WEBVTT - Read This: Nardi Simpson Is Breaking Her Own Rules 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:03.600 This episode includes a discussion of Indigenous people who are 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:07.600 now deceased. Please take care while listening. Hey there, it's 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:11.120 Ruby Jones. All week, we're sharing our favorite episodes from 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:14.520 our sister podcast, Read This. It's the show where every episode, 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:18.000 the editor of the Monthly and book fiend, Michael Williams 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:22.759 talks to another incredible writer. Today we're hearing from you 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:30.680 all away, musician and writer Narti Simpson. Michael Williams joins me. Now, Hi, Michael, 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:35.320 Hi Ruby. So Michael, from what I heard Nati Simpson's 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.560 debut novel, it made quite a big impression. 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:41.040 On you, It really did. Ruby. It came out back 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:43.680 in twenty twenty and I read it, I think during 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.280 COVID Lockdown, and it was just one of those ones 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:50.040 when a debut comes along and you think this is 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:52.840 a writer who I will follow through their career now, 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:56.720 you know, like I just trust them completely, and this 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.880 was one. It's doubly exciting when it's an Australian voice, 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:03.760 and Nadi Simpson is fantastic. People might know she's part 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.040 of an acoustic duo called the Stiff Jins, and I'd 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:09.560 listened to their music for years, but as talented as 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.200 she is as a musician, she is doubly trebly so 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:15.160 when it comes to her writing. It's a book about 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:19.039 intergenerational injustice. There's a lot of grief and sorrow in there, 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:24.600 but actually overwhelmingly it's this big, loving story. It's incredibly 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:28.319 beautiful and her origins as a musician are clear in 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.600 the way she writes is kind of beautiful, writing like. 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:36.280 Poetic And before this conversation, before this book, you actually 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:39.039 booked Nadi for the City Writers Festival, didn't you. 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:42.400 Yeah, I before I was at the monthly. I was 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:45.160 artistic director of Sydney Writers Festival for a couple of 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:47.000 years and so one of the things I was able 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.800 to do back in twenty twenty one was asked Nati 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:53.240 Simpson to be part of our opening night lineup and 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.480 she spoke incredibly. Everything that made me already a fan 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:58.560 of her work was there. But part of what she 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:02.360 talked about was in the past being invited to Sydney Writers' 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:07.560 festivals to play music or to give an acknowledgment of country, 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:09.840 but not as a writer in her own right. She 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:12.440 talked about standing in the wings watching these big international 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:14.880 writers go out and talk about their work, and she thought, 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:17.520 you know what, I am going to go out there 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:19.520 one day and I'm going to do that myself. And 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.760 she did, and as a writer, she really earned her 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:26.280 place on that stage and continues to her new books 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.520 called The Bell Bird and as a follow up to 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.400 a debut that I loved so much. It's every bit 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.280 is exciting and shows that she's the writer to watch. 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:38.440 And when you. 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.280 First met her, I believe you met her husband as well, 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.360 and I wanted to ask you about what he said 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:46.960 to you. Who he said that you reminded him of. 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:50.160 Yeah, no good, thanks true. I really appreciate that. On 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.000 an excellent thing to bring up. Her husband's name is George. 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.880 George is a lovely man, but he's also an idiot. 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:01.239 He followed me around the party at the festival incessantly 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.120 calling me Jack Black and shouting Jack Black across the 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.359 drinks function. So that was fun. Big hello to George. 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:11.880 What a superstar of all the celebrities to be compared to, 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.720 I'm just relieved I never heard of Zach glaphanarkus, I've got. 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:16.120 Away with it. 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:21.040 Michael Williams. Michael Williams, the one and Only Michael Williams, 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:22.239 Thank you so much for your time. 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:24.160 Absolute pleasure. 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:30.079 Coming up in just a moment. Nardi Simpson is breaking 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:31.200 her own rules. 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.280 I think maybe I would like to start with the 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:43.080 things you learned from some of the Crocodile that from 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:44.840 the start with the Bell Bird you knew that you 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:47.600 wanted to do differently or you wanted to build. 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:50.880 A I wrote a list of things I was not 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:55.560 going to do for this book, and so then did 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:58.920 not write a thing for a year because I you know, 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:00.840 it was all up in my head. I was talking 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:05.440 with somebody about this a matter of minutes ago. The 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:09.960 more you think about it, the more you constrict yourself 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:15.920 and the feeling. It's about feeling, writing feeling. So I did. 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:18.200 I had a page of things I didn't want to do, 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:22.320 which were, you know, things like I didn't want long 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:28.920 flowing sentences, and I didn't want creator beings and all 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:31.440 the things that I'm probably good at, you know, trying 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:36.520 to think my way through what I wanted to be 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.520 rather than being who I am. And once I broke 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:44.240 every one of those rules, once it became you know, 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.360 I got to write something here that's gold. I've gone 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:51.000 long enough not writing I need to start, and I 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:57.479 started breaking my rules and that was the beginning point 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:04.200 for an evolving story that was a negotiation between who 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:07.240 I wanted to be and what I actually was. And 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:09.720 you know, the Bell Bird was a kind of a 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.080 spilling out of who I wanted to be and what 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:16.960 I didn't want to do and where I actually was. 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:19.360 That's the best way for me to talk about it. 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.919 Did you have a similar list before Song under Crocodile 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:24.800 or for that? It was much more organic. 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.320 It was organic. What I was trying to prove to 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:32.320 myself there was that I could do more than just music. 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:34.960 I was trying to prove to myself I was more 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.320 than a musician. And of course I got to a 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:40.760 stage in Song of the Crocodile where I was stuck 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.760 and beautiful Grace Lucas Pennington, who was helping me through 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:49.160 the black and white experience, asked me to bring forward 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:52.480 my musicality because I was stuck on something and I said, 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.200 it's not working. You know, I'm getting so frustrated. She said, Naughtie, 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:56.680 what if I was to say to you as the 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:02.839 music in this stanza, so that's not a restriction anymore. 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:05.160 I can actually she's asking me to bring forward who 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:09.400 I am. So you know, it's sort of like history repeating. 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.520 I made the hurdle at the beginning of the second 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:17.560 book and jumped over it myself and worked out that, 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:24.560 you know, just don't restrict yourself because of a creative 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:29.040 idea needs to flow. Yeah, and the point for thinking 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:34.640 and constructing things will come later, usually with an editor, 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:37.760 and they will help you get over yourself. 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.000 Get over yourself, but also like trust yourself as well, 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:43.839 like not just get over yourself, but give over to 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:48.200 your own instincts, give over to your own individual qualities 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.440 that you bring to the story, to the writing, because 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:55.280 it sounds like you in different ways. Both times were 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:57.640 caught up in an idea of what you should be 0:06:57.760 --> 0:06:59.880 doing or what it should look like to be a writer, 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:02.279 rather than what it felt natural to you. 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:06.919 Yes, and also this kind of idea of what is 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:13.400 valuable to bring forward to somebody. I'm still trying to 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:18.000 work out what it is I can give in a 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:20.800 written form, because for me music, you know, I know 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:25.120 that I want to share a feeling, and then I 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.920 think when I pick up a pen on sharing a thought, 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:33.080 and I struggle with, well, what's the tangible walk away 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.680 my hands, moving, feeling, grabbing thing that I can give 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:44.520 to somebody. And I still haven't worked out the language 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:48.640 of the exchange in a book because it's so insular 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:54.760 and so singular. Even though I do it to make 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:59.920 somebody feel, I still haven't quite figured out how to 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:04.280 channel creative thought through my body into another body. 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:10.000 Yeah, in terms of different expressions of creativity, how much 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.360 this is someone who's clearly not a musician asking this question. 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.200 So I may be revealing deep reserves of ignorance. I'm 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:20.680 sure I am. But it feels to me like there's 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:24.840 something weirdly more of a tangible object in words on 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:29.080 a page than there is in a piece of music. 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:34.440 There's something about something printed on paper that feels like 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:38.080 it belongs to a different tradition where you're held to 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:39.720 account on it for much longer. 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.960 It's there, solid, and it doesn't disappear, it doesn't kind 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:48.439 of go into the ether that it doesn't exist as 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:49.040 a memory. 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.120 Yeah, like a great piece of music, you're like, oh, 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.120 I was in the room and saw that performed, and 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:56.120 it was the most beautiful thing and I can't quite 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.760 capture in words, But I have a muscle memory of 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:03.880 what was to be. There a good book that connects 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:05.520 with you. You can go back and pick it up, 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.640 open the page. Yes, you change, you approach it differently, 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.480 but it's still the proof of it is there. 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:17.600 Yeah. I heard somebody talk about the performative artifact, and 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:24.560 that has a really loaded implications for me, being part 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:29.199 of a community that has suffered at the hands of 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:34.560 an archive, and also this idea of a performance versus 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:37.360 practice and all these things. So all this stuff is 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:41.120 swirling around me, and I'm trying to find a way 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:46.840 for I would initially say the river of but you know, 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:50.440 Bellbert is really the wave of the wave of the 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:55.120 tangible and how that anchors you and holds you in 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.800 a place where maybe you want to keep flowing out 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:04.320 and in with greater things. You know. I'm trying to 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.240 sort of work out how to talk about how can 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.840 you be that little bit of sand that moves with 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:13.920 the tide or the rip, knowing that you know, you've 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:17.400 got this big book here that is asking you to 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:23.440 also be that gathered moment. So when I got my 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:27.080 twelve copies of Bell Bird and I thought my dad 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:30.520 was one of eleven, I thought, oh, I could give. 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:33.079 I could have one at home and then give one 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:39.319 to all his siblings. But then, actually that is not 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:43.680 the right gift. Even though it's everything that I it's 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:47.880 all the ways I have grown thanks to them, the 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.959 bestowing of a book is actually a kind of not 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:57.640 the right way to show how they've affected me. And 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:01.520 you know, I think Michael about I didn't want to say, oh, 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:03.720 here's this book because I didn't want to. I didn't 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.880 want to give my aunties and uncles in Waga a 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:12.400 book because I didn't want it to be confronting for them. 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:16.600 But then you know, my cousin, said her Nan, whose 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:20.760 dad's sister, the eldest of the eleven, bought the audio book. 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:24.360 She's gone too now. They would lay on her bed 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:27.800 and listen to me and my words because I read 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:32.760 the audio book, and you know, Auntie, Georgina and Nikola 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:34.840 would sit on the bed and they'd listened to a 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.079 little bit, and then they'd go and do something else. 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:41.839 And I think actually that my words were part of 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:46.120 their relationship. That's the beauty for me. And you know, 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:51.479 as people disappear and dissolve and move into other realities 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:55.640 or whatever, the book is not the thing. The words 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.480 around who we are is a beautiful offering. 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.880 Yeah, Whereas with Song of the Crocodile, you know, it's 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:08.760 very much around your family's country. The bill Bird is 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:13.080 set in and deeply concerned with the country you were 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:15.679 born in and have lived most of your life in, 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:17.360 but not your ancestral country. 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:20.760 It's the salt the salt water shadow. 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:25.320 Yeah, it's clearly a place and country that's shaped You 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.600 explain to me the difference between that and ancestral country 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.040 in terms of what you own, because there are like 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:35.000 for lots of people, they're going to be like, well, 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:37.559 you were born me, you've lived your life there, why 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:39.560 can't you tell the story of that place in the 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:40.080 same way. 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:44.720 For me, it was very I was, oh, part of 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:46.480 the list of things I didn't want to do that 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:54.320 I actually kept was I wanted to use a story 0:12:55.520 --> 0:13:00.760 as a way to uphold somebody else's sovereignty. As you know, 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:07.880 I'm fresh water woman, and I'm informed and colored by that, 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:13.920 and I know the value that that has in my life. 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:16.959 That's not the only way the world works. I get 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:24.400 a lot of cultural spiritual zessed from my mob, as 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:28.400 other people get from theirs. And I live on somebody 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:34.559 else's sacredness, so how can I use language to uphold 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:39.280 their sacredness? And that's what really the Bell Bird was 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:43.280 for me, an exercise, I don't mean to trivialize it, 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:51.680 but a practice in living inside somebody else's sacredness and 0:13:52.679 --> 0:14:00.400 making something that honors me but references them. So the 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:05.480 bell Bird references a little baby, a real baby that 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:11.080 lived for a matter of months in Sydney at the 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:18.439 time of colonization. I am not culturally connected to that 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:27.320 baby or her parents, yet the story of her life 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:32.400 is foundational for me, a foundational teaching and how to 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:39.200 be somewhere that belongs to someone else. 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.080 It's a particularly acute example, and I think you handle 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.720 it really sensitively and really beautifully in the book. It's 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:50.480 the great power of the book is how important that baby, 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:54.880 that little girl is, But how much space you give her, 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.360 how much you kind of walk around her rather than 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.440 directly to her. Because what strikes me is, as you say, 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.880 she's a real historical figure. She had this brief life. 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:11.600 Her parentage was significant in terms of the time and 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:14.240 the place and the figures. But it would be very 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.520 easy to instrumentalize her as a kind of symbol of 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:21.440 something rather than as a living, breathing human being. How 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:24.680 did you get to the human part of her? 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:32.400 I think her breath was sacred, and a sacredness that 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:37.800 is not open to me. But I love to weave 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:43.680 words and feelings, and I think it is an act 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:49.120 of respect to play with everything that was around those 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:51.360 in and outs. 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:57.840 When we return, Natti Shar's why she wants to be 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:00.600 more like the character she's written in this book and 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.720 reveals why it took decades for the stories from her 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:06.960 elders to finally make sense to her. We'll be right back. 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.280 The engine of this novel is a story in the 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:22.520 present day, one that follows a young poet and activist 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:26.600 called Jenny Dilboll. Her name and her power to represent 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:31.280 the possibility of change echoes the novel's historical tale, even 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.960 as the way she moves through the world is decidedly contemporary. 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:40.680 Ginny Dilboom is a character in the book that I 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:43.880 wish I was her. I'm just going to say, I'm 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:47.080 just going to say it, I really wished I was her. 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:51.040 And if I had to explain why she's in there, 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:56.840 she is the promise that that little girl was. You know, 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:01.600 at the time, that little baby was an inheritor of 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:08.040 serious cultural business and also the future of what was 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:12.000 going to happen in this place that we all walk 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:13.680 around on now. She was going to be the boss 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:17.680 of what has happened and what will come. And she 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:22.120 didn't thrive. And so Ginny is my way of bringing 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:27.320 an idea of a young black girl who has the 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:32.720 world at her fingertips. That's why she's in the book, 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:39.600 Genny Dealbong. You know, she's a poet that makes words 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:43.880 and sticks them in buildings, and that's the way that 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:48.600 she colonizes the places that she owns. 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:50.560 I'm not surprised that you wish you were her. I 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:53.080 think i'd defyre anyone to read it and not wish 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.160 that they were. But you seem pretty Genny to that. 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:58.960 What are the elements she has that you long for 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:00.480 in yourself that you don't quiet have. 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.560 Well, she was young and she didn't care about what 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.879 she should do or be, which is where we start today. 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:09.080 There's no way she'd make a list of things she 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:15.440 wasn't going to be. And I think her youthful fierceness 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.000 is something I never had. 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:23.600 She does have the power to be made clearer in 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:27.880 who she is by dickheads instead of them wearing her down, 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:30.679 instead of her being broken by them or feeling like 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:33.760 this isn't a space for me, or I can't write 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.600 my poems, I can't make my art. She instead, in 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:38.639 the face of dickheads again and again, is just like 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.800 n that resolves me in who I want to be. 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:43.920 And that seems pretty admirable. 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:50.159 Yes, and she is alone in doing that. Wow, you 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:52.879 know I need fifty people around me to make me 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:56.160 feel brave enough to do the thing that I want. 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.240 She's by herself, she is you know. I want to say, 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:06.440 a flick or a feather oscillating in the everywhere and 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:13.520 doing a thing without connection. That's powerful. That's strength to 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:20.560 be isolated, maybe, and alone and small in the greatness 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.080 and still have the courage to do what you want. 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:28.879 One of the things I particularly love in this book 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:33.879 is how you write about and capture time. It moves 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:37.080 between two timelines, and there's this and that, but actually 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:41.280 it doesn't. That's not the relationship you have with time 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:44.960 in this book, And that's not the relationship that the 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.520 story you're telling has with time, it loops back on itself. 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.560 It's not this, then this, then this. Can you talk 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:54.959 about how you got the idea of time right for 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:56.040 the purpose of the book. 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:58.800 Yeah, it'd be one of those things I reckon, Michael, 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:01.760 if I thought about it canpletely muck up. And it's 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:07.320 also helped by having these ageless Eels and grandfather Wales 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:12.320 who are really just reflections of people. I know. Yeah, 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:16.480 I know, I know, great whale. I've been taught by 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:20.520 that man. Another fellow who passed away while I was 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:23.879 writing Very important you and man South Coast and New 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.840 South Wales, Uncle Max Harrison. He is a great whale. 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:32.159 He's gone into he's whale dreaming, but while he was 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:37.159 on land he was sharing all those learnings with me. 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:42.040 And so those people are timeless. So if you're lucky 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:47.040 to experience that ageless and it's not mystical and magical, 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:54.200 but it's ancient and ageless in a really complex, tangible way. 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:59.320 I think when I interviewed Melissa Lukashenko about Eden Glassie 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:05.119 is the phrase aboriginal realism, which magic realism. It's not 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:09.120 describing what's going on here. This is aboriginal realism. 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:12.960 Well, you know, it misses the point when people sort 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:18.240 of say that those creator beings are a release. Actually 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:24.200 they're the they're the structure. It's beautiful to be able 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:28.480 to work within that. And you know, I have the 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:31.840 same thing about fiction. What people call fiction is our 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:32.919 reference section. 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:33.359 You know. 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:37.160 That's the way our stories are, the way we need 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:41.280 to be. You can't negotiate, so then we get to 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:45.119 play with those kind of things as well. But I 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:48.639 don't know if I thought about time, i'd get it wrong. 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:52.440 It's just that I know I sit next to ageless 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:57.480 people and get to have their wisdom soak into me, 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:01.640 and it's as my and as you can get. 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:04.320 I think part of what I so love about that 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:08.560 is you sit next to you, don't you know, you 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:11.120 don't come after, you don't have a debt to This 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:13.200 is not something from the part. The whole point of 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:17.439 the agelessness and the timelessness is you sit alongside and 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:20.760 next to you. You're sharing those stories, you're telling them, 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:21.960 you're hearing them. 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:24.480 We're so lucky, you know. And that old man too, 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:27.400 He used to tell a story Uncle Max about when 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:31.720 he was taken by his masters, he calls them, when 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:35.399 he was a young boy. He's taken on a journey 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:37.520 with his masters, and he was told to go and 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:40.000 fill the billy with water and come back and bring 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:43.440 it back. And he would tell this story a lot, 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:46.200 and I never actually got it. He said he'd feel 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:49.439 the billy, take it back to his old pop, who 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:52.320 would kick it over and say no, go again. And 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:55.520 he do this, you know, a few times, and he said, 0:22:55.560 --> 0:22:58.160 I couldn't understand why he kept kicking the water out. 0:22:58.240 --> 0:22:59.639 He asked me to go and feel the billy, and 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:02.240 I did it, and he said so I went down 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:03.880 to the edge of the water, and I thought, what's 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:06.520 this old man trying to teach me? And I just 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:10.520 started playing with the water. And then after a while, 0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:12.240 I thought, I'm just going to try it one more time. 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:14.600 I filled the billy and I put it next to him. 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:18.480 He said good. And that's how he told the story. 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:20.400 And he would tell it the same way every time. 0:23:20.440 --> 0:23:23.840 I thought, what is going I don't get it. I 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:26.000 don't get it. Maybe he's missing a bit or something. 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:29.480 And he passed away and I was thinking about it, 0:23:29.680 --> 0:23:32.280 and then I actually understood what he was trying to 0:23:33.000 --> 0:23:36.280 teachers that don't just take you need to go and 0:23:37.200 --> 0:23:42.600 interact and dream and think that was the water that 0:23:42.680 --> 0:23:48.199 the old fellow wanted. But I think back for the 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:51.000 amount of years that I never understood that story, and 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:52.919 it was just waiting for me. It was waiting for 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:55.840 me in the future, my future me to understand what 0:23:55.960 --> 0:23:59.840 the teaching was. And so it took you know, I 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:03.320 knew him for twenty years. He passed away three years ago. 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:07.359 I only understood it a year ago what he was 0:24:07.400 --> 0:24:09.960 teaching me. But it was waiting for me in the future. 0:24:10.200 --> 0:24:12.720 It was about, you know, when he was a little 0:24:12.720 --> 0:24:15.080 boy seventy years earlier. 0:24:15.760 --> 0:24:20.080 Yeah, it's all all on a continuum, but also at 0:24:20.119 --> 0:24:22.119 the same time letting into itself. 0:24:22.240 --> 0:24:22.440 Yeah. 0:24:23.840 --> 0:24:26.680 How has I mean talk about the list of rules 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:28.720 you had for yourself on the second book and your 0:24:28.800 --> 0:24:30.880 idea about the kind of writer you were, But how 0:24:31.040 --> 0:24:36.480 has having had readers changed the kind of writer you are? 0:24:37.160 --> 0:24:39.120 That sense of people coming back to you with, oh, 0:24:39.160 --> 0:24:40.960 you know what, here's what I took from your book, 0:24:41.080 --> 0:24:43.520 or here's what it meant to me, or here's what 0:24:43.560 --> 0:24:48.040 it awoke in me. Has that surprised you and has 0:24:48.080 --> 0:24:50.760 that changed the way you approach story? 0:24:54.359 --> 0:24:57.560 I feel very it's not grateful there's some other level 0:24:58.000 --> 0:25:02.000 of grateful when people come up that they've read the book, 0:25:02.080 --> 0:25:05.439 or they've thought about things, or I get a bit shame. 0:25:05.520 --> 0:25:10.440 You know, I sit in the shame because I'm so grateful, 0:25:11.760 --> 0:25:16.040 and that's how I interact with it. It's just like I 0:25:16.080 --> 0:25:21.080 am very humble about that. But that's where I stay. 0:25:21.280 --> 0:25:23.919 I'll tell you when I think about audiences while I 0:25:24.000 --> 0:25:28.520 make it, because I put all my energy and hope 0:25:29.000 --> 0:25:33.320 of a connection in the making of it. When I 0:25:33.520 --> 0:25:37.840 do it, when I ask them to unwrap the present, 0:25:37.840 --> 0:25:39.879 and then when they got the present, that's up to them. 0:25:40.240 --> 0:25:42.920