Cirrus@Austlit

'Proust said that stories give us access to the world and they usher a way in to multiple lives and provide relief from self. As founder and chairperson of a creative writing organisation for children in Perth, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak about A Maze of Story (AMoS), its goals and the way its benefits go beyond what may be gained from a formal education.' (Introduction)

'How did the Literature Centre start? It’s a very long convoluted story. I went to live in Ireland in 1987, when my husband, Bob, was the first professor of Australian History in Dublin. With no working visa and three young children, I decided I would steep myself in Irish Children’s literature. To my horror, I couldn’t find many Irish Children’s Books. There were no libraries in schools, just a little bookshelf at the back of each classroom. There were no children’s bookshops, there were no children’s metro libraries and no teacher librarians. ' (Introduction)

'Many years ago, in fact over fourteen, as a teacher of English, I realised that the poetry my students wrote for assessment remained just that— an assessment task. I read their poem, I judged it, awarded a mark and returned it to the student. Perhaps a parent might read it too, but mostly the poem would be filed away, marked and forgotten. It seemed to me that this part of the English and Literature courses was too valuable to be simply filed away. For many of the students the act of creating a poem caused them to wrangle with words, think about syntax, find pleasure in developing a metaphor, play with alliteration and have something to say that was rich in meaning to them. They found their voice, perhaps hesitant, perhaps shy, quite often angry, but through the complexities that make up poetry they were able to say something that had meaning for them. What was obvious to me was they needed a forum where other people could also read what they had to say, and so value their words.' (Introduction)

Author's note: (this poem is intended to be read as a whole, as well as solely outside the parenthesis, and solely inside of them.)

'There are an infinite number of ways in which we can fail, but very few places where we are encouraged to share, even celebrate, failure as a necessary part of working out what success looks like and how to get there. Teens, and young women in particular, are faced with incredible pressure to aim (and achieve) high levels of success. There is very little room for failure and, in a society that already devalues women’s stories and experiences, this pressure can escalate the fear of failure to a point where young people, especially marginalised young people, become afraid to try, fearful that their efforts have failed even before they’ve begun.' (Introduction)

'There is magic in reading, made possible by writers. Books transport you to a different environment, where worlds emerge and time stands still—or perhaps even leaps forward or steps back. As a young reader with your nose constantly buried in a book, you may remember missing the call for dinner or ‘forgetting’ to finish your algebra homework. As an adult, perhaps finishing the next chapter of Murakami is more important than falling asleep before midnight and sporting dark eyes the next day. The consequences don’t matter. Not then, or now. Because you are a romantic, and believe that stories provide the key to happiness.' (Introduction)

'I don’t love meeting new people. I over-analyse what to wear beforehand, what to say, how to act. I dither at dinner parties, trying to work out where I should sit or whether my table manners are up to scratch. My mum and I regularly bicker about how many chairs I need in my flat—my argument is that if I don’t have many chairs no one will expect me to host anything and that is ideal.' (Introduction)

'It’s always surreal to read through my bio, somewhat like walking through a house you once lived in. The accomplishments feel so structured, almost as if they were expected or prepared for. In truth, the last two years have been an upwards scramble towards goals I never believed I’d achieve. While reading through my professional accolades, I remember crying happy-tears on trains when I received work bookings I’d never expected. I remember being in Oxford and calling my parents to tell them good news, and hearing the silence of their speechlessness. I remember all the messy, shaky times spent scrambling through notebooks. I remember dropping poems on stage, both literally and figuratively. The never-ending learning curves, the hard work, the thoughts of giving up, the burn-out, the homesickness, the hard work, the imposter syndrome, feeling like I had no more stories left to tell. Then getting home at sunrise, not knowing what home meant, the hard work, the blistered fingers from cheap pens, the bizarre nature of strangers knowing my name. And once again, the hard work that I refuse to call ‘luck’.' (Introduction)

'As far as auspicious beginnings go, I can’t imagine ‘I fell into it, completely by accident’ rates particularly high. But there it is, for me, at least. What it lacks in glamour it makes up for in truth. Writing—and writing for theatre, no less—isn’t exactly the kind of creative pursuit that really kicks off the day some hotshot agent spies a pretty face in a crowded street and waves his business card under their nose, so I wouldn’t know where to begin if I chose to embellish.' (Introduction)