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 holeBEYOND
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.