Please be aware that BlackWords contains images and information about people who have died.
Users are advised that AustLit contains information that may be culturally sensitive, including images of deceased persons. In addition, as a database that records information about Australian culture and history, AustLit, and the BlackWords material housed within it, contains terminology that reflects attitudes or language used at the time of publication that would be considered inappropriate today. See below for translations of the welcome words.
Over 6,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers and 17,000 Works Recorded
BlackWords records information about the lives, careers, and works of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and storytellers and the literary cultures and traditions that formed and influenced them.
BlackWords is a vitally important part of the work the AustLit team does in delivering information and carefully curated content about storytelling in Australia.
The most comprehensive record of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander publications available.
BlackWords covers all forms of creative writing, plus film, television, criticism and scholarship, both by and about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and literary and storytelling cultures.
Explore BlackWords through the many links from this page and the menu options.
We welcome updates from authors, publishers, and others. Please contact us if you can help ensure that BlackWords is up-to-date and comprehensive.
In BlackWords this means material created by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and storytellers. All Indigenous writers and storytellers are identified as either Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander on their author records. In many cases they are also identified with one or more cultural heritage. We only ever record information about cultural heritage when it is available in the public record.
We also record details of works that contain stories or oral narratives that relate to relevant aspects of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experience such as mission histories, some works of anthropology, educational texts, journals and correspondence, which might not be included in the broader AustLit scope, but which are relevant to BlackWords.
In BlackWords, ‘Black’ refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and storytellers. While the word ‘Black’ has historically been used negatively against the Indigenous peoples of Australia, in recent times it has been reclaimed by Indigenous communities, and used in preference to terms such as ‘Aboriginal’ and ‘Indigenous’, which are viewed as colonisers’ terms.
For background on working with Indigenous writers and subject matter, the following protocols, written for the Australia Council for the Arts by eminent Indigenous intellectual property lawyers Terri Janke and Robynne Quiggin, are provided courtesy of the Council. (Please note, these files are large PDFs and may take a moment to download.)
— Writing
— Music
Queensland
(Information from: Australian Aboriginal Words : Aboriginal-English; English-Aboriginal Compiled by Rex Ingamells. Melbourne: Hallcraft, 1955.)
(All information from: Vocabularies of Four Representative Tribes of South Eastern Queensland (Brisbane, Qld: Royal Geographical Society of Australia, [195-].)
(Information from: A Description of the Yugumbir Dialect of Bandjalang M.C. Cunningham. St. Lucia : University of Queensland Press, 1969.)
South Australia
(All Information courtesy of Guy Tunstill, Project Officer, Aboriginal Languages at the Department of Education and Children's Services.)
Tasmania
Western Australia
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Notice – For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page, where the full conditions of this license are explained.
BlackWords is a separately published work within AustLit.
AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource 2004-
Cataloguing-in-Publication Details
BlackWords: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers and Storytellers
Bibliography.
Biographical index.
Includes index.
ISBN 0 9750867 7 4.
1. Australian literature - Bibliography.
2. Australian writers - History and criticism - Bibliography.
3. Indigenous Australian literature - Bibliography.
4. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers - In literature - Bibliography.
I. AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource.
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