Kambarang Writers Day

The First Nations Write Night community meets monthly at the Centre for Stories in Northbridge Western Australia. For the first time, we met for a longer writing session on Saturday 11 November 2023. Mabel Gibson, our guest author, shared about her writing and storytelling journey and then read a piece she had recently finished, entitled Kambarang Season. In this she reflects on post-referendum life in Boorloo (Perth). We then had the opportunity to write a piece in response to Mabel's - you will read many of these responses here. Over lunch, we talked about the forms and genres we enjoy working in, about opportunities available to emerging and established writers, and about family and Country. To finish the day, we wrote independently for an extended time and then shared readings of our work. Gathering together was a powerful experience. 

First Nations Write Night Facilitator, Casey Mulder

— —

Kambarang Season

Mabel Gibson

Spring 2023

It was just about to be jacaranda season. My partner and I were almost homeless, living in the back of his brother's half destroyed rental. The spring was as hot as last summer had been and I had this feeling that by February, Australians might be extinct. I could see all the warnings and headlines they’d feed us through our tiny screens in our hands, that we’d better get out while we can. All of the white men with their wives and children and great big Australian pride would flee to new shores to find they weren’t welcomed. But they’d move in anyway like they had before, and they’d steal all the houses and children. They’d drown out the cries and the pleas and the voices of the people that lived there before. Now the jacarandas are littering their purple confetti all over the streets; it reminds me of snow that I’ve never seen. And all of that purple should make me feel sweet, but I taste the bitterness now. I was betrayed by strangers around me, the grandchildren of murderers and thieves, that I used to live next to in peace. Now I’m feeling silenced on crowded Perth beaches, while they claim the water as theirs. And they speak so loudly wherever they go, that they see no need for our voices.

— —

  • Aftermath

    BARB HOSTALEK

    Toilet paper used right way
    Captures excreta
    From PMs loose hole

    BEYOND
    Get up the Voice rallied mob
    Stand up for the past
    Show up. Mob did. Fail.

  • Stains & Vultures

    KULA-LEE MCKEON

    the weight of the world
    hangs
    heavy
    Cruelty
    stains
    the
    soul.

  • Archival Music

    KATHRYN GLEDHILL-TUCKER

    we try to change the music
    but no one listens to the dj
    we try to dance out of step
    but the rhythm holds
    until the stamps turn into tremors
    into fractures in the pavement

  • Glass Castle

    CASEY MULDER

    Enraged
    We stand together, gawking
    at this glass castle -
    and the illusion of infallibility

    We tap lightly at first,
    then with fists
    A shard
    a crack

  • Oppressors

    MEGAN UGLE

    Your words my dear speak so loudly to me
    As I sit and stare into empty space
    Crowds of happy faces, hardened hearts
    Speaking for us

  • The Majority

    LUISA MITCHELL

    He spoke in a
    self-
    congratulatory tone
    when he said
    (through swilled beer)
    of course
    I’m voting yes
    but

Mabel Gibson is a 24 year old Yamatji woman who grew up in Albany (Kinjarling). In 2018 Mabel attended the University of Western Australia and completed the aboriginal orientation where she was introduced to writing. During the orientation course Mabel wrote 13 pieces of prose, memoir and poetry that ended up being published in “Maar Bidi: Next Generation Black Writing” by Magabala books. Mabel has also been published in all three of Night Parrot Press’ flash fiction anthologies and their upcoming Micro-Memoir anthology. Mabel has sat on various panels at Perth Festival and the UBUD writers and readers festival. Mabel hopes to one day become a publisher with a particular interest in publishing the works of first nations people and breaking through the western standards of writing and publishing.

Casey Mulder is a Ballardong Noongar yorga with Dutch and English heritage. She loves storytelling in all its forms and lives on Whadjuk boodja. Casey works in a variety of education roles, and is also a freelance editor and writer. She facilitates the First Nations Write Night at the Centre for Stories with Luisa Mitchell, and is currently working on a creative non-fiction manuscript with the support of the Centre for Stories, Magabala Books and Australian Indigenous Coffee. Casey is also the First Nations editor for Westerly Magazine and is currently co-editing a Micro Memoir anthology with Night Parrot Press.

This project was possible with generous funding from Spinifex Foundation.