AustLit

My mob is Mununjali from Beaudesert (Yugambeh language, Gold Coast area). I grew up in Brisbane.

Anna Krien’s Into the Woods.

Melissa Lucashenko's Mullumbimby.

That’s a tough one. I will say Larissa Behrendt's Home. A very important book.

Literature builds empathy, expands imagination, takes you to different places. A good book is a good friend. And I never could draw.

When I was six years old, my mother was worried about me as I was a bit of a late developer. It was arranged that my grade one teacher gave me extra lessons at lunchtime. We would read together and one day she encouraged me to write my story. From then, I was hooked. I always had a huge imagination and to be able to transform this into narrative power was amazing. I got serious about writing when I entered my twenties. I gained the confidence to submit writing to places.

I completed a Creative Writing degree at QUT. It was a great foundation. Though finding my own voice, what I wanted to write about, and coming into my own as a writer took a few years after that, and of course I’m still learning. I work as an editor and a lot of people ask me if my daytime profession helps with writing, and I would say it mostly doesn’t. What has helped is that in my role I have met a lot of our incredible writers, like Ali Cobby Eckermann, who are leaders, and I have learnt a great deal in their company.

I want Aboriginal voices to be heard and Aboriginal lives to be represented.

Sometimes I could be writing for my younger self. I want people to feel less alone. I want people to feel less confused.

A good writer will overwhelm you with a story and trick you into believing in other worlds and other people. A good writer also knows how to move language to make your heart skip.

Some of my favourite authors (an exhaustive list) are Louise Erdrich, Jeanette Winterson, Kazuo Ishiguro, Junot Diaz, Melissa Lucashenko, Dorothy Porter, Nike Sulway and Tao Lin.

Louise Erdrich is wonderful.

I build an idea from moving through the world, stumbling through places, country, conversations. These images and feelings bump up against each other and I’ll notetake when I’m on a bus, in a car, or (rudely) talking to people. When I have time to sit down, I’ll get a decent start of a story in a few hours. I’ll write until I burn out. Then I’ll come back the next day and continue and fill in the gaps until I have a full draft.

It can be. As with anything, you can get comfortable writing in the same form about the same thing. I try not to get too comfortable.

Assess why you want to write. If you want to be a published writer, work as hard as you can. Read widely, write as often as you can, seek a community of writers. You need to 'marry' your work, because it will take a long time. If you feel like you have something to tell, we need you.