In re-imagining Australia's past, it invents a new future.' Richard Flanagan (cover endorsement) Van Diemen's Land is a new, groundbreaking history of the settlement of Tasmania. James Boyce's book is filled with new facts and new ideas about one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of British colonialism. Combining environmental insights with an unrivalled grasp of the politics of the frontier, it will change the way scholars and the general public alike view Australian colonial history.

    Welcome to a chronicle of broken hearts, fervid pursuits, passionate friendships, deranged letter-writing, the allure of the bottle, the singular charms of musicians, the lost song of youth, and three very awkward evenings with varying prostitutes--exactly zero percent of which the author's parents will want to read. Add to that a slightly misguided attempt to give real-life friends and ex-lovers a 'right of reply' to the stories they appear in and it's fair to say an extended stint in the Witness Protection Program beckons.Confessional, voyeuristic, painful, hilarious and heartfelt, You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead reveals the acerbic wit, unflinching gaze and razor-sharp insight of a writer at the height of her powers-or the unhinged fantasies of a dangerous mind with not enough to do.

    She engages with such wide-ranging topics as race, parenthood, love, mental illness, poverty, sexual assault, gentrifcation, writing and representation, and in the process makes connections both large and small between the past and present, the personal and political--from overcoming a years-long battle with head lice to the way Native writers are treated within the Canadian literary industry; her unplanned teenage pregnancy to the history of dark matter and how it relates to racism in the court system; her childhood diet of Kraft Dinner to how systemic oppression is directly linked to health problems in Native communities.With deep consideration and searing prose, Elliott provides a candid look at our past, an illuminating portrait of our present and a powerful tool for a better future.

    It also takes the reader through the process of turning that research into living fiction - the false starts, dead ends and failures as well as the strokes of luck, flashes of inspiration and surprises.It contains sections of personal memoir, the record of the research, and a journal of the evolution of the book from non-fiction to novel. It quotes sections of early drafts and compares them with the final version, and goes into some detail about technical issues such as point of view, voice and dialogue.For anyone interested in the writing process - and in particular the writing of a historical novel - Searching for the Secret River provides a unique behind-the-scenes exploration.The Secret River has proved to be a controversial book among Australian historians. They feel that fiction is an untrustworthy mechanism by which to understand the past. A novelist may alter, simplify or even distort the truth about history in ways the reader will not be aware of.Kate Grenville has always had the same reservations about historical fiction. Even before The Secret River was completed, she was planning a book which would make transparent the process by which she'd adapted the historical record for the purposes of fiction, and her reasons for the decisions she made.She says "The subject matter of The Secret River is so important, and so politically charged, I didn't want readers to be able to say oh, it's only a novel - she just made it all up. The events and characters in the novel are adapted from the historical record. These things really did happen on our frontier, even if at a slightly different time and in a different place. I wanted readers to be able to retrace the journey I took in coming to terms with what I found about our history, and to see how I chose to adapt it for a novel."Twenty years of teaching Creative Writing in universities, and three books about the writing process, were the other impetus for Searching for The Secret River. "Writing is such an enrichment of life - whether or not it results in publication - that I wanted to leave a record of my own process, so that others might not have to re-invent the wheel completely," Grenville says. "Historical fiction has its particular challenges for the writer - I would have loved to read a book like this one while I was writing The Secret River. It would have made the process a little less laborious."Searching for the Secret River has become a classic for book groups, students and writers looking for guidance.

    Told at first through the frank eyes of a child whose life was irretrievably changed after being “adopted” into a German Lutheran family, Too Afraid to Cry braids piercingly lyrical verse with spare prose to tell an intensely personal story of abuse and trauma. After years of suffering as a dark-skinned “outsider,” Eckermann reveals her courageous efforts to reconcile with her birth family and find acceptance within their Indigenous community. Too Afraid to Cry offers a mirror to America and Canada’s own dark history of coerced adoption of Native American children, and the violence inflicted on our continent’s Indigenous peoples.

    Beautifully illustrated, these stories are an emotional and enlightening journey through magic realism, serial killings, psychic battles, and time travel. See how Indigenous peoples have survived a post-apocalyptic world since Contact.This is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter initiative. With this $35M initiative, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.

    It was by far the most intense frontier conflict in Australia’s history, yet many Australians know little about it. The Black War takes a unique approach to this historic event, looking chiefly at the experiences and attitudes of those who took part in the conflict. By contrasting the perspectives of colonists and Aborigines, Nicholas Clements takes a deeply human look at the events that led to the shocking violence and tragedy of the war, detailing raw personal accounts that shed light on the tribes, families, and individuals involved as they struggled to survive in their turbulent world. The Black War presents a compelling and challenging view of Australia’s early contact history, the legacy of which reverberates strongly to the present day.

    Love, politics and other things you shouldn't talk about at dinnerCharlotte Gibson is a lawyer with a brilliant career ahead of her. As her father Ray says, she could be the next female Indigenous Waleed Aly. But she has other ideas. First of all, it's Christmas. Second of all, she's in love.The thing is, her fiance, Francis Smith, is not what her family expected - he's unemployed, he's an experimental composer ... and he's white! Bringing him and his conservative parents to meet her family on their ancestral land is a bold move. Will he stand up to the scrutiny? Or will this romance descend into farce?Love is never just black and white. It's complicated by class, politics, ambition, and too much wine over dinner. But for Charlotte and Francis, it's mostly complicated by family. Secrets are revealed, prejudices outed and old rivalries get sorted through. What can't be solved through diplomacy can surely be solved by a good old-fashioned dance-off. They're just that kind of family.

    Coleman, Omar Sakr, Future D. Fidel, Karen Wyld, Khalid Warsame, Kaya Ortiz, Roanna Gonsalves, Sarah Ross, Zoya Patel, Michelle Law and Hannah Donnelly. Edited by Michael Mohammed Ahmad. Original concept by Lena Nahlous.Published by Affirm Press in partnership with Diversity Arts Australia and Sweatshop Literacy Movement.

    Fathoms: The World in the Whale blends natural history, philosophy, and science to explore: How do whales experience ecological change? Will our connection to these storied animals be transformed by technology? What can observing whales teach us about the complexity, splendour, and fragility of life? In Fathoms, we learn about whales so rare they have never been named, whale songs that sweep across hemispheres in annual waves of popularity, and whales that have modified the chemical composition of our planet’s atmosphere. We travel to Japan to board the ships that hunt whales and delve into the deepest seas to discover the plastic pollution now pervading the whale’s undersea environment. In the spirit of Rachel Carson and Rebecca Solnit, Giggs gives us a vivid exploration of the natural world even as she addresses what it means to write about nature at a time of environmental crisis.

    An Australian classic. Depicts the enduring hardships of life in the Australian outback and the battles against sexist and racial prejudices.

    Here you'll find a number of places to eat and drink. Settle yourself in the window of one, shut your eyes, and picture this scene of yore ..." In this much-loved book, Robyn Annear resurrects the village that was early Melbourne - from the arrival of white settlers in 1835 until the first gold rushes shook the town - and brings it to life in vivid colour. Bearbrass was one of the local names by which Melbourne was known and Annear provides a fascinating living portrait of the streetlife of this town. In a lively and engaging style, she overlays her reinvention of Bearbrass with her own impressions and experiences of the modern city, enabling Melburnians and visitors to imagine the early township and remind themselves of the rich history that lies beneath today's modern metropolis. The original "Bearbrass" won the A.A. Phillips Award for Australian Studies in the 1995 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. ..". [Annear] writes with an historian's eye for detail and a flair for ironic observation. An affectionate journey, rich in detail and character." - "The Age" Robyn Annear is an ex-typist who lives in country Victoria with somebody else's husband. She is the author of "A City Lost and Found, Bearbrass, Nothing But Gold, The Man Who Lost Himself," and "Fly a Rebel Flag." She has also written several pieces for "The Monthly" magazine.

    The first volume of Roberta Sykes' three-volume autobiography, chronicling her childhood and teenage years in Townsville in the 1940s and 1950s, to the birth of her son, the result of a gang rape when she was 17.

    Over the course of many visits to her husband's family, she was fascinated to discover that the older tribal women of his family had a deep sense of happiness and purpose that transcended the abject material poverty, illness, and increasing violence of their community—a happiness that she feels is related to an essential "warmth of heart" that these women say has gone missing in today's world. In May 2006, she had the chance to spend time in the Tanami Desert in north central Australia with 200 Aboriginal women, performing women's Law ceremonies. Here is the story of that trip and her friendship with these women, as she tells their stories and passes on their wisdom and understanding. Offering a privileged window into the spiritual and emotional world of Aboriginal women, this book is a moving story of common human experience, the getting and passing on of wisdom, and the deep friendship and bonds between women. It carries a moving and profound sense of optimism in the fundamental humanity we all share.

    In the process, King refashions old stories about historical events and figures, takes a sideways look at film and pop culture, relates his own complex experiences with activism, and articulates a deep and revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands.This is a book both timeless and timely, burnished with anger but tempered by wit, and ultimately a hard-won offering of hope—a sometimes inconvenient, but nonetheless indispensable account for all of us, Indian and non-Indian alike, seeking to understand how we might tell a new story for the future.