Storytelling is a significant way of growing a community, of building up accomplices and solidarity, and whilst it is through information we might come to know, it is through storying we might come to understand.
We have seen time and time again, but especially during this global pandemic, the immense value of storytelling. And how fitting it is that we would come together for an event such as this, in a time such as now, on the lands of the oldest continuous cultures of the world. Receiving a prize such as the Stella creates space and time for an author, and is a gift to those of us who may then benefit from their story – it reminds us to question, what does the story of our own lives, and that which we consume, read like? It prompts us to consider the power of asking whose story are we listening to?
I would invite everyone viewing this event to be conscious of your power to disrupt and effect change. Our worlds, figurative, literal, physical, emotional, are made up of billions of small decisions, and battles, and stories. So consider disrupting. Disrupt your boardrooms. Disrupt your bookshelves. Disrupt a culture which devalues creativity and storytelling. Engage in conscious curation and citation, and invest in the artists, authors, and writers who are waiting to blow us away.
I am currently writing my thesis, whilst also writing my first book Tell Me Again, a series of stories from my own childhood which will be published with UQP in 2022. It was just before Covid-19 hit that initial discussions with my publisher began, and in the midst of the pandemic and lock down I signed my book contract. 2020 was a year of deep reflection for many of us, and for me forced lock down became a period of evaluating and re-evaluating dreams, goals, and desires. I was stuck in one place, thinking about going forward, and it had me looking back, reflecting on where I had come from, and where as a kid I had hoped to one day be. I grew up poor, I am first in family to be able to finish high school, and growing up I didn’t even know what an academic was, let alone have the capacity of dreaming of becoming one. But I grew up under a mother who used our linen closet to store her hundreds of books, and a father who kept a small library next to the toilet. Through their role modelling and the excellent escape that books provide I became a passionate reader who often dreamed of one day being a published author.
There is power in story, and in telling mine and ours I hope to humanise that which is too often dehumanised and highlight that which is too often erased.
In the spirit of sharing our stories, honouring those who are storytellers and have the courage to write, and of learning from one another, I would like to end by reading a short extract from the introduction of my book, titled ‘Value’. This piece reflects on the power of family, love and community when growing up in my household, which, from the outside, might have been judged and spoken of as being ‘broken’ or ‘dysfunctional’. In a world where myself and my family as Indigenous peoples, as people living in poverty, as incarcerated people, and as people struggling with addiction, may have been considered voiceless, I assert that we have and always had voice, it is really just a matter of whether or not people are willing to listen and hear what it is we might have to say.
Excerpt from Amy’s forthcoming collection of personal essays, Tell Me Again
You will be told that a person’s worth is either whole or non-existent. That a nature, an existence, is singular. But lives and hearts and characters are multifaceted, and while it would perhaps be most comforting for me to say that I only learnt what not to do through this home, and these parents, that would be unfair and dishonest. The same people who in clear ways failed me, who struggled with their addiction, only to repeatedly succumb, also built me up and taught me the lessons and qualities which have led to my success. I am of them.
I was the worst kind of child for people with these struggles, I never understood when to keep quiet, I regularly did my best to sabotage the acts I disagreed with, hiding, ripping up, and flushing. I had demands, the demands of childhood and growth, and I made them of people already in a state of overwhelm. In the midst of the fights they were bound to fight through choices they did and did not make, they tried, and they tried consistently.
A note written before the sun came up, I see you in my 12 year old mind’s eye as I hold the scrap of paper in my hand, marked with the rim of your coffee cup. You sat here and wrote this to me, while having coffee, packing the esky and leaving for work, time looped to speak in handwriting what time and face wouldn’t allow to be uttered.
‘It is better to die standing, than to live life on your knees’
And so, although you struggled, and we struggled as a family, you wrote these lessons on paper, in my heart, in my mind, and I was blessed to be born into a family and community ancient and filled with love even amidst brokenness. There is power in story, and in telling mine and ours I hope to humanise that which is too often dehumanised and highlight that which is too often erased. There is hope, but even without change, a person’s value is inherent.
This is an edited version of the keynote presented by Gamilaroi women, writer and academic, Amy Thunig, at the broadcast event announcing the 2021 winner of The Stella Prize for women’s writing. Amy’s first book Tell Me Again will be published by UQP in 2022.
The 2021 Stella Prize was awarded to Evie Wyld for her book The Bass Rock.
