AustLit

Bunurong. Tasmania.

Jet, Sled Dog of the North by West Lathrop.

I was shocked to read The Tree of Man [by Patrick White] and to see an Australia I knew. The whole of William Faulkner’s list, he’s a genius. Faulkner creates worlds where you can look back into several generations and you see history happening, not the history of kings and queens but the history of ordinary, flawed people. And he was never afraid to show black people with real personalities and real lives. Oodgeroo. Uncle Jack Davis. When I grew up, there were no Aboriginal novelists.

The Swan Book by Alexis Wright.

The Bible.

Most of Faulkner’s.

Carpentaria by Alexis Wright, Archie Weller’s stories, Am I Black Enough for You? by Anita Heiss, Ruby Moonlight by Ali Cobby Eckermann, Every Secret Thing by Marie Munkara, Judith Wright’s stories [poems], Labourers in the Vineyard by Colin Thiele, Benang: From the Heart and That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott. And mine.

Poems to girls who didn’t know I existed and then poems to girls who knew I did but wished I didn’t. Then I grew up and saw the world and the pain and the courage, hope and joy of ordinary people.

No, I just read and wrote. I really don’t believe in writing classes. After teaching a thousand I could identify who could write and who couldn’t and they were better off leaving class and grabbing a pen. You can learn tricks but you can’t learn the timing and restraint of real storytelling. Read as much as you can.

Well, I’ve always had this compulsion to record people’s honest courage. It gets to me. People tell me a yarn or I’ll see something happen and I can see the backstory and want everyone to see that little glimpse into other ordinary, but profound lives. Our own people are full of story, full of pain and full of hope. Any Black person says they don’t know what to write about … send them to me.

And I do love the craft of writing, the construction, the modulation, seeing the world start to come alive, seeing a character come off the page and into the world and the memory of readers. People often ask me what happened to Jim Fox, or Eartha or Alf and I love the fact that we then share those stories … almost like they were alive. Which is why you should aim to write complex characters.

Readers. There’s always a Black reader in front of me who tests every sentence. There are a few real Black readers who are kind enough to screen my work. They are really important to me, as are the people who give me their stories and allow me to write them.

Equal measures of compassion, craft and pride … and very good listening ability.

Faulkner obviously but also my father and uncles and aunts who were brilliant in their ability to craft their oral stories with humour, timing, pathos, riveting yarns and a love of people … and the ridiculous. No-one has ever gone close, as a storyteller, to my father and Aunty Faith.

I think I’m a natural storyteller. It was never my intention to write non-fiction but I had to because ‘a white man would never do it’ (to quote Kevin Gilbert). I’m writing films now, too, with the enormous support of some brilliant Sydney women. Talk about sacrifice. They stop their own work to help others … no greater love than to work for your people. Hope people notice what they do.

Frank Hardy said to always stop each day at a point where you know exactly what comes next so that next morning you can sit down and start straight away. Mum said work hard or the welfare will get you … nah gamin’.

Have no regard for money. Learn to support yourself so you can write. Don’t expect someone else to pay for your habit, you’re doing it for love, aren’t you? Have a really high tolerance to disappointment because getting published once is difficult, twice is bloody hard and more than that and strips of skin will be hanging off you. Be brave, patient and humble without losing pride in your own ability.