Amanda Tink Amanda Tink i(9786949 works by)
Gender: Female
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Works By

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1 Friday Essay : Blind People Are Often Exhausted by Daily Prejudice – but Being Blind Is ‘inherently Creative’ Amanda Tink , 2023 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 8 December 2023;
1 Henry Lawson and Judith Wright Were Deaf – but They’re Rarely Acknowledged as Disabled Writers. Why Does That Matter? Amanda Tink , Jessica White , 2023 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 3 July 2023;
1 Autistic People Often Feel They’re ‘doing Love Wrong’ – but There’s Another Side of the Story Amanda Tink , 2023 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 24 April 2023;

'“Love has always intrigued me,” writes autistic author Kay Kerr, “in part because I have carried for a long time a feeling that I am doing love wrong.”'

1 Abnormal I Contact Amanda Tink , 2023 single work essay
— Appears in: Science Write Now , no. 8 2023;
1 Black Inc. Has Stumbled with Its Anthology of Neurodivergent Writing. The Term Is Not a Diagnosis – It Is Part of a Political Movement Amanda Tink , 2023 single work essay
— Appears in: The Conversation , 7 March 2023;

'I am blind and autistic. Like many people who grew up experiencing the world differently to mainstream Australians, I was thrilled last Thursday to read Black Inc.’s announcement of a new anthology, to be edited by Osher Gunsberg: “Growing up Neurodivergent in Australia: Call for submissions.”'

1 Les Murray Said His Autism Shaped His Poetry – His Late Poems Offer Insights into His Creative Process Amanda Tink , 2022 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 23 August 2022;
1 ‘Nearly All Deep Fertile Soil’ : Les Murray, His Son and Autism Amanda Tink , 2022 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 37 no. 1 2022;

'‘It Allows a Portrait in Line Scan at Fifteen’ is one of Les Murray’s most well-known poems. It was written in 1993, first published in 1994, and featured in his 1996 book Subhuman Redneck Poems. The poem profiles, but does not name, Murray’s and his wife Valerie Murray’s second son (fourth child) Alexander, who, at three, was medically diagnosed as autistic. Both because the poem is Murray’s portrait of his son, and because it was Alexander’s autism diagnosis that prompted Murray’s full recognition of his own autism, this poem is also inherently as much about Murray as it is about Alexander. It explores not only their relationship as parent and child, but each of their relationships with autism, and how their shared autistic love of words, movies, and portraits deepens these relationships.' (Publication abstract)

1 'If You're Different Are You the Same? : The Nazi Genocide of Disabled People and Les Murray's Fredy Neptune Amanda Tink , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Genocide Perspectives VI : The Process and Personal Cost of Genocide 2020; (p. 69-86)

'Murray explicitly centred his thesis on the roots of genocide in his second verse novel Fredy Neptune, which he wrote between 1993 and 1997. The book is the first person narrative of Fredy Boettcher, beginning in 1914 when he is 19-years-old, and covering the next 35 years of his life. Fredy is an autistic Australian man with German parents, who acquires a physical impairment when he is 20 as a result of witnessing mass murder during the Armenian Genocide. The novel also features a significant minor character called Hans, an intellec-tually impaired young man whom Fredy kidnaps in 1933 from Germany and brings back to Australia, so that Hans will not be forcibly sterilised by the Nazis. This paper identifies and explores the arguments advocated in Fredy Neptune with respect to the genocide of disabled people.' (p.72)

1 A History of Reading : Alan Marshall and Helen Keller Amanda Tink , 2019 single work essay
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , May 2019; Second City : Essays from Western Sydney 2021;

'On 9 May 1933, the day before the Nazis burned her book as part of their action against books of ‘un-German spirit’, Helen Keller wrote an open letter to them, which was published on the front page of the New York Times. ’You can burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe,’ she said, ‘but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels and will continue to quicken other minds.’ Today, if Helen Keller is thought of at all, it’s as the blind and deaf girl who, through the efforts of her teacher, learned to communicate. There’s scant acknowledgement that she was even capable of having ideas, and she’s often reduced to nothing more than testament to the ideas of others. However, Keller not only spoke, but read and wrote four languages, and was a prolific poet and essayist. The ideas that led to the Nazis burning her book Out of the Dark were contained in the essay ‘Why I Became a Socialist’.' (Introduction)

1 Deafness : A Key to Lawson’s Writing Amanda Tink , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 76 no. 2 2017; (p. 141-154)
'Since Henry Lawson became deaf at the age of fourteen six years before he was first published, his experience of impairment and disability profoundly affected both the style and the content of his writing. This is something he was well aware of. In a Fragment of Autobiography he wrote that his deafness was ' a thing which was to cloud my whole life, to drive me into myself, and to be, perhaps, in a great measure responsible for my writing' (Roderick 185) Reading his writing with this in mind, it's clear that he meant not simply that his deafness was the reason he put pen to paper, but that it influenced his word choices, themes, perspectives, and techniques. ' (Introduction)
1 Missing Pieces Amanda Tink , 2016 single work short story
— Appears in: Seizure [Online] , May 2016;

The author relates how she came to have an acquired brain injury, which resulted in memory loss. She recounts her experiences with paraphasia and anomia, among other language and memory output errors, and explains how her profound blindness has conflicted with most conventional advice on how to manage these issues.

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