Dec 14, 2015 | Belonging, Writing With Refugee Kids
School’s out and I’ve just finished my first year at Milpera State High School for refugee and migrant children. Unlike some of the kids who came to do my creative writing sessions, I won’t be moving on in January when the new school year begins here in Australia....
Sep 15, 2015 | Belonging, Writing With Refugee Kids
I’m back from a social media-free week and boy was it wonderful. It was both freeing and humbling. This from the person who didn’t have a TV for years and who initially refused a mobile phone for work. How did I fall into the habit of checking email first thing in the...
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...
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 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 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...
Sep 24, 2014 | Belonging, Writing With Refugee Kids
”Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen, Anthem Last week, as part of my journey to understand belonging, I went to see a place with a...
Sep 9, 2014 | Belonging, Writing With Refugee Kids
”The value of drawing is that it slows you down, you spend time looking…and you discover things.” Betty Churcher, Australian art educator and gallery director, Brisbane Writers Festival 2014 I love that quote. Just reading it takes me to a sacred...
