Who is this Clanna’ NicCoinnich?
What does MMIP mean?
And why does she choose to live in the sleepy Bulgarian village of Mamarchevo, Southern Bulgaria?
Where Border police check anyone and everyone coming in and out. Every vehicle is checked thoroughly, for illegal immigrants crossing the grassy hills from Turkey.
But the police have their work cut out for them when it comes to the amount of legal foreigners merging their way into the traditional country town (passports for foreigners must be carried at all times).
At last count, there seems to be approximately 333 people residing in Mamarchevo — Around 16 French, 4 Scots, 8 English, 1 South African, Ironically an Indigenous Australian lad, and 1 Aussie.
All mixed in with the Bulgarian and Roma population.
A happy, healthy melting pot of wondrous nationalities. Maybe certain groups like the U.N could take a leaf out of these multi-nationals books.
Which leads me to why we’re here.
Who is Clanna’ NicCoinnich?
After checking google translate and finding that the name derives from the Scots Gaelic meaning ‘Children (clan) of MacKenzie’ — it seems we can narrow it down to one person in this village.
But to give her a degree of anonymity, we’ll refer to her pen name of Clanna’.
Our writer is indeed a woman of substance. Having endured domestic violence right through her twenties, suffering from Agoraphobia, and spending years fighting for the safety of her children through the family courts in Sydney and Tasmania. She finally escaped the mental torture.
Scooping up 4 of her 5 children and taking off to the safety of Canada.
She raised her children and granddaughter in the border towns of South east Saskatchewan, safe and sound on a 360 acre Myotonic fainting goat farm.
But her pangs and patriotism for her motherland of Scotland, she then went on another adventure to her parents homeland.
Arriving on the 1st of January 2016 at Glasgow airport, her and her 4 children and 4 year old granddaughter, left everything they owned behind to start a new life in Scotland. The breakdown of her marriage to a Canadian oil rig supervisor, led to the sudden uprooting. With no support system of her own, and her fight or flight response from trauma, years earlier, led her to march to the beat of her own drum.
Clanna’ indeed, does not want to dwell on the past, nor speak ill of the men in her life that caused her pain. However, she could talk for eternity about the love for her family.
This woman has been through it all, but she refuses to wave a victim card in the air.
‘’The only way to move forward, is to recognise that you’re a survivor NOT a victim!’’ and so she clings religiously to this idea, and rightly so.
She is fiery.
She has been extremely outspoken on a range of topics. From Domestic Violence, Colonialism, Scottish Independence, Children’s rights, Women’s rights, the Pandemic and Indigenous rights.
‘’My Scottish Freedom fighting Grandfather, was the man I looked up to. When I would sit on his knee, and we’d watch Cowboy Western movies together — He would always go for the Native Americans, I never wondered why, I always thought my 6 foot grandad looked like a Chief himself. But in hindsight, after Scotland lost the Independence referendum in 2014 — I knew why Grandad was always in favour of our Indigenous siblings.
Then finding out we had a small percentage of North American Indigenous DNA in our lineage — that cemented my link entirely!’’
‘’When we lived in Canada, my own Indigenous children were best mates with kids from the White Bear reservation. They just all merged together. And even after being away for 9 years, they’re all still good friends.’’
So why Bulgaria?
It turns out, that their time in Scotland would be short.
After meeting a long term Facebook friend, also a fellow published author, they decided to form their own union. ‘Partners in crime’ the feisty writer harks their partnership.
They opened a surf shop/indy-hub, for like-minded souls, which became a target for the opposing ‘royalists’ in the country.
The shop was boycotted by the British media, and numerous death threats were sent to their residence and place of work.
After they took Clanna’s youngest to Catalonia for the Independence referendum. The young boy, then aged 9, was abruptly stopped by Glasgow Airports border and customs officer. He had his Australian passport confiscated and was given 3 months to either pay thousands of pounds to stay in the country (this also applied to his siblings) or leave the country.
So, with that, the family decided to search for a property to buy in Bulgaria.
And here they are. At their 3rd residence thus far.
They had decided to all return to Australia, to join the rest of the family who had already gone back.
But along came COVID, and all it’s mandates and lock downs.
By September 2020, not only had they sold their renovated property to head home, but they also ended up being locked out — three lots of flights were cancelled.
Hanging in limbo, they had no choice but to buy another property. A quaint old farmhouse close to Burgas. And it was at this house that Clanna’ penned her first book — ‘’The Adventures at GlenMorangie, Ghosties and me (…and my mad mob)’’
Based entirely on her whole mismatched multicultural family. It was dedicated to her son Euan. Who seemingly was having a hard time without any of his beloved siblings. His other sister Geordie, had since left to take on an AuPair position in England.
Clanna’ stated ‘’It was a chance for me to reunite Euan with all his siblings, albeit in the pages of a book’’
But within the books pages, underneath the love of ones family, and childhood adventures, is a slightly darker topic, one of which has not been taken up before by a Caucasian author, let alone in a children’s story.
The tragic silent crisis that is ‘Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls’ — is a topic, not many want to address, let alone acknowledge. Clanna’ found this out on her Facebook page recently when she broached the subject to her 2,700 followers. She had 5 interactions, no comments, just emoji’s, she said sadly.
According to a study, There are estimates that over 4000 Indigenous women and girls are missing, and about 600 Indigenous men, between 1956 and 2016. Sadly the truth is, there’s far more lost souls than that.
‘’I felt it was time to get this topic into the ‘wider, whiter’ community! We need to find these people, and bring them home, we need to educate every person on earth, we need to get seriously uncomfortable and get this topic onto the table and talk! Talk long and hard about solutions, and prevent this from getting any more prolific, than what it already is. These are family members! Daughters, Aunties, Mothers, Nieces, even Brothers! My heart aches for our lost siblings. This is why I needed to incorporate MMIW into my kids story — to gently get kids to talk about this, to ask questions, and to bring our Indigenous siblings back into the light!’
Clanna’s passion is indeed contagious, and I can see why. I decided to have a read through the first self-published copy of GlenMorangie, and to be fair I was pleasantly surprised. The story itself is set in and around Robertson County, Tennessee — a place strangely enough, she’s never been to.
Incorporating an abandoned wild west town, where the adventure takes place, some literary cameo’s by Country legend Alan Jackson, YouTuber Ben Hendy (Caspersight), and Alan Sweeney’s band ‘The Crom’ — all make appearances.
The close knit family entourage, weaving cultural chemistry throughout the tale, is admirable. But the way she pours charity, love and even recipes into the pages, is somewhat iconic. I adored the innocence of the characters, and reflected fondly on my own childhood camping adventures with my cousins. It brought to light how much family values have changed over the decades. I desperately wanted to immerse myself back into life’s simplicity. I wanted what Clanna’ wrote about! In fact, I want to watch this play out on the big screen!
Her story was picked up by two publishers. So the original was removed off Amazon, and placed into the capable hands of Pegasus Publishers UK, with a worldwide release date of September 2024. Clanna’ is scheduled to do a small book tour of the UK around that time, but her main draw-card is to get to Tennessee by 2025.
‘’The first person in the States to purchase the book off Amazon, has become one of my sweetest friends. She actually hails from Robertson County, so I have dedicated this new copy wholly in memory of her baby boy. He never got the chance to have adventures of his own. So this was extremely important to me, and his Mum. It’s my plan to hand deliver her new copy, with her baby boy memorialised in the front cover.’
So what’s next for this up and coming writer? Well, she does have a few published nuggets under her belt. Most recently the very popular ‘’Mamarchevo BigFoot and the Trash Trolls’’.
‘’It’s a cute little story, tackling Bulgaria’s litter problem, that sadly seems to get swept under the carpet — so to speak. Our brilliant Mayor Marcho, orchestrated a village clean-up, and of course I have a BigFoot costume from our old shop. I dressed up as BigFoot and did the clean-up. It’s become folklore around these parts now, with a couple of media spots too!’’ She laughs
‘’So, you’ll see signs here and there, with messages from BigFoot, about keeping the village clean. And it’s working!’
So, asides from writing and dealing with all her rescue dogs, what else is in store for this Author from the Antipodes?
‘’I plan on finishing up ‘GlenMorangie, BigFoot and me’ with the same cast of characters, hopefully by winter. And I’ll get back to ‘Gods Kitchen’ in the Spring. It’s a multi-racial love story about a young Australian lass, Georgie, who inherits her Godmothers estate in Newnan, Georgia, and finds God and grace whilst dealing with racism and intolerance. Another place I’ve never been, but have spiritual connections to’.
Upon asking Clanna’ if she’s ever going to make it home after being royally locked out?
‘’Mamarchevo feels more like how Australia was back in the 80’s. When people conversed, had BBQ’s, helped their neighbours, and had community spirit…Australia is no longer that place. Mamarchevo is home’.
And with that, it seemed I now had a better understanding of the 51 year young Aussie chick, born on the sands of Kogarah beach. Settled here in a quaint little village on the edge of eastern Europe, waiting patiently for her turn to shine in the spotlight. Another JK Rowling in the making.
To sign the petition for getting this story to the big screen please follow the link https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/bring-an-important-indigenous-topic-to-the-screen
