhere or another.