Why do you write?
Like most young writers, I started off fuelled by egotism and neurosis as much as by innate creativity. But when I began writing seriously there was still a glaring hole in Australian literature. There were very few Aboriginal fiction writers being published. People like Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Aunty Ruby Langford Ginibi, Uncle Sam Watson, Aunty Maureen Watson, Lisa Bellear and some others had blazed the trail, but you could still count the interested publishers on one hand. In the pre-native title era, to write Aboriginal fiction felt a lot like screaming out to mainstream Australia and the world “Over here! We exist! We exist!”. That’s not the case anymore. There are scores of First Nations writers who are putting out diverse work now. These days the impulse is simply about writing the best work I can. Maybe that’s why I write more slowly…the political element is still strong though.
Are your books ‘true’? Are they about you?
All my books are true in the sense that they reflect one version of modern Aboriginal life. Readers must judge for themselves how much I might resemble my protagonists. But they almost always over-estimate that, I must say.
Do you consider yourself primarily a writer, or an Aboriginal writer?
This is such a complex question. The word “Aboriginal” means something different to outsiders. When I say ‘Aboriginal’ or better yet, “Goorie” or “Bundjalung” I can automatically assume things like being of mixed race, being literate, and having a wide appreciation of modern Western culture and so on. But to most outsiders, ‘Aboriginal’ implies something different, usually something much more restricted and restrictive. So the question runs into a difficulty of semantics. I think that doesn’t happen quite so much with say, Indian or African American writers, because there is more familiarity with their subcultures.
Why do you say you are Aboriginal when you have white blood too?
Being Aboriginal is about culture and family links, not just about biology. I know very little about my Russian/Ukrainian forebears, for instance. One day I’d like to change that. But the essence of who I am is far more about being proudly Goorie than about being white. You also have to remember there was an official government policy of assimilation for many, many decades. That was intended to wipe out the Aboriginal culture and people by ‘breeding out the colour’. We were often forced to marry whites. Mixed-race children were stolen up until the 1970s (that’s not a misprint) and placed in institutions, to grow up white. Our family oral history tells us that our great-grandmother was removed from Bundjalung lands and sent to Kabi country just north of Brisbane – a vast distance in those early times. Then they attempted to remove my grandmother as well. As a result of these assimilation policies, many, many of us have fair skin. There are plenty of blond, blue-eyed Aborigines out there as well as all shades of brown and black. But you do have to understand the culture before you call yourself Aboriginal. If you have ancestry without the understanding or connections, you have a very big journey in front of you. And people must make their own choices there. Nobody has any right to tell stolen generations descendants who they must be or become. Not everybody belongs in a neat little box marked ‘Aboriginal’ or ‘white’ and it is very dangerous to think they do. “Of Aboriginal descent” is a perfectly okay place to be, for instance. Peoples’ humanity must take priority.
How long does it take to write a book?
How long is a piece of string? Mullumbimby took close to five years of thinking, dreaming and remembering. Steam Pigs took nine months, and came very easily. I wrote the first draft of Hard Yards in Tonga in about six months, then it needed another twelve or so months back in Brisbane. But, a good novel takes as long as it takes.
Do you get writer’s block?
Rarely. When I do, it’s usually because I have nothing useful to say. That’s a sign that it’s time to go back out into the world, or else do some more reading, until you do have something worth saying.
Do you have any advice for beginning writers?
Read a lot. Take your craft seriously. Don’t be boring. And have a second job.
What’s your favourite book of your own?
Ummm, that’s a hard one. I like aspects of all my books. Usually I like my most recent book best, because that reflects where I am at the time.
Who are your influences?
I’d say Keri Hulme’s The Bone People was critically important in shaping me, as was Helen Garner’s Monkeygrip. The Australian bush poets Lawson and Paterson were what I read as a child, along with Alan Marshall. I remember sitting in a Darwin shopping centre when I was twenty three, obsessing over Judith Wright’s collected works, and thinking ‘I’ll never be able to write as well as this’, but loving her power with language. Ruth Park, Peter Carey. Also the Native American writers Louise Erdrich and Sherman Alexie. In terms of Aboriginal writing there are lots, but in particular I am a great admirer of Kim Scott’s True Country and That Deadman Dance, along with the novelist Annie Cleven, and the poetry of Romaine Moreton. Also the non-Aboriginal U.S. nature writer Barry Lopez. And then there are other books that make you throw your arms up in the air and wonder why you bother, cos you suspect you ain’t gonna even get close! The Poisonwood Bible and Alias Grace both fall into the latter category, for me, as does a small jewel of a book called So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell. I very much liked The White Earth by Andrew McGahan. The powerful Aboriginal poetry of Ellen Van Neerven and Natalie Harkin. Ali Cobby Eckermann is doing things nobody else is. Tony Birch’s Blood should have won the Miles Franklin – it’s a stunning Koori narrative. And Earth by Bruce Pascoe is another old favourite – highly original and powerful writing. And music is hugely important. Kev Carmody, Archy Roach, Roger Knox, The Medics, John Gorka, Greg Brown, Tiddas, Paul Kelly, Steve Earle and many many other musicians from different cultures have been very influential in shaping my politics and thought.
You haven’t mentioned any Black American writers?
The sublime Toni Morrison. I bow down.
What’s next?
My most recent novel, Too Much Lip, is a foray into the harder edges of Aboriginal life in country NSW. Its a book about class, but set away from the urban centres, a kind of a hillbilly gothic. The book was inspired by the black and queer women I know who’ve done jail time, or who’ve only barely escaped that fate by the skin of their teeth. Who are these people when they’re not locked up, not demonised, not chucked away and locked away by society? I wanted to write about the grassroots mob who are constantly living on the edge of things: the law, racist violence, various kinds of family implosions. I really strongly wanted to pen a high-energy antidote to the deathly depression which it’s easy for us to slide into in this racist, heterosexist country. You know I’ve knocked around a lot with women (and men, including my brothers) who’ve done jail time, and I wanted to portray those women’s defiance. Their give-no-fucks spirit. In the two years I spent writing Too Much Lip, the image I kept in mind was of the protagonist, Kerry, giving the middle finger to everyone and everything as she rides her Harley off into the sunset. It’s a very gritty novel, and violent, but I like to think it’s pretty damn funny too. Kind of Beverley Hillbillies meets Once Were Warriors. No doubt some readers will find it shocking, but then I’m not writing to make people feel warm and comfortable. I’d be a helluva lot richer if I was!