FNAWN was recently invited to send representation to the 2015 ASA National Writers Congress. Held at Luna Park in Sydney on 11 and 12 September, the Australian Society of Authors (ASA) Congress theme was Reclaim, Reboot, Renew.

Karen Wyld, one of FNAWN’s new Board Directors, attended the ASA Congress alongside 200 other authors, as well as illustrators and industry professionals. Karen has provided us with a summary:

ASA’s Congress was held two weeks after FANWN’s Workshop, so I was still feeling the euphoria of having been in the company of so many fantastic writers. As you all know, writing is a solitary occupation and, unless you belong to a writers group, opportunities to network with other writers are rare. So I was very privileged to have been given the chance to attend two in a row.
The line-up of guest speakers and panel topics were mostly engaging and of interest. And lunch breaks provided plenty of time to network with writers, publishers, book reviewers and other industry representatives. I had a few opportunities to promote FNAWN and talk about the works of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers. I also avidly live-tweeted over the 2 days; which I find is a good way to put forward alternative views from speakers and engage with other attendees.

Both the Hon Mark Dreyfus, Shadow Minister for the Arts (ALP) and Adam Brandt MP (Greens) presented an exciting vision for the arts, and demonstrated respect for writers and a desire to support creative industries. In comparison the Coalition’s arts plan, as presented by Minister for the Arts Senator George Brandis, was sadly lacking. The Government’s plan to redirect $104.8 million from the Arts Council to the newly created National Centre for Excellence in Arts, which has no reference to literature, was not well received by the audience.

Moving on from the disappointment, on the second day there were a few panels of authors and illustrators that were using technology and new mediums to create innovative works. After some negative reactions to digital in previous discussions, it was refreshing to see some of the advantages.
However, the most engaging session was on the first day; during a panel featuring Aboriginal illustrator Bronwyn Bancroft. She was joined by other speakers, including writer Michael Mohammed Ahmed, who raised the ongoing lack of diversity in Australian literature. He, rightly so, named the gatekeepers as being publishers, editors and judging panels.

Sadly, this gatekeeping was demonstrated in a later panel session when a representative from a global publisher pointed out their need to operate commercially; and she believed that books by diverse authors don’t sell. Thank goodness we have networks like FNAWN, because it’s time to open some gates.
I wasn’t able to stay for all of the last session, which was an audience discussion of the key issues for ASA to address. Before I left, there was a robust conversation on the importance of supporting authors from diverse backgrounds. This was a clear call for ASA to direct some energy into advocating for more diversity in Australian literacy. On that note, I left for the airport with a sense of renewed hope.

The FNAWN delegation consisted of writers who have established careers or are highly regarded as evidenced through recent winning and shortlisting of major Australian and international literary awards. The delegation included FNAWN Executive Director Cathy Craigie, Tony Birch, Jeanine Leane, Dub Leffler, Bruce Pascoe, Ellen van Neerven and myself, Jared Thomas.

Each writer is experienced in presenting at Australia’s premier writers festivals but we didn’t anticipate the scale and grandeur of the U.S. National Book Festival. Our introduction to the Festival commenced with a reception hosted by Caroline Millar, Deputy Chief of Mission, Australian Embassy, Washington, where we were introduced to National Library of Congress, U.S. National Book Festival staff and first nations literary figures. The hospitality was incredibly warm and it was evident that there is great interest and support for FNAWN activities.

 
Our introduction to the Library of Congress was also auspicious as upon arrival at the gala event we had opportunity to meet with American Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, America’s first Mexican-American Poet Laureate.

Not one of us had much sleep following the festival Gala dinner. Our adrenalin pumped from visiting the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution, the largest library in the world, and rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s most highly regarded writers. Adrenalin continued to race through our veins when encountering the reality of the reality of the U.S. National Book Festival.
At least a thousand of people filled one of the seven salons during the first session of the day where first nations writer Louise Erdrich was awarded the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. The salons remained continuously full throughout the day. To further provide a sense of the scale of the festival, it took fifteen minutes, to walk from the green room to the book sales point in a space resembling an airplane hangar at least twice the length of the MCG.
FNAWN delegates presented three panels at the U.S. National Book Festival, expertly facilitated by FNAWN Executive Director Cathy Craigie and very well received by readers, students and academics interested in our people, culture and works.
Time in Washington around the U.S. National Book festival was spent meeting with First Nations people and organisations including the National Congress of American Indians, Embassy of Tribal Nations, Lee Francis, National Director of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Each of these experiences provided the opportunity to advocate for further collaborations between FNAWN members and American First Nations communities and to reflect upon Australian politics and our position within it.
Time on the road provided opportunity to get to better know each of the writers and learn from their incredible experiences and knowledge. There was plenty of time for this as we drove to Charlottesville Virginia with raptors soaring above and cornfields and churches whizzing by.
Charlottesville Virginia presented opportunity to meet with and present with remarkable First Nation American writers Deborah Miranda and Karenne Wood at the University of Virginia and to visit the remarkable Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia which houses one of the finest Indigenous Australian art collections in the world, rivaling many of the collections held in Australia.
We spent an amazing afternoon with the Authors Guild in New York on September 11, learning about each other’s businesses and having a great lunch in an Arabic restaurant complete with a belly dancer. The lunch ended with FNAWN delegates and Authors Guild staff taking to the floor, our dance symbolic of the comfort in each other’s company.
Time in New York provided me the opportunity to meet with one of the big mainstream U.S. publishers. They had been in touch independent of FNAWN but standing on the street, alongside their iconic office building, looking down Fifth Avenue toward the Empire State Building, I asked myself, ‘how in the hell did I get here?’ There’s a whole lot of factors in that equation but it’s clear that FNAWN Executive Director Cathy Craigie and Chairperson Kerry Reed-Gilbert have played a large role in my writing journey.

FNAWN is the consolidation of their vision and participation at the 2015 U.S. National Book Festival part of the broader vision for Aboriginal writers and literature. It is very difficult for international writers, especially Australian writers to break into the U.S. market but experiencing the literary offerings and opportunities of America with my esteemed colleagues, it is clear that FNAWN is set to open up the world to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers in ways beyond what any of us have imagined.

I anticipate that maybe one of the members from the 2015 delegation, or perhaps it will be the 2017 delegation, will make a splash in the U.S. and their success will benefit us all.

Charmaine Papertalk Green reflects on her visit to the Tarnanthi Festival

I recently travelled from Western Australia to Adelaide to experience the inaugural Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art showcasing and celebrating Indigenous culture – Tarnanthi 2015. Whilst the visual arts dominated the festival scape, it is the incredible power of storytelling woven throughout the many creations and Tarnanthi that resonated with me. In this edition of FNAWN I share some insights from Ali Cobby Eckermann and on the Kapi Ungupayi/He gave us Water exhibition.

In Conversation with Ali Cobby Eckermann

I was particularly pleased to reconnect and spend some time with South Australian poet, writer and sculptor Ali Cobby Eckermann. Ali was involved in several Tarnanthi events – the Aboriginal Arts Fair held at Tandanya, Our Mob 2015 exhibition and writing response poetry to artist Yhonnie Scarce’s glass installation “Thunder raining poison” in the Art Gallery of South Australia.

In conversation we spoke of the place of writers and their books at these types of Festivals and Art Fairs, her inspirations behind creating the wire sculptures and writing a poetic response to Yhonnie Scarces installation.

It was refreshing to have a conversation around the place of Aboriginal literature in Festival and Art Fairs/Markets – many times literature is not mentioned let alone included in these events . Ali reinforced that writing is art therefore it had a place at these events and should be encouraged at all Art Fairs/Markets around Australia:

“I was invited to the Aboriginal Arts Fair by Nici Cumpston who encouraged all art forms to be present. The quality of all artists including all writers allowed me to place my books at the Arts Fair which was an opportunity to promote and discuss and allowed sales. I was asked if I had a Certificate of Authenticity to explain the background of my sculpture and I said “No I have a book which does the same thing”. I really felt that people at the Arts Market liked the combination of the art, literature and poetry. Most people would not have the money to buy the sculpture but 90% of people brought a book”.

Ali created two barbed wire powder coated fish trap installations for exhibiting at the Art Fair and the Our Mob 2015 Exhibition at the Adelaide Festival Centre Artspace Gallery. I asked Ali what her inspiration was behind creating the two sculptures:

“It was a visit back to the Eckermann Farm to a paddock called the ‘other place’, it was the only paddock with a red sand hill. That was a place I loved because it had a red sand hill. There was an old dump filled with old fencing wire. I got this glimpse of this fish trap. The healing part for me was to use old materials from my adopted families and recreate it into a beautiful Aboriginal sculpture which felt like it replicated my journey today. The sculpture reinforces my writing in a very personal way.”

Photo Credit, Charmaine Green 2015: Ali Cobby Eckerman Tarnanthi Art Fair SA

The South Australia Writers Centre organised for 8 Aboriginal writers, 2 interstate and 6 South Australian, to write poetic response to selected Tarnanthi at the Gallery artworks at the Art Gallery of South Australia. I had a yarn with Ali over the phone about the readings:

“It was really well attended there were 8 writers responding to artworks organised by SA Writers Centre. The readings were very beautiful and profound. I wrote a poetic response to Yhonnie Scarce’s installation “Thunder rain and poison”. A lady came up to me after the reading and said that the poem changed the energy in the room- something happened. The profoundness of the poetry readings stayed with the writers for some time – we all hung out with each other for some time afterwards. It was healing, emotive and powerful.”

I would like to sincerely thank Ali for sharing for our FNAWN Newsletter.

“Kapi Ungupayi/He gave us Water” exhibition

On my last day in Adelaide I got a phone call from my AACHWA colleague saying “you better get down here Charmaine you will just love this exhibition”. When I walked into the SASA Gallery I was overwhelmed by what greeted me, and in a really good way. The exhibition was about the journey of five women in remote Western Australia (Blackstone and Wingellina), represented by the five tiny grass woven women figures greeting me at the entry point into the Gallery. One of the exhibition curators kindly spoke with me about the inspiration behind the exhibition and the stories woven into each exhibition element from the painted Toyota panel to the Sorry Business Camp stitched blankets.

The story tellers were five desert women who had gone out bush to gather punu (wood) for carving and their Toyota ran out of petrol stranding them for five days out in the desert. The women had to draw upon the cultural teachings and traditional knowledge handed down to them to find water and food to survive. The women describe this journey as the creation of a new tjukurpa (dreaming story), and every element of this new tjukurpa was present in the exhibition. They survived on goanna for food – there were grass woven standing goanna’s. They recalled being told stories of how finch birds would gather where there was water (holy water), they followed the finch birds, dug for water and found the holy water – there were finch bird paintings and an installation with hand woven finch birds gathering for water. A panel from the Toyota they drove into the bush was painted and exhibited – the vehicle part of this new dreaming story. Their traditional knowledge and stories handed down gave hope as the women sung songs in their country and to their country – a powerful video presentation was beautiful with calming sounds of singing flowing throughout SASA Gallery.

Additionally, “Kapi Ungupayi/He gave us water” is a response to the governments and others to understand living on remote communities is not a ‘lifestyle choice’ there is a reason for being in and on ancestral country:

“The people are here for a reason: to look after the land and the culture, and to keep that strong…”

Roma Peterman Butler, Ivy Laidlaw, Jennifer Mitchell, Tjawina Roberts and Mrs Woods. Tarnanthi 2015

A busy time for FNAWN Director Ken Canning and former Director Barbara Nicholson.

‘Ken’s of to Junee Gaol today for the start of the writing workshops with the Koori lads in there. This is being run by the South Coast Writers Group’s, Black Wallaby’s program. It’s sure to be a great day. He’ll be back in Sydney late in the week.’

Congratulations to all involved.

On Friday 10 July, Kerry Reed-Gilbert (FNAWN Chairperson) and Samantha Faulkner (Us Mob Writing) joined staff at the Department of Health to celebrate NAIDOC Week. This was the third NAIDOC Week event that the Department of Health, based at Woden, held.

Kerry and Samantha both read their work from By Close of Business and other publications. They shared their personal perspectives, experiences and background to the poems and engaged in discussion with the audience. One of the staff members also shared his poetry which was well received by the small and intimate audience.

Copies of By Close of Business were also given to the Department’s staff who expressed interest in doing something similar in the near future. The poetry reading was a great way to finish NAIDOC Week and was appreciated by Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff.

Ali Cobby Eckerman with Gillian Triggs launch of the Intervention anthology

In the autumn of 2014 Yankunytjatjara poet Ali Cobby Eckermann was the first Aboriginal Australian writer to attend the prestigious International Writing Program in the USA. The program is run by the University of Iowa located in Iowa City, and was a 3 month residency spent with 28 other writers from 28 countries from around the world.

The onus of the residency is flexible, although there was much opportunity to listen to and interact with the other writers at various lectures and readings. Social invitations were extended by generous Iowan personalities, and the IWP staff arranged free trips to iconic American sites eg the Effify Mounds ancient burial grounds and national park.

For Ali the main benefit of the residency was the friendships she made with the other writers, sharing conversations of story and the influence of genre. Many of the writers live in war torn countries, and their poetry was captivating.

During the residency Ali travelled to participate in the City of Asylum Jazz Poetry Concert in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, New Orleans and Chicago, gave a lecture at the University of Denver and spent a day in the Rocky Mountains, delivered a 3 hour workshop at the Diagnostic & Correctional Prison south of St Louis in Missouri, toured Washington DC, and read at the Poets House in New York City.

Whilst in America Ali’s award winning verse novel Ruby Moonlight was published in the US by Flood Editions in Chicago. Ali is looking forward to her return to America in 2016, to attend a forum between contemporary Australian poets and activist American poets in the San Francisco area, to be held at the University of California, Berkeley.

Next month Ali will be guest Distance Learning facilitator for the IWP Narrative Witness Indigenous Peoples: Australia-America exchange. Ali will share this role with Cree poet Jennifer Foerster. The IWP is currently recruiting Aboriginal persons who are interested in this exchange using both the mediums of literature and photography.

Please check out the link, and and contact Samantha Nissen samantha-nissen@uiowa.edu or Ali Cobby
Eckermann tjinguru@yahoo.com.au

“The Intervention to us was like Australia declaring war on us and in the process they demonised and dehumanised Aboriginal men, women and children.”
– Rosalie-Kunoth Monks – Elder and Northern Territory Australian of the Year.

June 21 will mark eight years since the introduction of one of Australia’s most racist government policies, – the Northern Territory National Emergency Response package – otherwise known as the NT Intervention.

Many Australians are still waiting for the outcry over the suspension of the Race Discrimination Act which allowed this legislation to pass, not once, but twice. In 2012, the Intervention was renamed “Stronger Futures” and designed to impinge further on the human rights of those in remote communities for another decade.

Award-winning and internationally recognised Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian authors and commentators have taken a stand the best way they can, by using the power of their writing to generate much needed discussion and debate – in homes, universities and in work places.

Edited by Rosie Scott and Anita Heiss, the Intervention Anthology includes statements by Elders, poetry, commentary, fiction and non-fiction as a means of reaching out and speaking to as many Australians as possible.

“A powerful collection of views from Aboriginal Elders, experts, lawyers and some of the nation’s finest writers. And an indispensable contribution to the urgent question of the wellbeing and dignity of Aboriginal Australians. As Rosalie Kunoth-Monks puts it ‘We are your people and you are our people.’ We can’t not listen to each other,’ said Anna Funder, an international award winning author.

Contributors to the anthology include: Debra Adelaide, Pat Anderson, Larissa Behrendt, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Eva Cox, Brenda L. Croft, Lionel Fogarty, Djiniyini Gondarra, Yingiya Mark Guyula, Rodney Hall, Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, Deni Langman, Melissa Lucashenko, Jeff McMullen, PM Newton, Christine Olsen, Bruce Pascoe, Nicole Watson, Samuel Wagan Watson, Rachel Willika, Alexis Wright, Yalmay Yunipingu and Arnold Zable.

The Intervention: an anthology will be launched by Gillian Triggs in Sydney on 1 July at the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence in Redfern.

Other events include: 9 July at Ashfield Town Hall; 4 August at Charles Darwin University. Events are also being planned in Newcastle, Melbourne and other locations.

The Intervention will be available to purchase online from Booktopia.

This project would not have been possible without the support from WITA (Women Inspired to Action) for crowdfunding, ‘concerned Australians’, the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund, and extensive in-kind support from Curtis Brown, Kirby Brown and Booktopia.

 Yimbama is the second collection by Indigenous Australian poet Ken Canning, also known as Burraga Gutya. Canning is one of the strongest voices in contemporary Indigenous Australian activism. The poems collected here offer an unflinching examination of the lasting damage done to Indigenous Australia by European colonization and the continuing political struggle. As unflinching and uncompromising these poems are in their protest and dissent, love for country, community and tradition remains central. These poems give witness and insight to the reality of contemporary Aboriginal Australia and demand to be heard. There is wisdom here, hard-won, lived and told true.

“In writing I try to cover a diverse range of topics while writing about issues that I have experienced. As an Aboriginal man in my 60’s, I have seen a lot of political deception I have suffered imprisonment and having all dignity stripped away. I have seen our Peoples lost forever in institutions and finally because of this, in later years I was diagnosed with a schzio-efective disorder. I have survived this and live a normal life. Some of my poems reflect my feelings of political treachery, oppression and the mental state this leaves. Yet in the text their remains a love of our Culture and Our Mother Earth. A gentleness survives and overcomes the bitterness. It is important to note that while I am writing about my experiences, I am writing about the First Nations Peoples of this country’s survival against some horrific experiences. In address mental health issues, I was fortunate to be able to write some of these poems while I was ill. I want ALL peoples to know such an illness is not the end and please do not let it define you. I have learned via my wife Cheryl, love overcomes all adversity.” – Burraga Gutya

Ken Canning is from the Kunja Clan of the Bidjara Peoples of South West Queensland. His language name is Burraga Gutya. Poet and playwright, he started writing over 40 years ago from a prison cell in the old Boggo Road Jail in Brisbane, learning how to read and write from a fellow inmate. He worked for many years in Aboriginal Education, and was a founder and former Academic and Cultural advisor at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning.

Yimbama is available from Vagabond Press.