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The limits of language

Sat 7 Sep 2019

Anita Heiss + Tony Birch + Claire G. Coleman

kuril dhagun, State Library of Queensland

Panel

7119

#Performances

#About the event

Duration: 60 minutes

English may be the lingua franca of the world, but it has its limits in a land where rich Indigenous tongues already abounded. Three leading Aboriginal authors discuss how they have harnessed English to express their stories and created a new and inspiring way to use the language.

#Artists

Anita Heiss

Anita Heiss is an internationally published, award-winning author of 25 books across genres. She's a proud member of the Wiradyuri Nation, a Lifetime Ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, and Professor of Communications at the University of Queensland.

Anita adapted her novel Tiddas for the stage and it premiered at La Boite as part of the 2022 Brisbane Festival, and was featured in the Sydney Festival, 2024.

Anita is Publisher at Large for the First Nations imprint Bundyi (Simon & Schuster, Australia). She enjoys running, eating chocolate and being a creative disruptor.

Tony Birch

Tony Birch is the author of three novels and four short story collections, in 2021 he released two new books, a poetry book, Whisper Songs and a new short story collection, Dark As Last Night. His website is: tony-birch.com

Claire G. Coleman

Claire G. Coleman is a Wirlomin Noongar woman whose ancestral country is on the south coast of Western Australia. Born in Perth she has spent most of her life in Naarm (Melbourne) or on the road. She has written 3 novels Terra Nullius (2019), The Old Lie (2019), and Enclave and a non-fiction book Lies Damned Lies: A personal exploration of the the impact of colonisation (2021). Her art criticism has been published in Spectrum, Artlink and Art Collector and in exhibition catalogues for NGV, AGSA and NGA and others. Her conceptual/video work Refugium won the Incinerator Art Award in 2021 and she will feature in a number of exhibitions in 2022. She writes novels, poetry, short-fiction, drama and essay and has featured in the Saturday Paper, the Guardian, Meanjin, Australian Poetry and many others. Her short fiction and poetry has been published in multiple anthologies.

#Moderator

Grace Lucas-Pennington

Grace Lucas-Pennington is an Aboriginal (Bundjalung) editor specialising in fiction and poetry. She grew up mostly between northern NSW and the greater Logan/Brisbane area. Grace is the Senior Editor at State Library of Queensland's black&write! Indigenous Writing and Editing Project.