Making a Way
Tiffany Tsao • 23 September 2022
This issue is dedicated to people who have carved a path for themselves in relation to systems that make such work hard. Be it the ‘totally unorthodox and original’ Carol Jerrems and the ethos of care and love she brought to her photography, or Ngarrindjeri writer Courtney Jaye, who has realised that the only way to win a rigged game is to walk away.
Madelaine Lucas writes about her mother’s determination to make art for herself and not rely on others for validation. Claudia Chinyere Akole is grateful for what she’s accomplished but wonders how many are locked out of certain opportunities due to accident of birth?
It’s all well and good to encourage people to carve paths. But how can well-intentioned encouragement become harmful when no infrastructure or tools are provided? Jingili and Mudburra editor Bridget Caldwell-Bright discusses the dearth of non-white editors despite the industry’s increased appetite for non-white writing.
Looking for Carol Jerrems
'I try to reveal something about people, because they are so separate so isolated, maybe it’s a way of bringing them together,' she said in a 1977 interview for Men’s Vogue with Craig McGregor. 'I don’t want to exploit people. I care about them.'
Smart for an Aboriginal
Courtney Jaye recounts the rife racism she experienced as an Aboriginal undergraduate student...and how she returned for a master’s degree five years later thinking faculty and students would be less racist, but they weren’t.
When my brand-new lecturer asked if there were any Aboriginal people in the room, I shyly raised my hand. Naively, actually. In a turn of events that surprises absolutely no person of colour, I was brought into conversations as the 'blak voice' from that moment on, as though that was the only interesting thing about me.
Cigarettes and Turpentine: An Ode to My Artist-Mother
It took me a long time to understand that she makes art for herself – for the sake of her own self-expression and satisfaction – not for validation. This is something I am still learning.
Chinyere
Not to discount my own hard work – but so many of my opportunities have been by virtue of my inner-city birthplace. How many never get to find out what they love and want through education? How many are locked out of certain systems by virtue of their birthplace?
(Note: This piece is part of Liminal’s digital series Comic Sans.)
Diverse Publishing Isn’t Just About Writers
As Freeman notes, 'Non-Indigenous editors increasingly find themselves negotiating the uncomfortable territories of race, politics and power for which [they are] poorly prepared'. The easiest way to avoid this inappropriate and often unsafe situation is to have Indigenous editors working with Indigenous writers; enabling the development of Indigenous expression without the added complications that arise with a cross-cultural relationship.
Kill Your Darlings is still accepting pitches from Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander writers who are interested in working with their First Nations Editors-in-Residence, Nadia Johansen and Bianca Valentino. The submissions window closes on 16 December 2022.