A post in our 2025 series featuring works published in 1935 (or by authors who died in 1935). Today we’re featuring a short extract from Firestarters, a podcast by Francie Finn. Francie writes, “Firestarters explores the vibrant newspaper writing of Australian women from the first 150 years of the colonial period. These women’s stories, novels, poetry, and articles were published in newspapers across the country, shaping a rich and diverse literary culture. But where is that legacy now? Why are their names missing from our literary histories?” Francie has produced a valuable and memorable podcast, one that brings forgotten Australian women’s writing alive. The second episode, which can be found here, features today’s author, Mabel Forrest (aka M Burkinshaw), who died in 1935. Her story, Not an Ordinary Woman follows.

Extract from Firestarters, Episode 2, created by Francie Finn.

A prolific writer who, for three decades made her living writing poetry and stories for newspapers was Mabel Forrest. Forrest was also published under the pseudonym ‘Reca’ and M. Burkinshaw, her first married name and across her work, it’s possible to see the influence of the cultural change in women’s status.

Her early life was spent in rural Queensland, and much of her work reflects a strong sense of place, drawing on the beauty of the Australian landscape and the emotional inner lives of women. She published more than a dozen novels and several poetry collections, often exploring themes of love, solitude, loss, and the quiet strength of women navigating a rapidly changing world.

Over the course of her career, Mabel Forrest’s writing evolved from romantic and introspective poetry to more socially aware fiction that engaged with the complexities of women’s lives. Early in her work, she often portrayed women within traditional emotional roles, but as the women’s suffrage movement gained momentum in Australia—culminating in women gaining the vote in 1902—her characters began to reflect a growing sense of agency and independence. In her later stories and novels, Forrest explored themes such as women’s education, employment, and the right to make personal choices, capturing the shifting expectations and possibilities for women in the early 20th century. Her writing mirrored the broader cultural transition from Victorian ideals to a modern awareness of women’s rights and identity.

Mabel Forrest’s ‘idle scribblings’ gave voice to the emotional and intellectual lives of women with depth and dignity.

Here’s one of her stories, titled, “Not an Ordinary Woman” written as M Burkinshaw, published in 1899 as the women’s suffrage movement was reaching full voice.

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Not an Ordinary Woman by M Burkinshaw (1899)

The office was at the top of a tall building. You mounted narrow, steep stairs, and passed various doors ornamented with brass plates and black lettering, along dusty passages, with that cold, desolate air which ever haunts buildings where nobody sleeps or dines, but which are given up to business and money-making. Finally, you arrived at a door where a modest black and white plate informed you that “Miss Howard, typist,” was to be found within.

He knocked at the door, which opened instantly. “You might say you are glad to see a fellow,” was Willie Traill’s first remark, as he entered and seated himself on the chair Ellie pushed towards him.

Ellie smoothed her hair back and laughed. “Well—perhaps I am not, Willie; it just depends what you have to say.”

“The same thing, of course,” he said, watching her face anxiously.

Ellie flushed.

“Then I shall not listen. This is the second time this afternoon that I have been lectured.”

“You might wait till I begin to lecture, Miss Howard,” said Willie. “Of course, I have no right to interfere with you now, and if you will persist in being independent, as you call it— ”

“Oh dear! Oh, dear! Mother has said that already to-day. Will no one rid me of this turbulent William? Now, be sensible and listen. My editor friend was here to-day—”

“I knew it! I knew it! This office will be made an excuse for assignations. You are too young and too pretty to be left alone like this— ”

“Don’t be an absolute fool, Willie. I have more work than I can get through now,” she said, laying her hands on a heap of papers lying on the writing table. “People come to me because I do my work well. “Assignations, indeed! I never heard of such an expression being used with regard to me. If you will listen for a minute I will finish what I am going to say. The editor offers to pay me for a serial story if I can have the first instalment in by next week—that is the beginning, Willie. That is the beginning.”

“H’m. The end, I think. Good Lord, Ellie, are you really going to give me up because you want a career—hateful word? Give up your happiness because you think you can please a section of the community with your scribblings?”

“I don’t think at all. I know I can. Will you never feel what a delightful thing it is to create, Willie—to give pleasure if only for half an hour, to many a one thousands of miles away. Besides, if you can’t understand that, can’t you understand that a woman sometimes desires power just as much as a man does.”

“But you could have power over me, Ellie. There would be your house to rule in.”

“Oh, dear. I am so tired of it all. Any ordinary woman can have power over a man for ‘a little season of love and laughter.’ Almost every woman can have a house of some sort to govern. Won’t you see that I am not an ordinary woman? Go and marry one of those Danvers girls, if you want an ordinary woman. And for pity’s sake don’t look so sulky.”

For a minute there was silence. Silence between these two at least, for through the long, half-open window the hum of the street came up, and a distant city clock chimed the hour of five.

Ellie drummed with her fingers on the grimy window pane, and looked across at the rows of blank warehouse windows opposite.

“I don’t want to be unkind, Willie, as I told mother this afternoon when she spoke to me about you: but marriage is an eternal stumbling-block to woman’s advancement. There are women, I know, who combine domestic felicity with their professions. Sometimes happily, I dare say; but rarely, I should think, successfully. One must go to the wall, and I do not intend that my intellectual abilities shall suffer. Nor, were I married, could I neglect my home—or—husband. Money honestly earned shall take the place of matrimony in my life. The pleasures of the intellect shall replace love.”

“You express yourself well, I daresay, Ellie. And I suppose I am selfish in wishing to have you for myself, and spoil your career, as you call it. No doubt, many women have married and regretted it. Doubtless, many men have been jilted, as I have been, and have lived to be everlastingly grateful, as I may live to be. At present I can’t quite grasp the situation. But I suppose it is best to be practical. You were foolish to return the ring I gave you; will you accept it again, in a friendly spirit?”

The young man took a small package from his pocket, and placed it on the table beside the papers. Ellie made a gesture of dissent.

“Keep it, Willie. No, I shall not take it. You will find it useful for the—Danvers girl.”

”Hardly.”

“You would not insult her, I suppose, with second-hand gifts?”

“Certainly not.”

Ellie ought to have been pleased, but she did not look it.

“I shall not keep the ring, Willie, if you leave it here I shall send it after you.”

“Very well. … I suppose there is nothing more to be said, Ellie, and we shall not quarrel over it . . . but I will say good-bye now . . . as we shall not meet again . . . under the same circumstances. Good-bye—I am going.”

“To the Danvers girl?”

“Probably!”

“O-oh—Willie! and you said you were not fickle.”

“I fancy you said that—remember, you are not an ordinary woman —”

“Don’t let us part in anger, Willie, and don’t do anything foolish just because you think I have treated you badly. You know what I mean, of course; I do not care — it can’t matter to me now; but don’t marry anyone you do not love.”

“I can’t see how that is possible.”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind. Good-by, Ellie; I must go.”

“Just wait a minute, Willie, I — I — I am afraid I am ordinary enough to have a little natural curiosity. Which is it?”

“Which what?”

“Which girl?” in a small voice.

A sudden light came into Willie’s eyes, but his mouth was still stern.

“Do you think you have any right to ask that question, Miss Howard?”

“Oh, dear, no! I don’t presume to have any rights, and, of course, I don’t care; I have my work to think of. But it did—seem—so soon.”

“Was it not you who quoted ‘a little season of love and laughter’ just now? Well?”

“You mean it is all over, and you don’t care for me any more, and yet you said —”

“We both said lots of things up at the station under those willows . . . two years ago last Christmas, Ellie, when we were so glad to leave town life behind us for a while, and you had not such fixed ideas about women’s work in the world . . . but times have changed . . . for both of us.”

There was no answer from the window where Ellie stood, and it seemed to Willie that the holland-clad shoulders were heaving suspiciously. He took a step towards her, but she did not turn her head.

In bygone days she had admired his strong right arm, and now that it slid round her slender waist she did not attempt to repulse it.

“What is it—dear?” he whispered softly, bending his handsome head close to her fair, fluffy hair. In a minute her face was hidden on his shoulder, then between a smile and a sob she looked up to him.

“You still care a little, Willie.”

“Care! I have always cared, and always will. What is the matter, darling?”

“I think I cannot do without the love and laughter,” she said.

So Ellie was only an ordinary woman after all!

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Burkinshaw, M. (1899). Not an Ordinary Woman. The Australasian. 9 Dec 1899: pp, 45-46. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/138611927
Finn, F. (2025). Fighterstarters. Podcast. https://omny.fm/shows/firestarters-australias-women-writers/idle-scribblings
Image source: https://www.oldqldpoetry.com/mabel-forrest