A personal and collective revolution
I have written about community in the past, but it has been Palestine that has thrown me into the deep end of being part of community.
The day after publication of Issue 18, I attended the first meeting of Free Palestine Central Victoria. As someone who has worked exclusively from home for the past three years, tends toward solitude and introversion, and is fiercely independent, it has been a steep learning curve. We, an eclectic bunch of locals to Castlemaine, have harnessed the power of our collective rage and grief to stand up this grass roots group and coordinate speakers, fundraising, and a weekly space for activism. We have held four rallies so far and have no intention to stop until there is a permanent ceasefire.
Last week, I spoke at our rally and touched on privilege, oppression, and the sharpening of contradictions. With personal energetic work I am currently doing (another post for another day), I had minimal nerves, and despite viewing the imperfections in footage of my speech, I had no cares because of my conviction for the message that’s bigger than me and any ego-based self-consciousness.
Here is an extract of my speech (not in the footage shared in the link above):
We are currently witnessing a shift in tired tropes and narratives on a global scale. The sleeping masses are waking up from the comforts that shielded them from the suffering of other people in other lands. There is a term I recently came across, via the Palestinian Youth Movement: ‘Sharpening Contradictions’. It is used in revolutionary theory to describe moments in the collective consciousness when the truth of contrasting views, ideologies and forces of power become readily clear to all.
We’ve had diverse voices speak at our first two rallies and today we are lucky enough to have three speakers bringing their unique perspectives on Palestine.
May we continue to sharpen our contradictions by hearing from these speakers and continuing to talk about Palestine, to talk about liberation, and to act on what we talk about.
Learning to allow others to lead (sometimes haha), embrace imperfections, and try on new hats as an activist (marshal, speaker, editor, writer, zine maker, action station attendant) has been enriching. It has also felt empowering to do all within my span of influence to effect change and enable others to do the same.
Reading like a writer
Reflections following Q&A with author Jessica Au
In my subject for the final semester of the year, I was on a Q&A reader-panel in conversation with Jessica Au. The author’s second novel, Cold Enough for Snow (Giramondo 2022), has won and been short– and long-listed for a range of prizes, including winning the inaugural Novel Prize and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, and being shortlisted for the 2023 Miles Franklin Award. If that weren’t enough, this month, Au also won the 2023 Prime Minister's Literary award for fiction for the novel.
The Q&A with Au was rich with insight on craft. I made a number of writerly observations during the session that have been valuable for my practice, including:
For Au, impressionism spoke to the central conceit of the book, which in her words is, ‘the difficulty of communication.’ While the imagery spoke to this central tension, impressionism, and more generally, art, also served as a narrative mode. Au mentioned her discomfort with plot and that getting her characters to move around art galleries allowed a way into a story. This, together with my teacher’s prompt during one of our classes — to get a character to go for a walk — will be useful when I am stuck, but will also be of use for weaving place into my story and adding to characterisation by writing the characters through their engagement with the world.
Au took an instinctive approach in choosing sub-plots to include in the story. She trusted her sense of a digression being alive on the page or not, and whether it ultimately spoke to the central struggle in the story. I will keep these words in mind when reading over my work and making decisions about what to include or omit to strengthen my story and ensure all digressions are driving the narrative in some way.
In response to a question on the restraint in her writing and her hinting at that which was unsaid between mother and daughter, Au spoke of the cultural and familial influences on her ways with language and confrontation. She grew up having to read a lot into every word that was said and pay attention to hesitations. At the time of writing Cold Enough for Snow, she’d been learning Japanese and noted the many ways of saying ‘no’. This has inspired me to research implicit and explicit communication styles, which Au mentioned, to reinforce tension and subtext in dialogue between my protagonist and her mother.
The author’s reflections on her experience writing her first and second novels resonated with my own writing journey. Au noted that in writing her debut, Cargo (Pan Macmillan, 2011), she was young, hadn’t come from a literary background and was limited in knowing what she thought was possible. With Cold Enough for Snow, she was older, the nature of material she could access had changed, and the culture of the world around her had changed. These are factors that have influenced the change in direction in my story — using the Kishōtenketsu structure, and more explicitly drawing from my life. Like Au, I feel greater confidence, following shifts in culture over the past 10+ years, in writing my manuscript on my terms, and reconciling, in part, the complexity of being a black writer in a largely white literary landscape.
Raptorial Writes
A monthly writing prompt
Set a timer for 10 minutes and write. Have fun with a little dialogue between two people, one who is direct and calls a spade a spade, the other a little more implicit in their communication style and leaves much to interpretation. Throw them in an online committee meeting in which the key agenda item is to make a decision on the venue for the end of year staff party.
I’d love to know how you go! Post your writing to Instagram using #RaptorialWrites, or feel free to share it in the comments here. Happy writing!
Raptorial Bites
A monthly short story book club
This month’s read is my very first zine! I created it in honour of Read Palestine Week, which commences on Wednesday 29 November, to coincide with International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People.
You can read it in four easy steps:
Download the zine
Print in landscape
Follow the video tutorial on folding it
Peruse the reading lists on Palestine, which includes fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and even a cook book.
If you are keen to get your craftivism on, create multiple copies and distribute in your neighbourhood. Let’s decolonise bookshelves together!