Sep 10, 2015 | Belonging, Your Stories
It’s a wet and rainy Friday in Sydney and I’m late for my meeting with the director of Sweatshop, a literacy movement homed at Western Sydney University. When I arrive at the small cafe that opens onto Marrickville Road, Michael Mohammed is just finishing his fifth...
Aug 19, 2015 | Belonging, Writing With Refugee Kids
Is your creative soul feeling a bit blah? Do you want a boost? What you need is an infusion of the Verandah ChiX. Blah is exactly how I’d been feeling before I saw the seven-woman ensemble. Actually I’d been feeling more than blah. I felt burnt out. Creatively...
Aug 14, 2015 | Belonging, Writing With Refugee Kids
One of the things I often wonder is whether writers and artists burn out faster than, say, an engineer or an accountant or other types of less arty jobs? I don’t know because I’m definitely not engineering or accountant material. But still I wonder. When I’m working...
Aug 7, 2015 | Belonging, Writing With Refugee Kids
It’s my third term at Milpera, the state school for refugee and migrant children here in Brisbane, and things are always changing. Every term new children arrive and I say good-bye to others who’ve graduated to local high schools. I never know who is going...
Jun 12, 2015 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
Catching ephemera. It’s sounds magical, mystical, even playful. And it applies to belonging. To start unraveling the web of silken debris that forms belonging and identity we must loosen our hold on the logical and run with instinct and intuition. We cannot grab...
May 21, 2015 | Belonging, Writing With Refugee Kids
Part of what I love about my weekly visits to the refugee and migrant children at Milpera State School is that I never know who will come to my creative writing sessions or which exercises will ignite their imaginations. Last week one of the boys amazed me when we did...
Apr 22, 2015 | Belonging, Your Stories
My heartfelt thanks goes to Canadian author Judy McFarlane for writing this inaugural guest post on belonging: Almost every day for the past three years I’ve walked with my small white dog through the park near my home. Jasper and I know the dogs that are beyond...
Apr 1, 2015 | Belonging, Writing With Refugee Kids
I didn’t enjoy high school the first time round in the 1980s. I hid myself away under what I thought was a dramatic punk-chic haircut, my musical ability and clothes I remodeled from moth-balled treasures at the Salvation Army thrift shop. I was the extroverted loner...
Mar 28, 2015 | Belonging, Your Stories
on the existential nature of bridging distance I drive on roads flanked by huge up-ended trees, toppled like a line of sliced broccoli. Kathryn’s riverside suburb was one of the worst hit by the surprise supercell storm late last year in Brisbane. Cyclonic winds and...
Mar 25, 2015 | Belonging, Writing With Refugee Kids
After almost six months of discovery, proposals, meetings and learning, I’ve done it. I’ve managed to start a creative writing program for refugee and migrant students at Milpera State School in Brisbane. The thing is, I’d forgotten what the first day of high school...
Mar 12, 2015 | Belonging, Your Stories
on being an outsider, the ancient art of bell ringing, and the enduring relationship we have with our parents even after they die When people close to us die, we are left feeling unanchored, adrift. When it’s a parent, it doesn’t seem to matter that we are adults; we...
Feb 25, 2015 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
Have you ever felt invisible? Have you ever needed help, but didn’t want to ask for it, and a stream of strangers stepped around you like you were contagious? We all feel niggling moments of marginalization, even if we pretend not to. Belonging is such an important...
