Write Around the Murray

Write Around the Murray 

This morning I gave the opening speech for the 20th anniversary of Write Around the Murray. I was so honoured. I spoke of the way my parents and I would make up stories while I was having creams applied, my time reading books in the Mobile Library, discovering the internet in the school library and my work experience at the local TV station, radio station and newspaper. I also talked about disabled writers on the Border.

Councillor Kylie King was there – we had a lovely chat about my time doing work experience while she hosted the news at Prime. I chatted to Mitch Oates, whose book A Dash of Adventure I’ll launch at Write Around the Murray on Sunday, and I met David Thurley who has started Readings Dogs – his dog Daisy goes into schools, and reluctant readers can read to the dogs. I also met Andrew Daddo who reminded me that we met before while queuing for the plane – Andrew was making a room full of 100 kids laugh. I did four media interviews – to all the news outlets I did work experience at, plus the ABC Radio. And my school librarian Mrs Keys was there! It was so fun. Thanks to Aimee Chan and the team for all of the hard work you’ve put in. I can’t wait for the upcoming events.

Write Around the Murray is on until 13 September. I’m speaking at the censorship panel on Friday night and launching A Dash of Adventure at Wambledon on Sunday. Come play!

Here is my speech:

I live on Wurundjeri Country in Naarm. We are meeting today on the Wiradjuri. I’d like to pay my respects to Aboriginal  elders past and present, thanking them for taking care of the land, air and waterways since the beginning of time. As a writer and arts worker, who’s a guest on Aboriginal land, I give thanks to Aboriginal people who have been telling stories and making art on this land. I always like to give a shoutout to Aboriginal writers – and I recommend you read books by Lisa Fuller, Claire G Coleman and Mitch Tambo, who will be at Write Around The Murray this week. Go buy and borrow their books from bookshops and libraries. 

For those who might be blind and have low vision in the audience today, I’ll describe myself. I am a woman with a red face and short dark curly hair, wearing a navy dress with colourful flowers on it, and pink boots.

Thank you for having me at Write Around the Murray. Happy 20 years to the festival. How wonderful that this festival makes reading and writing accessible to residents from Albury Wodonga and surrounds. 

I am a writer, speaker, arts worker and appearance activist. I communicate what it’s like to look different, advocate for disability rights, and raise the profile of ovarian cancer – because there’s no early detection test. I enjoy fashion, travel, cooking and eating, the arts. I’m a lifelong savage garden fan and I’ve never met a cheese I don’t like. 

I’m a former Albury local. I was born at the Mercy Hospital and grew up near Albury – in Walla Walla and then Gerogery West. 

Growing up was challenging. I have a rare severe skin condition that means my skin is itchy, painful and susceptible to infections. It is also socially challenging – I have endured a lot of teasing, exclusion, isolation and discrimination – especially at school. I also spent a lot of time in hospital, and in the library. It is a very sporty area, and I was either too sore or it was too hot for me to do sport. So instead I’d read books, and write. For me, books were an escape to a world where we all belong, to quote  Savage Garden.

Some of my earliest memories are of when I was really little, and Mum and Dad would make up stories while they bathed me, and did my creams and scalp. Stories about Marmaduke and Joe in their lorry, and Tippy the Elf who lived in our garden. I had a book called A walk in the bush – it had fold out pages, and we’d lay it on the floor, walking along the pages, looking for the animals and plants. It genuinely might have been the only way I enjoyed the outdoors as a kid. 

My aunty Diane and Nanny would send me audio tapes of Road Dahl reading his books – George’s Marvellous Medicine and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I adored The Babysitters Club and ordered a book each month from the Schoastic Book Club at school. I often wonder how Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, Maryanne, Dawn, Mallory and Jessie are now – how are they doing through menopause.

When we were in Walla, the Mobile Library would park across the road from our house once a eeek. It was a book truck. I would spend hours after school reading books, talking to the librarians, and choosing books to take home. The Little House on the Prairie, Milly Molly Mandy, books by Gretel Killeen and Margaret Mahey were my faves. 

When I was in hospital, Mum would buy me books.  

Morris Glietzman came to the hospital once, and while I was too unwell to see him, Mum bought me his book – Two Weeks with the Queen. I read many of his books. A few years back, I was asked to fill in for Morris on a panel at Bendigo Writers Festival, and I sent him an email wishing him well, telling him I was a big fan of his as a kid. 

And at high school, I spent so much time in the library, without friends and instead of doing sport and PE. I once found an incredibly beautiful cookbook – it was a vegetarian cookbook. I took it home and told my parents I was vegetarian. A couple of years later Mum was cooking lamb cutlets and I was back to eating meat. When the internet arrived in Australia in the mid 90s, I was excitedly looking up Savage  Garden on Ask Jeeves, but my school librarian encouraged me to look up Ichthyosis – and find other people with my skin condition. And forwards the end of high school, I listened to Silverchair on my discman, while writing a lot of  miserable poetry. 

My media career started when I did work experience at Prime TV in 1997. It was the day after Princess Diana died, and I remember us racing the Win TV reporting team to the Council chambers to talk to someone who was the Mayor during Diana’s visit to the Border in the early 80s. I then did work experience at B104.9. Most of my time was spent organising the prize cupboard, I was grateful for some extra Savage Garden CDs. And then I went on to The Border Mail, where I wrote a story about the death of a corner store, and verified the writers of letters to the editor. I had some quaint photos taken in the botanical gardens. I’ve since been featured in The Border, and my own writing has published too. They come times use those photos from 1998, where I look like I was on the set of Anne of Green Gables. 

Since those work experience stints, I’ve written for the media – for news outlets including the ABC, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, CNN, Vogue, Frankie Magazine, Peppermint, The Saturday Paper and more. I’ve also been on You Can’t Ask That,  The Drum, The Project, The Cook Up, and various ABC radio programs and lots of podcasts. I’ve also published two books – Say Hello and Growing Up Disabled in Australia, and have contributed to Growing Up African in Australia, Crip Stories, Owning It and Digital Accessibility Ethics – to name a few. I write to improve the representation of Ichthyosis, disability and facial difference in literature and media. I write to be seen and heard, and to process my feelings. And now when someone googles Ichthyosis, they’ll find me. 

Back when I was borrowing books from the Mobile Library, there was no disability representation. But things have changed now – there are so many books by disabled people. I’ve also learnt so much and there’s a real community among us writers. Some disabled writers to follow: Anna Whateley, Kate Foster, Skye Cusack, Melanie Saward, Gayle Kennedy, Fi Murphy, Sam Drummond, Eliza Hull and more. Own voices in books is so important, because by us telling our stories, we shape the way disability is represented and perceived. 

We are lucky to have some disabled writers and illustrators on The Border. Eliza Ault Connell – Paralympian and author, Pinky Wittingslow, Mitch Oates and Eliza Hull. Last month I was at Parliament House, doing some consultancy with a finance org. How odd, I do words, not numbers. As I was waiting to be signed in, a familiar person walked past. It was Eliza Hull – writer of Come Over to My House and the World We Can Build, editor of We’ve Got This – Stories of disabled parenting, musician, disability advocate, fellow order of Australia. And an Albury Wodonga local. We laughed that two disabled creatives from this area were at Parliament House on the same day. 

I’m also keen to launch Julie Williams and Mitch Oates’ book launch on Sunday. It’s called A Dash of Adventure disability is incidental in this book – Millie and Dash have lots of fun. And maybe I’ll play some sport too. Mitch Oates will be at the launch – his brilliant kids book is being launched at WAMbledon on Sunday.

I don’t have it on today but I had a custom brooch made – a typewriter that said read books by disabled writers. Books – and libraries – are so important. They are an escape for people who feel alone, and allow marginalised people like me to see ourselves. They’ve changed my life – and they will change yours too. Thank you. 

Images: 1. Carly and Kylie King. 2. Carly and Mitch Oates. 3. Kylie, Carly and Aimee. 4. David Thurley, Daisy the dog and Carly. 5. Aimee and Carly. 6. Andrew Daddo and Carly. 7. Mrs Keys and Carly. 8. Carly next to a shelf of books – Growing Up Disabled in Australia and Say Hello. 9-10. A giant book celebrating Write Around the Murray.