On behalf of the Black Words team I'd like to welcome Sam Faulkner and Jeanine Leane who join us via a new partnership with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) in Canberra. We are thrilled that AIATSIS will be part of the future development and further evolution of Black Words, with an immediate focus on building up content on Torres Strait Islander writers and storytellers and oral history material.

I'd also like to wish everyone a deadly summer break, whatever you celebrate, and I hope you have some fabulous reading time. Stuck for something to read? Then perhaps check out any one of our 3500 writers and storytellers now indexed into Black Words! Sounds impressive, doesn't it!?

- Yaritji Green

Jake Milroy, Black Worder from UWA, stepping out in Western Australia ... Last month I attended the launch of 'Good Lovin'' - a play by David Milroy which toured the Gold Fields till 4 December. The launch included a welcome to country by Dr. Richard Walley. 'Good Lovin'' takes a fresh look at promoting sexual health between teenage Indigenous people and aims to reach many young people with its use of music and humour that young people can relate to.

Jake also found the time to see ... 'Burning Daylight' a play by the company Marrugeku which combines contemporary Indigenous dance with theatre, live music and screen based media. 'Burning Daylight' showcases the history of Broome's Aboriginal, Malay, Japanese, Indonesian and Chinese communities through some visually spectacular performances of theatre, song and dance.

From the desk of Anita Heiss... Both Jake Milroy (UWA) and I gave a successful workshop on Black Words to Yamatji Elders and community members at the Big Sky festival in Geraldton in September. I followed that event up with a workshop for Noongar storytellers down in Albany. And let me tell you, there are definitely some stories to be told there!

Black Words made a huge hit this year internationally when presented to European academics at the EASA Conference in Palma, Mallorca. Those in attendance were excited to hear about Black Words and how Indigenous writers have contributed to Australian literature over the past decade.

I was thrilled to be a presenter at this year's 15th Annual Deadly Awards at the Sydney Opera House on 15 October. I presented the award for ARIA Song of the Year to Jessica Mauboy! Also there on the night was Lorraine McGee-Sippel who took out the award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Literature for her autobiography Hey Mum, What's a Half-Caste?

From the desk of Elizabeth Hodgson ... On a recent visit to the National Library of Australia in Canberra (NLA), I came across a newly published book Creative Lives: Personal Papers of Australian Writers and Artists. Being a creative writer, of course I just had to buy it. It's not an everyday-biographical look at writers but it showcases the manuscripts and personal papers held by the NLA of some of Australia's best writers.

From the desk of Jake Milroy ... In the November issue of the Westerly 54:2 readers will find a creative piece that I have written titled Up a Ladder : Black Words and Me where I talk about getting back into education and some of the interesting works in Black Words I have read.

I also hosted a Black Words stall and gave a brief talk at the Indigenous Studies, Indigenous Knowledge (ISIK) Conference 2009 in Fremantle.

From the desk of Janine Dunleavy ... This year at the Brisbane Writers Festival, I was privileged to hear a reading by Marie Munkara, the winner of the 2008 Unaipon Award, from her newly published book, Every Secret Thing. Recently the volume crossed my desk and indexing the contents proved to be the best laugh I have had in a long time. Woven among Munkara's skilful and witty tales of the meeting between the 'bush mob' and the 'mission mob' is a serious exploration of cultural and religious dominance. Although light-hearted, Munkara's fictional stories also offer up a challenge to established views of the trans-generational effects of the mission era.

From the desks of Jeanine Leane and Sam Faulkner ... both of whom are members of a women's writing group, Writing Us Women. The writing group, funded by a grant from the ACT Office for Women, is led by Jennifer Martiniello. Meetings have been one night a week for the past four months. The group has been meeting once a night every week for the past four months to write poetry, prose and short stories.

The writers are contributing to an Anthology of Indigenous Women's Writing, which is scheduled for a launch near International Women's Day, 8 March 2010.

In November, Jeanine presented a paper at the University of Reims, France. The theme of the conference was 'Representing the People' and Jeanine's paper critiqued the way non-Aboriginal writers (Katharine Prichard, Patrick White and David Malouf) represent Aboriginality in their narratives. The paper from this presentation will be published in the University journal Images in March 2010. Conference discussion centred around minority groups, ethnicity, historical and literary representations and legacies of representation.

Jeanine also presented a paper at the Indigenous Studies Indigenous Knowledge Conference in Fremantle. This paper looked at issues involved in communicating Indigenous images by Indigenous people to non-Indigenous students, in core units of Education and/or Health degrees.

From the desk of Yaritji Green ... I have just completed the Indigenous Leadership Course at the Australian Indigenous Leadership Centre, in Canberra. I was one of fifteen Indigenous Australians sponsored by the National Australia Bank (NAB). The NAB created these opportunities as a part of their Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) which was launched on 1 December 2008. The project I did for the Leadership course was spending a day with the Yankunytjatjara youth at Flinders University, touring the campus and the libraries. We also spent time on Black Words looking up relatives who are writers and storytellers.

Anita is currently awaiting the release of her next chick-lit novel Manhattan Dreaming due for release through Random House in March 2010. Meanwhile, she continues to work on her second kids' novel set in La Perouse following the adventures of Yirra and Her Deadly Dog, Demon. The title is part of an educational package of books and other resources developed by Laguna Bay Publishing

In South Australia ... May Gibbs 2011 creative time fellowships open for applications in March 2010 .... In Western Australia ... Launch of the Westerly on 30th November at 4:45 pm Notre Dame University ... Fogarty Foundation is supporting Indigenous literacy 1000 copies of the Waarda series for young readers will be made available to remote Aboriginal communities.