Claiming Genre

Towards An Aboriginal Gothic

How do First Nations writers commandeer genre on the page and on the stage? How can genre serve as a potent framework for speaking back to the colonial situation? Noted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers discuss their work, their relationship to genre and the emergence of an Aboriginal Gothic.

Forum with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers  including Dr Paul Collis (Barkandji), Dr Lisa Fuller (Murri) and Dr Wendy Somerville (Jerrinja) hosted by Palawa playwright Dylan Van Den Berg in partnership with the University of Canberra.

This is a free event, but reservations are essential. Please RSVP with name and telephone number via rsvp@thestreet.org.au

Paul Collis is a Barkindji man, born in Bourke in far western NSW on the Darling River. Paul worked in Newcastle for much of his young adult life in the areas of teaching and in Aboriginal community development positions. He has taught Aboriginal Studies to Indigenous inmates at the Worimi and Mount Penang juvenile detention centres and in Cessnock and Maitland prisons. Paul has a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Doctorate in Communications. He lives in Canberra and works as a Creative Writing academic at the University of Canberra. Dancing Home is his first novel and won the 2016 David Unaipon Award and the 2018 ACT Book of the Year Award.

Lisa Fuller is a Wuilli Wuilli woman from Eidsvold Queensland, also descended from Wakka Wakka and Gooreng Gooreng peoples. She's lived on Ngunnawal and Ngambri lands (Canberra) since 2006, where she is a lecturer at the University of Canberra. Lisa is an award-winning writer, editor and literary agent. She loves to play and finds herself working and publishing in varied spaces. Her work often grows from love, for her daughter, niblings, Country and community.

Wendy Somerville is a Koori from Jerrinja Country on the South Coast of NSW. She is the First Nations Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research (CCCR) at the University of Canberra. Her thesis investigated connection to Country through storying. As part of her work with the CCCR  she has developed the First Nations Collaborative Research Web.

Dylan Van Den Berg is an award-winning Palawa writer and dramaturg from the northeast of Lutruwita/Tasmania, with family connections to the Bass Strait Islands where his great-grandmother was born. Diving deep into Gothic drama genre in writing the adaptation of the Australian classic The Chosen Vessel, after the short story by Barbara Baynthon, as part of his PhD exploring the idea of the Aboriginal gothic and The Street commission for a world premiere on The Street Theatre stage, he is one of this country’s most significant young playwrights.