Susie Anderson
Susie is a writer, multimedia artist and descendant of the Wergaia and Wemba Wemba people from North Western Victoria. Her practice is concerned with the distances between place and people, themes she explores through poetry and media-based works. Based in Sydney, she works as a digital producer at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Alicia Bates is a twenty-eight-year-old Gunditjmara, Kirrae Whurrong woman living in south-west Victoria. She is an early childhood teacher, foster carer for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children, and a previous director of the Gunditjmara Co-Op board. Alicia has degrees in both education and psychology. Alicia shares her story in the hope of dispelling pre-conceived negative views about Aboriginal people.
Norleen Brinkworth was born in 1947 in Yarrabah mission, Queensland, where her grandparents were placed as young children at the beginning of the twentieth century. She later went to school in Cairns, where her parents moved with their six children. Opting to do factory work to help supplement her family’s finances, Norleen let her secondary schooling lapse but returned later, as a mature student and mother with two children, and obtained a tertiary degree. She worked in the judicial system until retirement seventeen years later.
Evelyn Araluen is a poet, researcher and co-editor of Overland literary journal. Her widely published criticism, fiction and poetry has been awarded the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers, the Judith Wright Poetry Prize, a Wheeler Centre Next Chapter Fellowship and a Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund grant. Born and raised on Dharug country, she is a descendant of the Bundjalung Nation. Evelyn’s debut is Dropbear.
Don Bemrose is a Gungarri baritone who made his operatic debut with Short Black Opera in 2010 creating the role of James in Deborah Cheetham’s landmark opera Pecan Summer. Don reprised this role in 2011 and was the baritone soloist for the on-country premiere of Cheetham’s Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace.
Don has performed with major companies and productions around the country most notably; From a Black Sky for The Street Theatre (ACT) 2013 and in the role Bob Crab for the world premiere of, Cloudstreet for State Opera of South Australia. In 2012 Don made his debut with Opera Australia in the chorus of Turandot and on tour with Oz Opera in the role of Papageno in an adaptation Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
Don graduated with a Bachelor of Music Performance in 2011 from the Victorian College of Arts, University of Melbourne and has forged a career in the education of Indigenous children.
Katie Bryan is the first generation of her family to grow up without language, culture and connection to kin and country. In her chapter, "Easter 1969", she describes her childhood in Brisbane, the discovery of her other family and the barriers that her mother created to prevent any ongoing relationships.
Bebe Backhouse is a Bardi man from Western Australia. With a background in classical music as a concert pianist, repetiteur and teacher, his educational work with Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth in the Kimberley led him to win ‘Western Australian Young Person of the Year in the Arts’ at twenty-one. He now lives in Melbourne where he designs and produces creative high-profile festivals and events for that city’s diverse communities.
Preview Spirit Dreaming by Nigel Guant and Bebe Backhouse
Tony Birch is the author of three novels: the bestselling The White Girl, winner of the 2020 NSW Premier's Award for Indigenous Writing, and shortlisted for the 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Prize; Ghost River, winner of the 2016 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing; and Blood, which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 2012. He is also the author of Shadowboxing and three short story collections, Father’s Day, The Promise and Common People. In 2017 he was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award. In 2021 he will release two new books, a poetry collection, Whisper Songs, and a new short story collection, Dark as Last Night. Tony Birch is also an activist, historian and essayist. His website is: tony-birch.com