Paula's launch



Yesterday was a big one for the Shaw family. We were busting with prideful thrill as Paula's book was launched. It's already been sighted in Readings in Melbourne, with cover rather than spine on display! Will Owen has given it the nod. Paula was on Mornings with Deb Cameron on Sydney local ABC in the morning morning (I would have recorded it for you, but I couldn't figure out how), recorded an interview with Richard Aedy on Life Matters, (that link should get you to the audio), and spent 20 minutes chatting live on Radio Australia. The day culminated in a launch at Gleebooks, where David Martin, anthropologist from Canberra, one time resident of Aurukun who has Wik family still living there, lent his considerable gravitas to the occasion, filling in some of the history and spelling out some of the issues embedded in the book's narrative. For instance, Paula, resplendent in a black skirt featuring the Brisbane skyline in elegant white outline, read an early chapter about an intense classroom encounter with a nine-year-old girl. It's a terrific chapter that gives a dramatic feel for what it's like to be thrown in at the deep end. Reading it again after listening to David Martin, I realise that it also shows us elements of Wik culture in action: the forms of ritual aggression, the cultural value placed on young people holding out for what they want (as opposed to Western/capitalist valuing of obedience). Shauntai -- the nine-year-old -- is not so much a problem as a cultural standard bearer. It's interesting to me that though Paula's narrative doesn't spell that out, even on first reading it does leave Shauntai's dignity intact -- and character-Paula's confidence shaken. If there's a second edition, David Martin's talk would make a brilliant introduction -- or perhaps afterword, to allow the reader the joy of meeting the book completely on its own terms.

It was a decent turn-out, and even included people not personally known to Paula. If you look closely at this pic you may discern a children's writer and the editor of a reasonably prestigious journal:



Here's the skirt, and the book of course:



This could almost be Neil Gaiman:

Posted: Tue - March 3, 2009 at 10:05 AM           |

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