Anita's blog is largely about gratefulness - hers and others - but she also posts about things important to her including books, reading, literacy and Aboriginal arts and culture. The above photo was taken by Tammy Law at Anita's TEDx talk in Brisbane, 2013.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
What makes Australian Literature Australian?
Here are just some thoughts as part of the discussion on WHAT MAKES AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE AUSTRALIAN as part of the Brisbane Writers’ Festival panel sponsored by AustLit: the resource for Australian Literature
Having this discussion is about as hard as the one about determining what Australian identity is – because there is no hard and fast definition.
I’m wearing three hats as I write this (which may explain why I have a chronic headache!): one hat belongs to the Chair of the ASA, one belongs to the editor of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, and another belongs to Anita Heiss the author. And so, I’d like to share ideas from all positions as part of this discussion.
As Chair of the ASA – I represent the professional association for Australia's literary creators. The organisation was formed in 1963 to promote and protect the rights of Australia's writers and illustrators, and now has almost 3000 members across Australia. Our members are biographers, illustrators, academics, historians, cartoonists, scientists, food and wine writers, children’s writers, ghost writers, librettists, travel writers, romance writers, translators, computer programmers, journalists, poets and novelists.
The ASA has a very open view of what constitutes Australian literature, and the most recent debate we have had within the organisation was around setting the criteria for the Barbara Jefferis award which is offered annually for “the best novel written by an Australian author that depicts women and girls in a positive way or otherwise empowers the status of women and girls in society”. Essentially, we decided that an ‘Australian author’ is someone who is an Australian citizen or permanent resident. And being an Australian author would therefore constitute them producing Australian literature.
Because we represent such a diverse membership I emailed some members in preparation for this discussion to get their perspective on the topic:
Alex Miller – twice winner of the Miles Franklin said. He wrote this in CAPS so I think he was shouting at me...
"DEFINITIONS OF THE AUSTRALIANNESS OF AUSTRALIAN WRITING WILL ONLY SERVE TO CONFIRM THE STEREOTYPES AND WILL NEVER INCLUDE THE UNEXPECTED. WE DON’T NEED A DEFINITION OF IT; WE NEED TO LEARN TO CELEBRATE IT.
Anyone who believes we need a definition of something indefinable is not an artist, but publicist.”
Pamela Freeman – award- winning author of 17 books, including fantasy, said:
“Australian literature is not necessarily set in Australia or explicitly about Australia or Australians, but it reflects upon, explores, celebrates or grieves over human experience through stories which are informed and influenced by deep and long-lasting experience of Australian culture, geography, landscape and climate.
Is that inclusive enough for you? It would exclude, for example, DH Lawrence's Kangaroo, since his experience was neither deep nor long-lasting, but would include the children's books of Odo Hirsch, although many of them appear to be set in Europe.
I would argue, for example, that Australian writers of fantasy are exploring themes and issues quite differently from US fantasy writers, even those of us who set our secondary creations in Northern Hemisphere landscapes.”
Multiple award-winning and internationally published children’s book author Libby Gleeson said:
“I'd argue it's as diverse as Australia itself - i.e. 'Not Meeting Mr Right' (chicklit) right through to Alex Miller (literary fiction) and spy stories and crime novels. I don't think there is a distinctive defining characteristic. I used to think Oz kids’ books were freer of limitation and censorship than those from Britain and America but you can't generalise about that even any more. And we don't see what comes out of Europe.”
Rosie Scott: novelist, essayist and playwright said:
“It's a very hard thing to define. In the early days it was easy - the defining characteristic of Australian literature was that it was usually about the bush, the outback and battlers. Now it's so varied and cosmopolitan, it borrows from so many cultures and literary traditions that the only defining characteristic I can think of that's particularly Australian is a certain irreverence, a lightness of touch in that most writers don't take themselves seriously, a lack of pomposity - but of course there are Australian writers who break that rule too!”
And from Jeremy Fisher who is the Executive Director of the ASA, but also a writer:
“Our literature isn't just fiction, nor, as Shaun Tan has demonstrated is
it just words. Our literature is our expression, in a myriad of forms, of
our own uniqueness.”
In further considering the issue of what makes Australian literature Australian, let’s turn the question around. Let's pretend we are American. What is American literature? Well, that's fairly obvious isn't it?
The problem for us is it's not obvious because our literature doesn't have the full authority of being ours because we read both American and British literature as well as our own. But by and large we very rarely read New Zealand literature. We might still be ANZACS but we don't read their books and that's largely to do with the colonial distribution agreements that still govern global publishing. These agreements have shaped the way we consider literature in general.
In NSW, the Board of Studies recently amended its K-12 syllabus to include an Australian literature component. This week as we have heard already, the English Teachers Association of NSW objected, saying that this was too prescriptive. Let me say that the changes still only meant that one-third of the material studies in English in NSW schools was Australian. Turn that around again and think of an American school -- how much material wouldn't be American? 0% or 1% Let's be generous and say 5%. [This might also explain why the American understanding of the rest of the world is missing!]
To be fair, the ETA argued it was wrong to concentrate on one medium - the book as text. But this argument shows how little they know about Australian literature. No oral traditions for a start. No performance poetry. No graphic novels. Shaun Tan? Sorry, NSW English teachers don't think you’re Australian literature. Margaret Wild and Julie Vivas, get out of NSW schools, you're not Australian literature! The teachers have said so. Isn't that absurd?
I’d like to switch hats quickly if I may, and in doing so wanted to flag that I am never categorised as an Australian author. I am always called and Aboriginal author – although all my work is about, reflects, and is based in Australia. In fact, when I released my first chick lit novel last year, I was told by one reviewer that I had created a new genre altogether, that of Koori chick-lit. Pioneering a new genre is exciting, but not when you are potentially excluded from the mainstream literary culture and discourse.
At other times I have had publishers tell me that my work isn’t really Aboriginal literature because it doesn’t fit their prescriptions of what Aboriginal literature is or should be – that is, it must be about ‘our issues’ of land rights, native title, racism and so on.
With that sense of ridiculous boxing of Aboriginal literature in mind, Peter Minter and I were very conscious of how we defined Aboriginal literature when we were putting together the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature which is the teaser to the 2009 release of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature.
We have always been told, ‘you’ve only ever had an oral literary tradition’, when in fact, what we’ve had is a storytelling tradition that included songs, dance painting (on rocks, on bodies on instruments, in the sand and so on) and yes, we have oral stories as well.
So when Peter and I were reading the 1000s of pages of material for potential inclusion in the anthology, we considered any written material that told our stories – as literature. And in a sense it freed us up from the often limited view of ‘literature’ in the mainstream arena. In our anthology we include Aboriginal literature as material created by Aboriginal writers, regardless of the genre, the content of the work or the style and voice of the writing.
Our definition is so broad that the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature includes a diverse collection of written works by Aboriginal people across a broad spectrum of styles and forms – like journalism, letters, petitions, poetry, prose – novels and short-stories, songs, plays, children’s books and social commentary.
The works chronicled in our anthology demonstrate the ongoing suffering of dispossession in Australia, but also the resilience of Aboriginal people across the country, and the hope and joy in our lives. And what these stories do is tell the history of the evolution of Aboriginal literature written in the English language. And the works range from Bennelong’s Letter to Lord Sydney’s Steward in 1796 right through to Alexis Wrights Carpentaria in 2007.
Our writing is about the First Australians and our life in Australia. And it is ‘Australian literature’.
[Acknowledgement to Dr Jeremy Fisher for assistance with ETA facts and figures]
Having this discussion is about as hard as the one about determining what Australian identity is – because there is no hard and fast definition.
I’m wearing three hats as I write this (which may explain why I have a chronic headache!): one hat belongs to the Chair of the ASA, one belongs to the editor of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, and another belongs to Anita Heiss the author. And so, I’d like to share ideas from all positions as part of this discussion.
As Chair of the ASA – I represent the professional association for Australia's literary creators. The organisation was formed in 1963 to promote and protect the rights of Australia's writers and illustrators, and now has almost 3000 members across Australia. Our members are biographers, illustrators, academics, historians, cartoonists, scientists, food and wine writers, children’s writers, ghost writers, librettists, travel writers, romance writers, translators, computer programmers, journalists, poets and novelists.
The ASA has a very open view of what constitutes Australian literature, and the most recent debate we have had within the organisation was around setting the criteria for the Barbara Jefferis award which is offered annually for “the best novel written by an Australian author that depicts women and girls in a positive way or otherwise empowers the status of women and girls in society”. Essentially, we decided that an ‘Australian author’ is someone who is an Australian citizen or permanent resident. And being an Australian author would therefore constitute them producing Australian literature.
Because we represent such a diverse membership I emailed some members in preparation for this discussion to get their perspective on the topic:
Alex Miller – twice winner of the Miles Franklin said. He wrote this in CAPS so I think he was shouting at me...
"DEFINITIONS OF THE AUSTRALIANNESS OF AUSTRALIAN WRITING WILL ONLY SERVE TO CONFIRM THE STEREOTYPES AND WILL NEVER INCLUDE THE UNEXPECTED. WE DON’T NEED A DEFINITION OF IT; WE NEED TO LEARN TO CELEBRATE IT.
Anyone who believes we need a definition of something indefinable is not an artist, but publicist.”
Pamela Freeman – award- winning author of 17 books, including fantasy, said:
“Australian literature is not necessarily set in Australia or explicitly about Australia or Australians, but it reflects upon, explores, celebrates or grieves over human experience through stories which are informed and influenced by deep and long-lasting experience of Australian culture, geography, landscape and climate.
Is that inclusive enough for you? It would exclude, for example, DH Lawrence's Kangaroo, since his experience was neither deep nor long-lasting, but would include the children's books of Odo Hirsch, although many of them appear to be set in Europe.
I would argue, for example, that Australian writers of fantasy are exploring themes and issues quite differently from US fantasy writers, even those of us who set our secondary creations in Northern Hemisphere landscapes.”
Multiple award-winning and internationally published children’s book author Libby Gleeson said:
“I'd argue it's as diverse as Australia itself - i.e. 'Not Meeting Mr Right' (chicklit) right through to Alex Miller (literary fiction) and spy stories and crime novels. I don't think there is a distinctive defining characteristic. I used to think Oz kids’ books were freer of limitation and censorship than those from Britain and America but you can't generalise about that even any more. And we don't see what comes out of Europe.”
Rosie Scott: novelist, essayist and playwright said:
“It's a very hard thing to define. In the early days it was easy - the defining characteristic of Australian literature was that it was usually about the bush, the outback and battlers. Now it's so varied and cosmopolitan, it borrows from so many cultures and literary traditions that the only defining characteristic I can think of that's particularly Australian is a certain irreverence, a lightness of touch in that most writers don't take themselves seriously, a lack of pomposity - but of course there are Australian writers who break that rule too!”
And from Jeremy Fisher who is the Executive Director of the ASA, but also a writer:
“Our literature isn't just fiction, nor, as Shaun Tan has demonstrated is
it just words. Our literature is our expression, in a myriad of forms, of
our own uniqueness.”
In further considering the issue of what makes Australian literature Australian, let’s turn the question around. Let's pretend we are American. What is American literature? Well, that's fairly obvious isn't it?
The problem for us is it's not obvious because our literature doesn't have the full authority of being ours because we read both American and British literature as well as our own. But by and large we very rarely read New Zealand literature. We might still be ANZACS but we don't read their books and that's largely to do with the colonial distribution agreements that still govern global publishing. These agreements have shaped the way we consider literature in general.
In NSW, the Board of Studies recently amended its K-12 syllabus to include an Australian literature component. This week as we have heard already, the English Teachers Association of NSW objected, saying that this was too prescriptive. Let me say that the changes still only meant that one-third of the material studies in English in NSW schools was Australian. Turn that around again and think of an American school -- how much material wouldn't be American? 0% or 1% Let's be generous and say 5%. [This might also explain why the American understanding of the rest of the world is missing!]
To be fair, the ETA argued it was wrong to concentrate on one medium - the book as text. But this argument shows how little they know about Australian literature. No oral traditions for a start. No performance poetry. No graphic novels. Shaun Tan? Sorry, NSW English teachers don't think you’re Australian literature. Margaret Wild and Julie Vivas, get out of NSW schools, you're not Australian literature! The teachers have said so. Isn't that absurd?
I’d like to switch hats quickly if I may, and in doing so wanted to flag that I am never categorised as an Australian author. I am always called and Aboriginal author – although all my work is about, reflects, and is based in Australia. In fact, when I released my first chick lit novel last year, I was told by one reviewer that I had created a new genre altogether, that of Koori chick-lit. Pioneering a new genre is exciting, but not when you are potentially excluded from the mainstream literary culture and discourse.
At other times I have had publishers tell me that my work isn’t really Aboriginal literature because it doesn’t fit their prescriptions of what Aboriginal literature is or should be – that is, it must be about ‘our issues’ of land rights, native title, racism and so on.
With that sense of ridiculous boxing of Aboriginal literature in mind, Peter Minter and I were very conscious of how we defined Aboriginal literature when we were putting together the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature which is the teaser to the 2009 release of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature.
We have always been told, ‘you’ve only ever had an oral literary tradition’, when in fact, what we’ve had is a storytelling tradition that included songs, dance painting (on rocks, on bodies on instruments, in the sand and so on) and yes, we have oral stories as well.
So when Peter and I were reading the 1000s of pages of material for potential inclusion in the anthology, we considered any written material that told our stories – as literature. And in a sense it freed us up from the often limited view of ‘literature’ in the mainstream arena. In our anthology we include Aboriginal literature as material created by Aboriginal writers, regardless of the genre, the content of the work or the style and voice of the writing.
Our definition is so broad that the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature includes a diverse collection of written works by Aboriginal people across a broad spectrum of styles and forms – like journalism, letters, petitions, poetry, prose – novels and short-stories, songs, plays, children’s books and social commentary.
The works chronicled in our anthology demonstrate the ongoing suffering of dispossession in Australia, but also the resilience of Aboriginal people across the country, and the hope and joy in our lives. And what these stories do is tell the history of the evolution of Aboriginal literature written in the English language. And the works range from Bennelong’s Letter to Lord Sydney’s Steward in 1796 right through to Alexis Wrights Carpentaria in 2007.
Our writing is about the First Australians and our life in Australia. And it is ‘Australian literature’.
[Acknowledgement to Dr Jeremy Fisher for assistance with ETA facts and figures]
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Tribute to my Dad on Fathers' Day
MY DAD WAS AFFECTIONATELY known as "Joe-the-carpenter". And if anyone didn't know his name, they knew the guy who drove the white Kombi van, because he was a legend around the eastern suburbs of Sydney for decades.
An Austrian immigrant, my father built a life for his family in suburban Matraville. Along the way he also built some significant "cultural" objects and spaces locally - the first skateboard ramp at Bondi Beach, the squash courts in Bronte Surf Club, the renovated Bondi tram, and numerous pieces of furniture for the houses that our family could never afford to live in.
My dad was a craftsman who preferred to work alone, whistled as he chiselled and filled his stomach to a fixed timetable; smoko at 9am, lunch at midday sharp and dinner at 6pm. But my mum functioned on Koori time quite often, so it was normal for my dad to be halfway down the street in the car while mum was still putting lipstick on.
Father's Day, Christmas Day and his own birthday were exercises in patience for us kids. You see, we had to force dad to open his presents. He would pick the gift up, shake it a few times, sometimes smell it, squish it and hold it up to the light. And then he'd put it down. If he'd guessed it was chocolates, he wouldn't open it at all. It was traumatising for a kid like me who loved spoiling dad on Father's Day. But my dad was financially astute and he was dragging out the event to get as much mileage as possible from the gift, even before he'd opened it. You see, my father worked physically hard every day of his life for his pennies, and so he spent them carefully. He would drive five kilometres to save $2 on a case of beer, and then buy five.
Labels meant nothing to my father. He wore the same tracksuit for about a decade (except when he showed up to my graduation in a new suit). The tracksuit drove me to despair. And then he replaced it with a Planet Hollywood Honolulu sloppy joe before he opted for a Saucony one. I gave him new tops, but he'd say: "The other one isn't worn out yet." Similarly, he would ask me: "How many pairs of shoes do you need? You only have two feet." My father was a wise man.
My dad was chivalrous, offering to help a stranger in the street carry her groceries. She thought he was trying to steal them. He never offered again. My dad appreciated that my mum worked also and that her hands were weathered from other duties. He believed a woman shouldn't have to drag a bin up the driveway when there was a capable man around. He was right and I loved him for that.
My dad passed away in 2005, and I miss the wise, chivalrous, generous, family man who gave me life, and not just because I was his favourite. Now, every time I see a sale for Toohey's Light or I buy a pair of shoes I don't need, I know he is nearby.
From The Melbourne Age: Saturday September 6, 2008: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/09/04/1220121424813.html?page=5
An Austrian immigrant, my father built a life for his family in suburban Matraville. Along the way he also built some significant "cultural" objects and spaces locally - the first skateboard ramp at Bondi Beach, the squash courts in Bronte Surf Club, the renovated Bondi tram, and numerous pieces of furniture for the houses that our family could never afford to live in.
My dad was a craftsman who preferred to work alone, whistled as he chiselled and filled his stomach to a fixed timetable; smoko at 9am, lunch at midday sharp and dinner at 6pm. But my mum functioned on Koori time quite often, so it was normal for my dad to be halfway down the street in the car while mum was still putting lipstick on.
Father's Day, Christmas Day and his own birthday were exercises in patience for us kids. You see, we had to force dad to open his presents. He would pick the gift up, shake it a few times, sometimes smell it, squish it and hold it up to the light. And then he'd put it down. If he'd guessed it was chocolates, he wouldn't open it at all. It was traumatising for a kid like me who loved spoiling dad on Father's Day. But my dad was financially astute and he was dragging out the event to get as much mileage as possible from the gift, even before he'd opened it. You see, my father worked physically hard every day of his life for his pennies, and so he spent them carefully. He would drive five kilometres to save $2 on a case of beer, and then buy five.
Labels meant nothing to my father. He wore the same tracksuit for about a decade (except when he showed up to my graduation in a new suit). The tracksuit drove me to despair. And then he replaced it with a Planet Hollywood Honolulu sloppy joe before he opted for a Saucony one. I gave him new tops, but he'd say: "The other one isn't worn out yet." Similarly, he would ask me: "How many pairs of shoes do you need? You only have two feet." My father was a wise man.
My dad was chivalrous, offering to help a stranger in the street carry her groceries. She thought he was trying to steal them. He never offered again. My dad appreciated that my mum worked also and that her hands were weathered from other duties. He believed a woman shouldn't have to drag a bin up the driveway when there was a capable man around. He was right and I loved him for that.
My dad passed away in 2005, and I miss the wise, chivalrous, generous, family man who gave me life, and not just because I was his favourite. Now, every time I see a sale for Toohey's Light or I buy a pair of shoes I don't need, I know he is nearby.
From The Melbourne Age: Saturday September 6, 2008: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/09/04/1220121424813.html?page=5
Thursday, September 4, 2008
A reading life
I’m embarrassed to say I never read at school, mind you I didn’t have the fabulous choices that school children have today. And I didn’t come from a family with an income to allow for books either. I became a reader when I went to university, and even then I mastered the art of reading indexes of textbooks, scanning simply for the pages I HAD to read in order to get my political science and Australian History essays done at the 11th hour.
Of course, if you want to be a writer you MUST read. It was the first thing I remember being told as an aspiring writer, and it is what I tell my students in schools. Read everything: across genre, across geography, across cultures and so on to help you develop your own style and voice.
I’m a bit of a fraud though as I don’t read anything for pleasure while I’m working on a new book, generally because I am sick of words and am cross-eyed by the end of each day. I’m not influence by others work, generally because I read literary fiction, but can’t actually write it, so there’s no fear of appropriation of style or voice or language.
I’m a very slooooooow reader. I give myself a pat on the back when I get through a novel quickly. Having said, that I read 250 pages of Alexis Wright’s Miles Franklin Award-Winning novel Carpentaria in three days while on a holiday, which was a gold medal read for me, but I took a month to read the other half when I was back at home.
If I like an author I will buy all their books and get them autographed, but I mightn’t read them all. To be honest, I just don’t have time, because I am a sllllooooooow reader. I have all of Rosie Scott’s and all of Linda Jaivin’s, and all of Bruce Pascoe's, and Melissa Lucashenko’s, and Alexis Wright’s and Ruby Langford Ginibi’s. I have all of Alex Miller’s, Lionel Fogarty’s and Kevin Gilbert’s.
My hardbacks are strictly for the bookcase – and my prized hardbacks are Kath Walkers We are going, first published in 1964 and more recently The Papunya School Book of Country and History developed as part of a curriculum project at the Papunya School with Nadia Wheatley and Ken Searle.
My paperbacks are for the beach, the bath and bed – where I do most of my reading. I love libraries except they are not places I can read. My local library – the Bowen Library in Maroubra Junction - has a coffee cart and is more like a community centre than the library of the old days, where peace and quiet reigned and librarians spent their days “shushing” and people like me who need absolute silence to read, could read. But I love my library. It is a space where even those who are not literate will find a place to feel comfortable. My library is not just about books. It is about voice and play and sharing stories. In fact, I wrote my latest novel Avoiding Mr Right (Bantam, 2008), at the Bowen Library. They do have a fish-bowl type room that I booked for two hours per day. And there I sat, and typed, and watched the community gathering outside in the main areas, every day.
But I digress slightly... which is normal...
I like all kinds of books. Especially those that take me to familiar places. I don’t care if the person I love doesn’t love the same books as I do, as long as they love books generally.
I love books that make me laugh out loud, and one of my favourites is Vivienne Cleven’s first novel Bitin’ Back winner of the David Unaipon Award 2000. From the first page it is an hilarious look at life as well as the serious issue of homophobia in a country town called Mandamooka. The humour jumps of the page through the voice of the narrator, bingo-playing matriarch, Mavis Dooley. Mavis is the staunch single-mother who dines on Tim Tams and cola, swears like a trooper and gossips with the best of them. She’s the mother of footballer Neville Dooley (affectionately known as ‘The Nev’) who shocks her, his Uncle Booty and the rest of the town when he mysteriously starts donning his mother’s dresses and make-up and wants to be called Jean Reys, the name of a dead white writer. The real issue as Mavis sees it is clear, ‘When ya black, well things get a bit tricky like...But when ya got a black fella sayin he’s a woman - a white woman at that! Well, the ol’ dice just rolls in another direction’. Page after page is full of rich language and unique phraseology that can only be described as a mix of ‘Aboriginal-bush-English’ which I like to call ‘Mavis-speak’.
Another of my favourites is Richard J Frankland‘s first book Digger J Jones. Written in a diary format for young readers, the story is set in 1967 and focuses on the Referendum, which altered two sections of the Constitution – allowing Aboriginal people to become citizens and therefore counted on the census, and also reverting legislative powers relating to Aboriginal people to the Commonwealth.
Digger J Jones the character though, has given Australia a new favourite son, as it’s hard not to love the feisty and cheeky 10 year old who loves raspberries and chips and lives in Melbourne with his Mum and Dad and brother Paulie, who very early in the story dies in the Vietnam War. The sadness around Paulie’s death and the struggle for Digger to understand the marches and discussions taking place around him in the lead up to the Referendum, is offset by the narrator’s phraseology which had me in stitches, as Digger starts to read the bible and is confused about the word begat, and who’s begatting who and why. I also laughed at episodes of Digger and Darcy-the-Dick - his once arch-rival, now best mate - kissing girls behind the shed, something Digger calls “fishlicking’.
The innocence of Darcy falling in love with marble-playing nun, Sister Ally, is sweet, as he then tries to convert his mate Steve to the Church in an attempt to win Sister Ally’s heart. But Digger is shattered when he learns that his admired one is actually married to Jesus.
Stevie’s dog, who is called ‘Dog’, also answers to the name ‘Jesus’, which makes for some interesting scenes in Mass when every time the priest says ‘Jesus’, the dog races to the altar. There is no disrespect at all to the Church, just the reality of the innocence of youth, and yes, the naughtiness of young boys at times.
I also like books with strong women I can relate to. And so I adore Terri Janke’s Butterfly Song. To me Butterfly Song is the great Australian novel, because it encompasses so much of this country’s spirit and will touch so many Australian hearts that it couldn’t be anything but. The book is a love story, a legal lesson, a comment of the contemporary lifestyles and responsibilities of young, educated Indigenous people today, and a treasure-trove of eloquent and elegant writing.
Narrated by Tarena Shaw, soon to be graduate of law, Butterfly Song as a romance novel tells the love story of Tarena’s grandparents - guitar man Kit and Francesca his frangipani princess, and how their eternal love is symbolised in the butterfly brooch carved by Kit for his lady.
Butterfly Song is also a crime novel as the brooch was stolen in the past, which leads Tarena to research and defend her first case, without yet receiving her uni marks. In terms of learning about aspects of the law, Butterfly Song is a gem of a text, as we also get a simple lesson in native title and the Mabo decision, while learning of the angst of Indigenous law students dealing with prejudice and ignorance in the university environment.
The novel also covers some colourful Australian geography. From Thursday Island in the 1940s to the up-market streets of Woollahra in Sydney in the 1990s, with Cairns and Canberra in between.
Some of my favourite scenes in the novel are following Tarena in her part-time job as a waitress at Serge’s Madonna’s Mirror restaurant, and the endless questions from patrons wanting to know where she is from - that is, what breeding has lead to her being brown-skinned. Is she from Sri Lanka or Bali or is she a Maori? Her stock response is that she is from Queensland, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. She says it without even really listening to the questions after a while; they are just so frequent and predictable. But once when asked if she was married, Tarena not listening properly just responded with “I am from Queensland, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.” It made me laugh.
I am also inspired by those who have written something that I wished I had thought of first. I don’t know if Robert has those moments, but I do. Where I am at a reading, or I’m reading someone’s book, and I think, geez, why didn’t I think to write that? One piece I wished I’d written is by Samuel Wagan Watson, and it’s a poem called “Recipe for Metropolis Brisbane”.
It’s fair to say that I am more inspired by living Black writers than dead white ones.
As far as my own favourite stories and books go, I was on the Books Alive tour last week in regional NSW doing readings from my new novel Avoiding Mr Right, and in the middle of a literary lunch I burst out laughing at my own reading. Is that normal? Well, my PA and I both decided its’ not, but I wanted to share two lines from the book to see what you thought.
In one scene in a Japanese restaurant, considering inter-racial relationships, Peta Tully says to her date:
“If an Aboriginal and an Asian had a baby, it’d be called an Abrasion.”
Then in an astral-dream where she travels to NYC and has sex in the ladies at, she says…
“I lose count of how many orgasms I have because I have never really been any good at maths.”
Boom! Boom!
As to the question – are we what we read? Well I hope so, because that would mean that I am Australian, I am funny, I am political, I am into social justice, I am sexy, and I am clever.
Of course, if you want to be a writer you MUST read. It was the first thing I remember being told as an aspiring writer, and it is what I tell my students in schools. Read everything: across genre, across geography, across cultures and so on to help you develop your own style and voice.
I’m a bit of a fraud though as I don’t read anything for pleasure while I’m working on a new book, generally because I am sick of words and am cross-eyed by the end of each day. I’m not influence by others work, generally because I read literary fiction, but can’t actually write it, so there’s no fear of appropriation of style or voice or language.
I’m a very slooooooow reader. I give myself a pat on the back when I get through a novel quickly. Having said, that I read 250 pages of Alexis Wright’s Miles Franklin Award-Winning novel Carpentaria in three days while on a holiday, which was a gold medal read for me, but I took a month to read the other half when I was back at home.
If I like an author I will buy all their books and get them autographed, but I mightn’t read them all. To be honest, I just don’t have time, because I am a sllllooooooow reader. I have all of Rosie Scott’s and all of Linda Jaivin’s, and all of Bruce Pascoe's, and Melissa Lucashenko’s, and Alexis Wright’s and Ruby Langford Ginibi’s. I have all of Alex Miller’s, Lionel Fogarty’s and Kevin Gilbert’s.
My hardbacks are strictly for the bookcase – and my prized hardbacks are Kath Walkers We are going, first published in 1964 and more recently The Papunya School Book of Country and History developed as part of a curriculum project at the Papunya School with Nadia Wheatley and Ken Searle.
My paperbacks are for the beach, the bath and bed – where I do most of my reading. I love libraries except they are not places I can read. My local library – the Bowen Library in Maroubra Junction - has a coffee cart and is more like a community centre than the library of the old days, where peace and quiet reigned and librarians spent their days “shushing” and people like me who need absolute silence to read, could read. But I love my library. It is a space where even those who are not literate will find a place to feel comfortable. My library is not just about books. It is about voice and play and sharing stories. In fact, I wrote my latest novel Avoiding Mr Right (Bantam, 2008), at the Bowen Library. They do have a fish-bowl type room that I booked for two hours per day. And there I sat, and typed, and watched the community gathering outside in the main areas, every day.
But I digress slightly... which is normal...
I like all kinds of books. Especially those that take me to familiar places. I don’t care if the person I love doesn’t love the same books as I do, as long as they love books generally.
I love books that make me laugh out loud, and one of my favourites is Vivienne Cleven’s first novel Bitin’ Back winner of the David Unaipon Award 2000. From the first page it is an hilarious look at life as well as the serious issue of homophobia in a country town called Mandamooka. The humour jumps of the page through the voice of the narrator, bingo-playing matriarch, Mavis Dooley. Mavis is the staunch single-mother who dines on Tim Tams and cola, swears like a trooper and gossips with the best of them. She’s the mother of footballer Neville Dooley (affectionately known as ‘The Nev’) who shocks her, his Uncle Booty and the rest of the town when he mysteriously starts donning his mother’s dresses and make-up and wants to be called Jean Reys, the name of a dead white writer. The real issue as Mavis sees it is clear, ‘When ya black, well things get a bit tricky like...But when ya got a black fella sayin he’s a woman - a white woman at that! Well, the ol’ dice just rolls in another direction’. Page after page is full of rich language and unique phraseology that can only be described as a mix of ‘Aboriginal-bush-English’ which I like to call ‘Mavis-speak’.
Another of my favourites is Richard J Frankland‘s first book Digger J Jones. Written in a diary format for young readers, the story is set in 1967 and focuses on the Referendum, which altered two sections of the Constitution – allowing Aboriginal people to become citizens and therefore counted on the census, and also reverting legislative powers relating to Aboriginal people to the Commonwealth.
Digger J Jones the character though, has given Australia a new favourite son, as it’s hard not to love the feisty and cheeky 10 year old who loves raspberries and chips and lives in Melbourne with his Mum and Dad and brother Paulie, who very early in the story dies in the Vietnam War. The sadness around Paulie’s death and the struggle for Digger to understand the marches and discussions taking place around him in the lead up to the Referendum, is offset by the narrator’s phraseology which had me in stitches, as Digger starts to read the bible and is confused about the word begat, and who’s begatting who and why. I also laughed at episodes of Digger and Darcy-the-Dick - his once arch-rival, now best mate - kissing girls behind the shed, something Digger calls “fishlicking’.
The innocence of Darcy falling in love with marble-playing nun, Sister Ally, is sweet, as he then tries to convert his mate Steve to the Church in an attempt to win Sister Ally’s heart. But Digger is shattered when he learns that his admired one is actually married to Jesus.
Stevie’s dog, who is called ‘Dog’, also answers to the name ‘Jesus’, which makes for some interesting scenes in Mass when every time the priest says ‘Jesus’, the dog races to the altar. There is no disrespect at all to the Church, just the reality of the innocence of youth, and yes, the naughtiness of young boys at times.
I also like books with strong women I can relate to. And so I adore Terri Janke’s Butterfly Song. To me Butterfly Song is the great Australian novel, because it encompasses so much of this country’s spirit and will touch so many Australian hearts that it couldn’t be anything but. The book is a love story, a legal lesson, a comment of the contemporary lifestyles and responsibilities of young, educated Indigenous people today, and a treasure-trove of eloquent and elegant writing.
Narrated by Tarena Shaw, soon to be graduate of law, Butterfly Song as a romance novel tells the love story of Tarena’s grandparents - guitar man Kit and Francesca his frangipani princess, and how their eternal love is symbolised in the butterfly brooch carved by Kit for his lady.
Butterfly Song is also a crime novel as the brooch was stolen in the past, which leads Tarena to research and defend her first case, without yet receiving her uni marks. In terms of learning about aspects of the law, Butterfly Song is a gem of a text, as we also get a simple lesson in native title and the Mabo decision, while learning of the angst of Indigenous law students dealing with prejudice and ignorance in the university environment.
The novel also covers some colourful Australian geography. From Thursday Island in the 1940s to the up-market streets of Woollahra in Sydney in the 1990s, with Cairns and Canberra in between.
Some of my favourite scenes in the novel are following Tarena in her part-time job as a waitress at Serge’s Madonna’s Mirror restaurant, and the endless questions from patrons wanting to know where she is from - that is, what breeding has lead to her being brown-skinned. Is she from Sri Lanka or Bali or is she a Maori? Her stock response is that she is from Queensland, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. She says it without even really listening to the questions after a while; they are just so frequent and predictable. But once when asked if she was married, Tarena not listening properly just responded with “I am from Queensland, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.” It made me laugh.
I am also inspired by those who have written something that I wished I had thought of first. I don’t know if Robert has those moments, but I do. Where I am at a reading, or I’m reading someone’s book, and I think, geez, why didn’t I think to write that? One piece I wished I’d written is by Samuel Wagan Watson, and it’s a poem called “Recipe for Metropolis Brisbane”.
It’s fair to say that I am more inspired by living Black writers than dead white ones.
As far as my own favourite stories and books go, I was on the Books Alive tour last week in regional NSW doing readings from my new novel Avoiding Mr Right, and in the middle of a literary lunch I burst out laughing at my own reading. Is that normal? Well, my PA and I both decided its’ not, but I wanted to share two lines from the book to see what you thought.
In one scene in a Japanese restaurant, considering inter-racial relationships, Peta Tully says to her date:
“If an Aboriginal and an Asian had a baby, it’d be called an Abrasion.”
Then in an astral-dream where she travels to NYC and has sex in the ladies at, she says…
“I lose count of how many orgasms I have because I have never really been any good at maths.”
Boom! Boom!
As to the question – are we what we read? Well I hope so, because that would mean that I am Australian, I am funny, I am political, I am into social justice, I am sexy, and I am clever.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Press Release: ASA Donates $3078 to Indigenous Literacy Project
The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) announced today it had donated $3078 – one dollar for each of its members – to the Indigenous Literacy Project.
“The lack of literacy in Indigenous communities is a major problem for Australia,” said Dr Jeremy Fisher, ASA Executive Director. “We are by no means a rich organisation, but we want to help resolve this problem. We are fortunate to be the heir to the literary estates of Mouni Sadhu and Dal Stivens. We’re certain both these authors would appreciate their bequests being used in this manner. We want ALL Australian children to be equally literate so as they can live complete lives, inclusive of being able to read and enjoy the wonderful books created by our members.”
Individual members of the ASA have been key players in the Project. ASA Chair Dr Anita Heiss is an Ambassador for the project along with members Alexis Wright, Kate Grenville and Andy Griffiths. As well, many other members have been actively engaged with events organised around Indigenous Literacy Day.
The Committee of Management of the ASA voted unanimously to make the donation at its meeting of 9 August. The Indigenous Literacy Project is a joint initiative of the Fred Hollows Foundation, the Australian Booksellers Association and the Australian Publishers Association.
“The lack of literacy in Indigenous communities is a major problem for Australia,” said Dr Jeremy Fisher, ASA Executive Director. “We are by no means a rich organisation, but we want to help resolve this problem. We are fortunate to be the heir to the literary estates of Mouni Sadhu and Dal Stivens. We’re certain both these authors would appreciate their bequests being used in this manner. We want ALL Australian children to be equally literate so as they can live complete lives, inclusive of being able to read and enjoy the wonderful books created by our members.”
Individual members of the ASA have been key players in the Project. ASA Chair Dr Anita Heiss is an Ambassador for the project along with members Alexis Wright, Kate Grenville and Andy Griffiths. As well, many other members have been actively engaged with events organised around Indigenous Literacy Day.
The Committee of Management of the ASA voted unanimously to make the donation at its meeting of 9 August. The Indigenous Literacy Project is a joint initiative of the Fred Hollows Foundation, the Australian Booksellers Association and the Australian Publishers Association.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Avoiding Mr Right -Launch Speech by Terri Janke
Anita Heiss, Avoiding Mr Right (Bantam, 2008)
I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders who have strengthened our Indigenous community. Tonight we celebrate the release of Dr Anita Heiss book, Avoiding Mr Right. I welcome all of Anita Heiss’s family, friends and colleagues who have come together for this very important occasion.
I would also like to acknowledge the hospitality of the Sauce Bar & Grill. It is a very appropriate place to launch this novel given that it is the scene for the opening chapter. I understand that about three of the restaurant males have been rolled into the one character of Andy, so as someone who’s already read the novel, I have one question – which one of you gives the good spoons.
Dr Anita Heiss has done it again! She has given birth to another Chic Lit novel – Avoiding Mr Right, published under the Bantam Book imprint of Random House. It is the eagerly awaited sequel to her 2007 book Not Meeting Mr Right. Many of you will remember that manifesto on the life of Alice Aigner. The book was listed in the Sydney Morning Herald’s best seller list shortly after its release. Not Meeting Mr Right was a runaway success and has already been optioned for a television series. And it will soon be published in French. Oh la la!
Now the second book in the series, Avoiding Mr Right, is already making headlines. It was described by last weekend’s Courier Mail as ‘the black version of the Sex and the City’ and like Carrie Bradshaw’s firm grip on Mr Big, Anita has established a firm grip on the Chic-Lit genre – now creating her own Indigenous hybrid genre - Choc-Lit.
Selected as one of the Books Alive 2008 – it has made the list of 50 books you can’t put down - Avoiding Mr Right is a fun, sexy and adventurous novel which I found I could not put down. I read it quickly, devouring each page.
So why can’t we put this book down?
Avoiding Mr Right shifts narrative focus to the precautious Indigenous beauty, Peta Tully. The Bundjalung Sydneysider has carved out her place in the upper management level of the Public Service. Her ambition is to be the first Indigenous Minister for Culture. To further her career, Peta takes a 12 month secondment to Melbourne to work in the Department of Media, Sports, Arts, Refugees and Indigenous Affairs - DOMSARIA. She leaves her three best friends -Alice, Dannie and Liza and her tenacious boyfriend James in Sydney – ‘only for 12 months’. Could she possibly find Melbourne more entertaining than Sydney? St Kilda beach better than Coogee beach? Could Melbourne shopping offer greater style?
Off to Melbourne she goes vowing to be celibate and return to Sydney, to James, to her friends, and in good stead for a promotion. But will she fit into Melbourne? Her pink (or rather watermelon) coat stands out in the black clad Melbourne elite. And will her new friends – Sylvia, the vegan poet; Shelley the stockbroker house mate; and Josie, the lesbian parking cop - take the place of her three Sydney amigos? Will she keep her vow to remain celibate when she is getting more sexual attention from just about every Melburnian male she encounters? How will she stand it?
Thank God for Aunty Nell and her good counsel on love and marriage. Thank God for Cousin Joe, the bushfoods chef with his constant delivery of roo Bolognese (aka kaganese) and croc-cakes. Thank God for Melbourne restaurants, and their diversity of cuisine, providing the astral flight tickets for Peta to sample the international single scene. Peta’s guiding rule for getting through these tough 12 months of many men. Reading the menu is okay if you don’t order from it.
Finding or Avoiding, it is still the same question - is he the one? The quest to find the perfect partner might confuse some of you as a love fickle adventure but the results of a 2007 Survey conducted by the Australian Institute of Family Studies indicate that about 1 in 4 Australian marriages end in divorce, and this figure does not reflect the percentage of women who stay unhappily married to men who they thought were Mr Rights, but in reality, should have been avoided. So don’t you think that avoiding or at least examining the potential Mr Right is a process we women all need to consider? It’s like buying a car, or a house? Or a Tiffany’s ring? Caveat Emptor - Let the bride beware! To assist with identifying the potentially misleading and deceptive male stock, Dr Heiss has delivered us a series of case studies for avoiding shabby suitors.
The novel is a celebration of true love – against the odds, it’s about being with the person who lights your flame – your soul mate. I read a journalist recently asked: ‘Why is someone so beautiful, smart, witty and sexy like you single?’ Anita’s answer - ‘Because I’ve seen what absolute, complete love is, and it knows no boundaries.’ This is a reference and a tribute to the love of her mother and father. Of course Anita has another answer to the question: ‘Because I’m having so much fun doing the research for my Chic-Lit novels.’
Love, lust, sex, food and astral travel aside, the novel takes on current topics of Indigenous affairs such as the NT intervention, deaths in custody and social injustice. These are cleverly loaded into the book as central to the action.
Indigenous arts and culture features in the novel through Peta’s job as the National Policy Manager for Aboriginal Arts and Culture. So I was pleased to read that Peta could state the shortfalls of the Copyright Act of 1968 to a non-Indigenous linguist aiming to record Aboriginal languages . She recommends a contract where the Aboriginal language centre will own the rights. (Well done, Peta!) (page 188)
She celebrates Reconciliation Week: NAIDOC attends the Woodford Dreaming Festival (even though our dear Peta doesn’t camp out, but sleeps in the four star hotel in the nearby Caboolture – page 216). She visits the Bunjilaka Aboriginal Centre at Melbourne Museum, and the Koori Heritage Trust. She queries the authenticity of the fake Aboriginal craft on sale at Vic Markets. She reads Indigenous literature like Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria and the Papunya School Book of Country and History (p. 263.). She sways the music at Koori musician - Richard Frankland’s gig, and goes to poetry readings by Samuel Wagan Watson. And the sounds of Sharnee Fenwick singing ‘Kiss that boy’ (page. 296), which we will hear a little bit later, are also featured.
Anita writing style excels specifically in the Astral Travelling episodes. There is a freedom in her word play and scene construction that I envied and enjoyed. One of my favourite astral trips is where Peta goes to Las Vegas and LA after eating the World Famous Fat Bastard Burger. Wearing a red sequinned dress to match her attitude, she is asked by Mike-Monday: ‘I thought all you Ossies were called Bruce and Sheila. And that you all have pet kangaroos.’ Peta replies: ‘Most Ossies are, but I’m Aboriginal, so we’re really just sis and cuz. And we eat kangaroos.’ (page 310.)
Gathered here at Sauce Bar & Grill tonight, we share in the fortune of our good friend Anita. If Not Meeting Mr Right cleverly trail-blazed Indigenous Chic-Lit, with Avoiding Mr Right Anita has truly mastered the genre. I am sure that this book will be an overwhelming success. Congratulations to Random House, and we graciously look forward to more in this series. Avoiding Mr Right is going to storm the Australian publishing world. So if you want to get a firm grip on a piece of history making I encourage you to buy a book – maybe two – tonight. Readers can get their rocks off ‘Sex in the city’ Indigenous style, with two important differences. Our heroine actually eats, even if it does makes her astral travel. And secondly, Carrie may have Manhattan, but Peta has Black bourgeois style.
So it is with enormous pride and pleasure, that I invite you to join in the applause, to launch Avoiding Mr Right ….
I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders who have strengthened our Indigenous community. Tonight we celebrate the release of Dr Anita Heiss book, Avoiding Mr Right. I welcome all of Anita Heiss’s family, friends and colleagues who have come together for this very important occasion.
I would also like to acknowledge the hospitality of the Sauce Bar & Grill. It is a very appropriate place to launch this novel given that it is the scene for the opening chapter. I understand that about three of the restaurant males have been rolled into the one character of Andy, so as someone who’s already read the novel, I have one question – which one of you gives the good spoons.
Dr Anita Heiss has done it again! She has given birth to another Chic Lit novel – Avoiding Mr Right, published under the Bantam Book imprint of Random House. It is the eagerly awaited sequel to her 2007 book Not Meeting Mr Right. Many of you will remember that manifesto on the life of Alice Aigner. The book was listed in the Sydney Morning Herald’s best seller list shortly after its release. Not Meeting Mr Right was a runaway success and has already been optioned for a television series. And it will soon be published in French. Oh la la!
Now the second book in the series, Avoiding Mr Right, is already making headlines. It was described by last weekend’s Courier Mail as ‘the black version of the Sex and the City’ and like Carrie Bradshaw’s firm grip on Mr Big, Anita has established a firm grip on the Chic-Lit genre – now creating her own Indigenous hybrid genre - Choc-Lit.
Selected as one of the Books Alive 2008 – it has made the list of 50 books you can’t put down - Avoiding Mr Right is a fun, sexy and adventurous novel which I found I could not put down. I read it quickly, devouring each page.
So why can’t we put this book down?
Avoiding Mr Right shifts narrative focus to the precautious Indigenous beauty, Peta Tully. The Bundjalung Sydneysider has carved out her place in the upper management level of the Public Service. Her ambition is to be the first Indigenous Minister for Culture. To further her career, Peta takes a 12 month secondment to Melbourne to work in the Department of Media, Sports, Arts, Refugees and Indigenous Affairs - DOMSARIA. She leaves her three best friends -Alice, Dannie and Liza and her tenacious boyfriend James in Sydney – ‘only for 12 months’. Could she possibly find Melbourne more entertaining than Sydney? St Kilda beach better than Coogee beach? Could Melbourne shopping offer greater style?
Off to Melbourne she goes vowing to be celibate and return to Sydney, to James, to her friends, and in good stead for a promotion. But will she fit into Melbourne? Her pink (or rather watermelon) coat stands out in the black clad Melbourne elite. And will her new friends – Sylvia, the vegan poet; Shelley the stockbroker house mate; and Josie, the lesbian parking cop - take the place of her three Sydney amigos? Will she keep her vow to remain celibate when she is getting more sexual attention from just about every Melburnian male she encounters? How will she stand it?
Thank God for Aunty Nell and her good counsel on love and marriage. Thank God for Cousin Joe, the bushfoods chef with his constant delivery of roo Bolognese (aka kaganese) and croc-cakes. Thank God for Melbourne restaurants, and their diversity of cuisine, providing the astral flight tickets for Peta to sample the international single scene. Peta’s guiding rule for getting through these tough 12 months of many men. Reading the menu is okay if you don’t order from it.
Finding or Avoiding, it is still the same question - is he the one? The quest to find the perfect partner might confuse some of you as a love fickle adventure but the results of a 2007 Survey conducted by the Australian Institute of Family Studies indicate that about 1 in 4 Australian marriages end in divorce, and this figure does not reflect the percentage of women who stay unhappily married to men who they thought were Mr Rights, but in reality, should have been avoided. So don’t you think that avoiding or at least examining the potential Mr Right is a process we women all need to consider? It’s like buying a car, or a house? Or a Tiffany’s ring? Caveat Emptor - Let the bride beware! To assist with identifying the potentially misleading and deceptive male stock, Dr Heiss has delivered us a series of case studies for avoiding shabby suitors.
The novel is a celebration of true love – against the odds, it’s about being with the person who lights your flame – your soul mate. I read a journalist recently asked: ‘Why is someone so beautiful, smart, witty and sexy like you single?’ Anita’s answer - ‘Because I’ve seen what absolute, complete love is, and it knows no boundaries.’ This is a reference and a tribute to the love of her mother and father. Of course Anita has another answer to the question: ‘Because I’m having so much fun doing the research for my Chic-Lit novels.’
Love, lust, sex, food and astral travel aside, the novel takes on current topics of Indigenous affairs such as the NT intervention, deaths in custody and social injustice. These are cleverly loaded into the book as central to the action.
Indigenous arts and culture features in the novel through Peta’s job as the National Policy Manager for Aboriginal Arts and Culture. So I was pleased to read that Peta could state the shortfalls of the Copyright Act of 1968 to a non-Indigenous linguist aiming to record Aboriginal languages . She recommends a contract where the Aboriginal language centre will own the rights. (Well done, Peta!) (page 188)
She celebrates Reconciliation Week: NAIDOC attends the Woodford Dreaming Festival (even though our dear Peta doesn’t camp out, but sleeps in the four star hotel in the nearby Caboolture – page 216). She visits the Bunjilaka Aboriginal Centre at Melbourne Museum, and the Koori Heritage Trust. She queries the authenticity of the fake Aboriginal craft on sale at Vic Markets. She reads Indigenous literature like Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria and the Papunya School Book of Country and History (p. 263.). She sways the music at Koori musician - Richard Frankland’s gig, and goes to poetry readings by Samuel Wagan Watson. And the sounds of Sharnee Fenwick singing ‘Kiss that boy’ (page. 296), which we will hear a little bit later, are also featured.
Anita writing style excels specifically in the Astral Travelling episodes. There is a freedom in her word play and scene construction that I envied and enjoyed. One of my favourite astral trips is where Peta goes to Las Vegas and LA after eating the World Famous Fat Bastard Burger. Wearing a red sequinned dress to match her attitude, she is asked by Mike-Monday: ‘I thought all you Ossies were called Bruce and Sheila. And that you all have pet kangaroos.’ Peta replies: ‘Most Ossies are, but I’m Aboriginal, so we’re really just sis and cuz. And we eat kangaroos.’ (page 310.)
Gathered here at Sauce Bar & Grill tonight, we share in the fortune of our good friend Anita. If Not Meeting Mr Right cleverly trail-blazed Indigenous Chic-Lit, with Avoiding Mr Right Anita has truly mastered the genre. I am sure that this book will be an overwhelming success. Congratulations to Random House, and we graciously look forward to more in this series. Avoiding Mr Right is going to storm the Australian publishing world. So if you want to get a firm grip on a piece of history making I encourage you to buy a book – maybe two – tonight. Readers can get their rocks off ‘Sex in the city’ Indigenous style, with two important differences. Our heroine actually eats, even if it does makes her astral travel. And secondly, Carrie may have Manhattan, but Peta has Black bourgeois style.
So it is with enormous pride and pleasure, that I invite you to join in the applause, to launch Avoiding Mr Right ….
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Avoiding Mr Right - Sydney Launch Speech
I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of country, the Gadigal clan of the Eora nation, and pay my respects to all the elders who continue to give me their wisdom and their support.
I’d also like to acknowledge the current custodians of country here, which in this case are the proprietors of Sauce Bar and Grill - BJ McHAtton, Angus Graham and Dave Martin who have generously put on this christening for the book. I’ve already had a number of people ask me which one the guys here is the waiter Andy in the novel, and yes, the character Andy is based on one of the three - but I’m not going to out anyone. You girls will have to figure it out for yourselves.
I really want to thank Sauce for supporting this here local blackfella simply following her dream. I’d also like to thank our beverage sponsor, Fosters.
Launches are essentially about thanking people so, I’ll start by acknowledging those who have inspired some characters and scenes and those I stole phrases and funny lines from. These include my brother Josef who informed the character of Josie – the lipstick lesbian-parking cop who is liked by anyone who doesn’t own a car in St Kilda. My dear dear friend Michelle Wong who inspired the Pimms-drinking thong wearing stockbroker who likes salt’n’pepper squid, my apparent double comedian Rachel Berger, my cousin Bernadine Knorr as well as Paul Galea, Michael McDaniel, Paula Maling, Julie Reilly, Ali Smith and the entire Sydney Swans Football team.
In the novel, Peta Tully is celibate, except for in her dreams, where she has better sex than in her waking life. She astral travels all around the world, and for the material developed in those scenes, I need to thank the following for their inspiration: the Greek waiter, the Italian security guard, the American tour guide, the Spanish customs officer, the Japanese limo-driver, Buddy Holly, Robert Redford and Barry Manilow.
As you can imagine, researching Avoiding Mr Right was challenging and at times tiring – astral travel sex can really be exhausting. I went to Melbourne and stayed in Mark Olive’s house with his cat Lola, while I researched, so I thank The Black Olive for that Melbourne base.
I spent my days on trams and trains, going to galleries and museums, the St Kilda Sea Baths, the AFL, shopping, drinking coffee in groovy cafes and eating every kind of pastry, cake and chocolate available on Acland Street, St Kilda. It was a very fattening book development process I’ve undergone. And my nights were spent in bars and restaurants and generally ‘observing’ the Melbourne men. It was the most enjoyable research trip I have ever completed.
But I think for the next novel, the heroine will have to be a fitness / health freak so I can research on bike paths and in gyms.
I didn’t research alone though, and so I thank all those friends who sat in bars and restaurants with me, while I took notes and just stared at people and surrounds. Special thanks to Peter Frawley and Marianne Tome for assisting in developing my research schedule.
It’s all well and good to research though, but if no one wants to publish the book then what’s the point – aside from the obvious fun that I had. So I offer a massive serve of appreciation to Larissa Edwards my publisher for having unwavering faith in me, Elizabeth Cowell my editor who strokes my ego even when we both know I don’t deserve it, and my publicist Claire Rose who just laughs every time I ask her to pitch a story to a media outlet – and then she goes and does it. They are my very own Dream Team.
Only a few years ago it was a novelty to hear a blackfellas say “Speak to my agent”, but now that line is my saving grace. And I wouldn’t have the relationship with Random House without my wonderful, efficient, professional and groovy agent Tara Wynne from Curtis Brown who works in my best interest always.
Before I head to thanking those from Matraville, I want to mention my dear friend Robynne Quiggin who can’t be here tonight. She makes me laugh on the bad days, and lets me cry on the worse days. And I love her for that. To the gorgeous Terri Janke for inspiring me to be a better person in every way. I truly do want to be you when I grow up. But it looks like I may never do that. And to my life coach and friend Geraldine Star for showing me how to be a better person. I would NOT be here without you, your wisdom, your guidance, your perseverance with me and my stubborn ways. Thank you for your unconditional support.
I’m a proud Matto girl, and like Aboriginal land, always was always will be, and I love going into the Matraville Newsagency because the ladies there make me feel like a celebrity and they keep newspapers and mags for me. Well, only the ones I’m in. And I want to thank them just for doing that. It’s so kind and supportive. And some are here tonight.
And now, my family. Can I tell you the best thing about my family? Well, my family let me talk about myself endlessly, and that’s a hard call for anyone. Joe listens and offers advice on men, most of it I ignore, but he gives it sincerely. Mark and Gisella drive and pick me up from the airport, Mum brings my washing in and folds it, and sometimes, only at her insistence, she washes it also. She let’s me rummage through the fridge EVERY time I go to her place, and there is always a hot meal on offer if I want one. And she NEVER loses her patience with me. I am a heathen and yet my Mum rubs shoulders, in fact, cuddles the Pope. What it all boils down to is that I, that is we, wouldn’t be here tonight if it wasn’t for the love of my family. And oh how my Dad would’ve been so happy here tonight, especially with free beer!
Finally, one of my aims with writing commercial fiction is to be able to open up a whole new world to a whole new mainstream audience. And so it is not uncommon to see some strategically placed products and names throughout AVOIDING MR RIGHT. You will read about Aboriginal authors such as Alexis Wright and Samuel Wagan Watson, the playwright Tammy Anderson, and musicians Dan Sultan, Richard Frankland and a particularly talented and fabulous country and western signer Ms Shawnee Fenwick.
I first saw Sharnee at Klub Koori last November and totally fell in love with her voice and stage presence. She’s a songwriter and performer, and she’s gorgeous and funny.
As Peta Tully rests in the bath following a day at the Melbourne Cup, she has Sharnee Fenwick playing in the background and she’s listening to the words of “Kiss that boy” wondering if she’ll ever kiss a boy again. Sharnee is going to do me the honor of singing that song for us all now, I thank you all for coming tonight, I hope you enjoy reading Avoiding Mr Right as much as I enjoyed writing it and now I hope you enjoy the deadly sounds of Ms Sharnee Fenwick.
I’d also like to acknowledge the current custodians of country here, which in this case are the proprietors of Sauce Bar and Grill - BJ McHAtton, Angus Graham and Dave Martin who have generously put on this christening for the book. I’ve already had a number of people ask me which one the guys here is the waiter Andy in the novel, and yes, the character Andy is based on one of the three - but I’m not going to out anyone. You girls will have to figure it out for yourselves.
I really want to thank Sauce for supporting this here local blackfella simply following her dream. I’d also like to thank our beverage sponsor, Fosters.
Launches are essentially about thanking people so, I’ll start by acknowledging those who have inspired some characters and scenes and those I stole phrases and funny lines from. These include my brother Josef who informed the character of Josie – the lipstick lesbian-parking cop who is liked by anyone who doesn’t own a car in St Kilda. My dear dear friend Michelle Wong who inspired the Pimms-drinking thong wearing stockbroker who likes salt’n’pepper squid, my apparent double comedian Rachel Berger, my cousin Bernadine Knorr as well as Paul Galea, Michael McDaniel, Paula Maling, Julie Reilly, Ali Smith and the entire Sydney Swans Football team.
In the novel, Peta Tully is celibate, except for in her dreams, where she has better sex than in her waking life. She astral travels all around the world, and for the material developed in those scenes, I need to thank the following for their inspiration: the Greek waiter, the Italian security guard, the American tour guide, the Spanish customs officer, the Japanese limo-driver, Buddy Holly, Robert Redford and Barry Manilow.
As you can imagine, researching Avoiding Mr Right was challenging and at times tiring – astral travel sex can really be exhausting. I went to Melbourne and stayed in Mark Olive’s house with his cat Lola, while I researched, so I thank The Black Olive for that Melbourne base.
I spent my days on trams and trains, going to galleries and museums, the St Kilda Sea Baths, the AFL, shopping, drinking coffee in groovy cafes and eating every kind of pastry, cake and chocolate available on Acland Street, St Kilda. It was a very fattening book development process I’ve undergone. And my nights were spent in bars and restaurants and generally ‘observing’ the Melbourne men. It was the most enjoyable research trip I have ever completed.
But I think for the next novel, the heroine will have to be a fitness / health freak so I can research on bike paths and in gyms.
I didn’t research alone though, and so I thank all those friends who sat in bars and restaurants with me, while I took notes and just stared at people and surrounds. Special thanks to Peter Frawley and Marianne Tome for assisting in developing my research schedule.
It’s all well and good to research though, but if no one wants to publish the book then what’s the point – aside from the obvious fun that I had. So I offer a massive serve of appreciation to Larissa Edwards my publisher for having unwavering faith in me, Elizabeth Cowell my editor who strokes my ego even when we both know I don’t deserve it, and my publicist Claire Rose who just laughs every time I ask her to pitch a story to a media outlet – and then she goes and does it. They are my very own Dream Team.
Only a few years ago it was a novelty to hear a blackfellas say “Speak to my agent”, but now that line is my saving grace. And I wouldn’t have the relationship with Random House without my wonderful, efficient, professional and groovy agent Tara Wynne from Curtis Brown who works in my best interest always.
Before I head to thanking those from Matraville, I want to mention my dear friend Robynne Quiggin who can’t be here tonight. She makes me laugh on the bad days, and lets me cry on the worse days. And I love her for that. To the gorgeous Terri Janke for inspiring me to be a better person in every way. I truly do want to be you when I grow up. But it looks like I may never do that. And to my life coach and friend Geraldine Star for showing me how to be a better person. I would NOT be here without you, your wisdom, your guidance, your perseverance with me and my stubborn ways. Thank you for your unconditional support.
I’m a proud Matto girl, and like Aboriginal land, always was always will be, and I love going into the Matraville Newsagency because the ladies there make me feel like a celebrity and they keep newspapers and mags for me. Well, only the ones I’m in. And I want to thank them just for doing that. It’s so kind and supportive. And some are here tonight.
And now, my family. Can I tell you the best thing about my family? Well, my family let me talk about myself endlessly, and that’s a hard call for anyone. Joe listens and offers advice on men, most of it I ignore, but he gives it sincerely. Mark and Gisella drive and pick me up from the airport, Mum brings my washing in and folds it, and sometimes, only at her insistence, she washes it also. She let’s me rummage through the fridge EVERY time I go to her place, and there is always a hot meal on offer if I want one. And she NEVER loses her patience with me. I am a heathen and yet my Mum rubs shoulders, in fact, cuddles the Pope. What it all boils down to is that I, that is we, wouldn’t be here tonight if it wasn’t for the love of my family. And oh how my Dad would’ve been so happy here tonight, especially with free beer!
Finally, one of my aims with writing commercial fiction is to be able to open up a whole new world to a whole new mainstream audience. And so it is not uncommon to see some strategically placed products and names throughout AVOIDING MR RIGHT. You will read about Aboriginal authors such as Alexis Wright and Samuel Wagan Watson, the playwright Tammy Anderson, and musicians Dan Sultan, Richard Frankland and a particularly talented and fabulous country and western signer Ms Shawnee Fenwick.
I first saw Sharnee at Klub Koori last November and totally fell in love with her voice and stage presence. She’s a songwriter and performer, and she’s gorgeous and funny.
As Peta Tully rests in the bath following a day at the Melbourne Cup, she has Sharnee Fenwick playing in the background and she’s listening to the words of “Kiss that boy” wondering if she’ll ever kiss a boy again. Sharnee is going to do me the honor of singing that song for us all now, I thank you all for coming tonight, I hope you enjoy reading Avoiding Mr Right as much as I enjoyed writing it and now I hope you enjoy the deadly sounds of Ms Sharnee Fenwick.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
NAIDOC IN NEW YORK
As you can imagine it was a difficult decision for me to make – speak in New York for NAIDOC Week or go to the ball in Canberra? Hmmmm. Warm weather, Macy’s, and a stroll through Central Park vs. potential ACT frostbite, the Canberra Centre, and a quick rush from one heated building to another. I chose New York, naturally. The city that never sleeps was perfect for this here insomniac, so extending my stay wasn’t a difficult task with the incentive of being part of the inaugural NAIDOC Week celebrations at both the UN and the Australian Consulate.
Coordinated by Michelle Z. Wood, Director of Media and Public Affairs Australian Mission to the United Nations, the week was launched at UN Headquarters on July 7th with the exhibition Gelam Nuguzu Kazi – Dugong my Son by Torres Strait Islander artist David Bosun. Australian Ambassador to the UN, Mr Robert Hill gave a warm welcome to the crowd of around 200 who comprised UN and Consulate staff, Ambassadors from a number of countries, and ex-pat Aussies from across the city. The highlight introduction for me on the night was meeting Dr Donatus St. Aimee, the Ambassador of St Lucia. I’d never met a St. anyone before.
Those who had never seen work from the Torres Strait before swamped David and I’m told there were many offers to buy his artwork, which will continue to adorn the UN headquarters until August. The buzz on opening night was electric, and I was excited about catching up with friends like Sonia Smallacombe who works at the Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the UN, and who’s daughter Penny was flying in as part of the program. Penny produced One River, All Rivers (Directed by Tom E. Lewis) and Yolgnu Guya Djamamirr (Directed by Frank Djirrimbilpilwuy) and both were screened with Ten Canoes.
My ‘working’ time was speaking on a panel discussing the ‘Diversity and reality of Aboriginal Australia’. The evening at the Australian Consulate was opened by the Hon. John Olsen the Australian Consul-General in New York, and chaired by Roberto Borrero the President and Chairman of the U.S. Regional Coordinating Office of the United Confederation of Taíno People. I tried to make the point through my paper that as Aboriginal writers we are part of the same national Indigenous community, therefore the themes of our writing are often common - i.e. we are largely rewriting the history books that conveniently left out the facts around invasion, and the consequences of colonisation. And our writings often reflect the frequently similar politicised nature of our lives, and our works focus on the ways our identities are constantly being reshaped and defined for us and then analysed and categorised largely by the academic world. But it is the way in which we write that varies greatly and demonstrates our diversity.
For example -we have the Aboriginal English voices of Ruby Langford Ginibi, Vivienne Cleven and Gayle Kennedy. We have the guerrilla poetry of Lionel Fogarty; we have the urban-based poetry of Samuel Wagan Watson and the performance poetry of Romaine Moreton. We have the work of Miles Franklin Award-winning author Alexis Wright who some believe pushed the literary boundaries in Australia with her epic novel Carpentaria in 2007.
And while we are all writers with many similarities, the key one being that we can’t survive financially as writers, we have a wealth of life experiences that vary greatly. Our lives are the culmination of a diverse range of experiences that make us no more or less Indigenous than the next person.
For example, while we are poets, novelists, short story writers, auto biographers / biographers and essayists, we have been or continue to be lawyers, academics, filmmakers, dancers, stockmen and jillaroos, photographers, historians, salesmen, fraud investigators, graphic artists, labourers, actors, soldiers, fishermen and community volunteers.
And our writers tell stories about metropolitan Brisbane, the women’s movement, homophobia, the stolen generations, relationships, community politics and history, and all of them from diverse Indigenous perspectives.
I have no doubt that as a result of NAIDOC Week in New York that more people will look towards Aboriginal literature to learn more about who we are as a collective of diverse peoples in the 21st century.
I shared the panel with David Bosun who discussed the need to protect the intellectual property rights and resale royalties of Torres Strait Islander artists, and Karen Oughtred, a non-Indigenous advocate for Australian Aboriginal Theatre at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
I was a proud Blackfella in New York last week, and so was Sonia Smallacombe who said of the NAIDOC Week events, “From the perspective of one who works in the UN, the themes and issues of NAIDOC are universal because all Indigenous peoples in the world have similar experiences and are also part of bright, rich cultures.” She says the thing she enjoyed most about NAIDOC in New York was having Indigenous Australians there to celebrate with her.
I have no doubt the Australian Consulate and the UN are still buzzing with the excitement that NAIDOC Week brought to both sites. Australian Ambassador to the UN, Mr Robert Hill said of the week’s success, "This was the first time that NAIDOC Week has been celebrated in New York and the response has been extraordinary. We have had full houses at all of our events helping to spread the word about our multi-faceted and diverse indigenous culture to a new and international audience."
My trip was made possible by the Copyright Agency Ltd and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra.
Coordinated by Michelle Z. Wood, Director of Media and Public Affairs Australian Mission to the United Nations, the week was launched at UN Headquarters on July 7th with the exhibition Gelam Nuguzu Kazi – Dugong my Son by Torres Strait Islander artist David Bosun. Australian Ambassador to the UN, Mr Robert Hill gave a warm welcome to the crowd of around 200 who comprised UN and Consulate staff, Ambassadors from a number of countries, and ex-pat Aussies from across the city. The highlight introduction for me on the night was meeting Dr Donatus St. Aimee, the Ambassador of St Lucia. I’d never met a St. anyone before.
Those who had never seen work from the Torres Strait before swamped David and I’m told there were many offers to buy his artwork, which will continue to adorn the UN headquarters until August. The buzz on opening night was electric, and I was excited about catching up with friends like Sonia Smallacombe who works at the Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the UN, and who’s daughter Penny was flying in as part of the program. Penny produced One River, All Rivers (Directed by Tom E. Lewis) and Yolgnu Guya Djamamirr (Directed by Frank Djirrimbilpilwuy) and both were screened with Ten Canoes.
My ‘working’ time was speaking on a panel discussing the ‘Diversity and reality of Aboriginal Australia’. The evening at the Australian Consulate was opened by the Hon. John Olsen the Australian Consul-General in New York, and chaired by Roberto Borrero the President and Chairman of the U.S. Regional Coordinating Office of the United Confederation of Taíno People. I tried to make the point through my paper that as Aboriginal writers we are part of the same national Indigenous community, therefore the themes of our writing are often common - i.e. we are largely rewriting the history books that conveniently left out the facts around invasion, and the consequences of colonisation. And our writings often reflect the frequently similar politicised nature of our lives, and our works focus on the ways our identities are constantly being reshaped and defined for us and then analysed and categorised largely by the academic world. But it is the way in which we write that varies greatly and demonstrates our diversity.
For example -we have the Aboriginal English voices of Ruby Langford Ginibi, Vivienne Cleven and Gayle Kennedy. We have the guerrilla poetry of Lionel Fogarty; we have the urban-based poetry of Samuel Wagan Watson and the performance poetry of Romaine Moreton. We have the work of Miles Franklin Award-winning author Alexis Wright who some believe pushed the literary boundaries in Australia with her epic novel Carpentaria in 2007.
And while we are all writers with many similarities, the key one being that we can’t survive financially as writers, we have a wealth of life experiences that vary greatly. Our lives are the culmination of a diverse range of experiences that make us no more or less Indigenous than the next person.
For example, while we are poets, novelists, short story writers, auto biographers / biographers and essayists, we have been or continue to be lawyers, academics, filmmakers, dancers, stockmen and jillaroos, photographers, historians, salesmen, fraud investigators, graphic artists, labourers, actors, soldiers, fishermen and community volunteers.
And our writers tell stories about metropolitan Brisbane, the women’s movement, homophobia, the stolen generations, relationships, community politics and history, and all of them from diverse Indigenous perspectives.
I have no doubt that as a result of NAIDOC Week in New York that more people will look towards Aboriginal literature to learn more about who we are as a collective of diverse peoples in the 21st century.
I shared the panel with David Bosun who discussed the need to protect the intellectual property rights and resale royalties of Torres Strait Islander artists, and Karen Oughtred, a non-Indigenous advocate for Australian Aboriginal Theatre at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
I was a proud Blackfella in New York last week, and so was Sonia Smallacombe who said of the NAIDOC Week events, “From the perspective of one who works in the UN, the themes and issues of NAIDOC are universal because all Indigenous peoples in the world have similar experiences and are also part of bright, rich cultures.” She says the thing she enjoyed most about NAIDOC in New York was having Indigenous Australians there to celebrate with her.
I have no doubt the Australian Consulate and the UN are still buzzing with the excitement that NAIDOC Week brought to both sites. Australian Ambassador to the UN, Mr Robert Hill said of the week’s success, "This was the first time that NAIDOC Week has been celebrated in New York and the response has been extraordinary. We have had full houses at all of our events helping to spread the word about our multi-faceted and diverse indigenous culture to a new and international audience."
My trip was made possible by the Copyright Agency Ltd and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra.
Friday, May 9, 2008
1 volume, 81 authors and 200 years of Aboriginal culture, history and life
I am fortunate enough to be able to say that I have loved almost every writing project I have ever been part of. And in their own ways, they each hold special meaning, memories and significance to me, not only as an Aboriginal woman, but also as an author.
But the release of the groundbreaking volume The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal literature this week is without doubt, one of the highlights of my professional career.
Just under four years ago I had a conversation with Elizabeth Weiss, Publisher at Allen and Unwin, about the need for such a volume as this. Around the same time, my mate Peter Minter was having the same conversation, also with Elizabeth. We hadn’t actually had the conversation with each other though.
Four years later, we have had many conversations – about the evolution of our writings in English since Bennelong’s first letter in 1796, right through to the Miles Franklin Award winning novel Carpentaria in 2007. We discussed the role of Aboriginal literature in world literatures, and also how a text like this could be incorporated into many different academic courses (nationally and internationally) including Australian Studies, Cultural Studies, Indigenous Studies, Race Studies, Australian History, Australian Politics, Australian Literature and so on.
On putting this anthology together, Peter and I embarked on a journey of discovery, revelling in much of the unknown writings by Aboriginal people over the past 200 years and how they contribute to the bigger story of who we are as a nation today. The writings included in this anthology are pieces of journalism, letters, petitions, political manifestoes, song lyrics, poetry, play excerpts, short stories, fiction, autobiography, biography and social commentary. It is safe to say there is something for every reader of every genre known to the reading community.
In fact, because of the variety of work we have included in this book, I believe there will be a whole new dialogue about the way in which literature is defined in Australia. For all the works included in this volume tell stories and give voice to the First Nations people of this land who have by-and-large remained voiceless.
Some of those showcased in The Macquarie PEN anthology of Aboriginal Literature include: * David Unaipon * Pearl Gibbs * Oodgeroo Noonuccal * Charles Perkins * Ruby Langford Ginibi * Sam Watson * Archie Roach * Jimmy Pike * Doris Pilkington * Alexis Wright * Mick Dodson * Wesley Enoch * Samuel Wagan Watson * Kim Scott * Jackie Huggins * Larissa Behrendt * Tara June Winch and many more.
The hardest thing for us as editors was culling an extensive list of top quality writing that could easily have been included, but due to space constraints, just couldn’t be.
We are excited and confident that this anthology will go a long way to engaging Australian students in both schools and universities with Indigenous voices, ideas, world views, diverse experiences, and most of all, the sense of dignity we have maintained while continuing to struggle for not only equal rights in Australia but in many instances, basic human rights.
Read William Cooper’s Petition to the King, read the Yirrkala Bark Petition of 1963, read the 1938 ‘Aborigines Claim Citizenship Rights’ manifesto, read Oodgeroo Noonuccal's ‘Aboriginal Charter of Rights’, and then marry it with Mick and Patrick Dodson’s writings, and the poetry of Lionel Fogarty and Barbara Nicholson, and you will see the politics of a people who have used literature since not long after the point of first contact. And, as you will see in the second half of the volume, we continue to do so.
The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal literature is published by Allen and Unwin, and is available for $39.95 at all good bookstores, including Australian airports!
For more info and to access the on-line Teachers’ Notes, go to: http://www.macquariepenanthology.com.au/
But the release of the groundbreaking volume The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal literature this week is without doubt, one of the highlights of my professional career.
Just under four years ago I had a conversation with Elizabeth Weiss, Publisher at Allen and Unwin, about the need for such a volume as this. Around the same time, my mate Peter Minter was having the same conversation, also with Elizabeth. We hadn’t actually had the conversation with each other though.
Four years later, we have had many conversations – about the evolution of our writings in English since Bennelong’s first letter in 1796, right through to the Miles Franklin Award winning novel Carpentaria in 2007. We discussed the role of Aboriginal literature in world literatures, and also how a text like this could be incorporated into many different academic courses (nationally and internationally) including Australian Studies, Cultural Studies, Indigenous Studies, Race Studies, Australian History, Australian Politics, Australian Literature and so on.
On putting this anthology together, Peter and I embarked on a journey of discovery, revelling in much of the unknown writings by Aboriginal people over the past 200 years and how they contribute to the bigger story of who we are as a nation today. The writings included in this anthology are pieces of journalism, letters, petitions, political manifestoes, song lyrics, poetry, play excerpts, short stories, fiction, autobiography, biography and social commentary. It is safe to say there is something for every reader of every genre known to the reading community.
In fact, because of the variety of work we have included in this book, I believe there will be a whole new dialogue about the way in which literature is defined in Australia. For all the works included in this volume tell stories and give voice to the First Nations people of this land who have by-and-large remained voiceless.
Some of those showcased in The Macquarie PEN anthology of Aboriginal Literature include: * David Unaipon * Pearl Gibbs * Oodgeroo Noonuccal * Charles Perkins * Ruby Langford Ginibi * Sam Watson * Archie Roach * Jimmy Pike * Doris Pilkington * Alexis Wright * Mick Dodson * Wesley Enoch * Samuel Wagan Watson * Kim Scott * Jackie Huggins * Larissa Behrendt * Tara June Winch and many more.
The hardest thing for us as editors was culling an extensive list of top quality writing that could easily have been included, but due to space constraints, just couldn’t be.
We are excited and confident that this anthology will go a long way to engaging Australian students in both schools and universities with Indigenous voices, ideas, world views, diverse experiences, and most of all, the sense of dignity we have maintained while continuing to struggle for not only equal rights in Australia but in many instances, basic human rights.
Read William Cooper’s Petition to the King, read the Yirrkala Bark Petition of 1963, read the 1938 ‘Aborigines Claim Citizenship Rights’ manifesto, read Oodgeroo Noonuccal's ‘Aboriginal Charter of Rights’, and then marry it with Mick and Patrick Dodson’s writings, and the poetry of Lionel Fogarty and Barbara Nicholson, and you will see the politics of a people who have used literature since not long after the point of first contact. And, as you will see in the second half of the volume, we continue to do so.
The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal literature is published by Allen and Unwin, and is available for $39.95 at all good bookstores, including Australian airports!
For more info and to access the on-line Teachers’ Notes, go to: http://www.macquariepenanthology.com.au/
We need to be ‘Reading Heroes!”
We need to be ‘Reading Heroes!”
This week I attended the launch of the Indigenous Literacy Project (ILP) to improve literacy in remote Indigenous communities. A joint effort between Australian publishers, booksellers and authors in conjunction with the Fred Hollows Foundation, the project includes an annual Indigenous Literacy Day on September 3.
Last year’s goal of $100k, was exceeded when $250k was raised through events, a reading challenge and the generous contribution by participating booksellers nationally that donated a percentage of their takings on the day.
In 2008, the project has a new lease of life with the introduction of Therese Rein as the ILP Patron. Also known as the wife of our Prime Minister, Therese (I can call her that because we met at the launch and so now we’re sistas in the cause!) brings to the project not only her name and standing in the Australian community, but also a real desire to improve the literacy of our children. In her speech at the media launch held at Allen and Unwin in Sydney, she said the project offered an opportunity for all Australians to get involved in a simple and effective community activity.
Also part of the project this year are Author Ambassadors. These include yours truly, the Miles Franklin Award winning author of Carpentaria, Alexis Wright, multi-award winning author of Swallow the Air, Tara June Winch, the owner of every bum joke on the planet Andy Griffiths, Australia’s patriarch or literature David Malouf and Geraldine Brookes.
There is also a newly designed Reader’s Quest designed to assist schools in participating in the project. The Reader’s Quest involves reading at least seven books from the specially prepared Readers Quest booklists, recording each book you read, and then receiving a Reader’s Quest certificate.
As for me, having just returned from the NT myself as part of a role modelling tour, I can see so many ways to engage our young people in books. One of the key ways is for us as adults to be “Reading Heroes” for our young people. We need to read to our kids, we need to be seen to be reading alone and enjoying it, we need to instil in our young people that books and reading should be part of our every day lives and routines. And at least in the cities, we need to be exploiting our libraries for everything they can do to engage, educate and entertain our kids through books.
What you can do for the project: Members of the general public can participate in this important project by buying a book at one of the 400 participating bookshops. So, check and see if your local bookshop is part of the ILP and then go out and buy lots of books on September 3!!!
All of the funds raised will go directly to the Fred Hollows Foundation to buy books and literacy resources for Indigenous communities.
For more information about the Indigenous Literacy Project, please contact Karen Williams on (02) 9388 0087 or go to: www.worldwithoutbooks.org
This week I attended the launch of the Indigenous Literacy Project (ILP) to improve literacy in remote Indigenous communities. A joint effort between Australian publishers, booksellers and authors in conjunction with the Fred Hollows Foundation, the project includes an annual Indigenous Literacy Day on September 3.
Last year’s goal of $100k, was exceeded when $250k was raised through events, a reading challenge and the generous contribution by participating booksellers nationally that donated a percentage of their takings on the day.
In 2008, the project has a new lease of life with the introduction of Therese Rein as the ILP Patron. Also known as the wife of our Prime Minister, Therese (I can call her that because we met at the launch and so now we’re sistas in the cause!) brings to the project not only her name and standing in the Australian community, but also a real desire to improve the literacy of our children. In her speech at the media launch held at Allen and Unwin in Sydney, she said the project offered an opportunity for all Australians to get involved in a simple and effective community activity.
Also part of the project this year are Author Ambassadors. These include yours truly, the Miles Franklin Award winning author of Carpentaria, Alexis Wright, multi-award winning author of Swallow the Air, Tara June Winch, the owner of every bum joke on the planet Andy Griffiths, Australia’s patriarch or literature David Malouf and Geraldine Brookes.
There is also a newly designed Reader’s Quest designed to assist schools in participating in the project. The Reader’s Quest involves reading at least seven books from the specially prepared Readers Quest booklists, recording each book you read, and then receiving a Reader’s Quest certificate.
As for me, having just returned from the NT myself as part of a role modelling tour, I can see so many ways to engage our young people in books. One of the key ways is for us as adults to be “Reading Heroes” for our young people. We need to read to our kids, we need to be seen to be reading alone and enjoying it, we need to instil in our young people that books and reading should be part of our every day lives and routines. And at least in the cities, we need to be exploiting our libraries for everything they can do to engage, educate and entertain our kids through books.
What you can do for the project: Members of the general public can participate in this important project by buying a book at one of the 400 participating bookshops. So, check and see if your local bookshop is part of the ILP and then go out and buy lots of books on September 3!!!
All of the funds raised will go directly to the Fred Hollows Foundation to buy books and literacy resources for Indigenous communities.
For more information about the Indigenous Literacy Project, please contact Karen Williams on (02) 9388 0087 or go to: www.worldwithoutbooks.org
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