In 2015 I was travelling when inspiration struck. I had returned to my grandfather’s country to find out more about where I had come from; nothing could have prepared me for where it would lead. I found more family history than I had ever imagined existed, and I was invited to the opening ceremony for a memorial to the massacre on country in which many relatives of my direct ancestors died. It was beautiful, it was horrific, it was inspiring.

I took that inspiration and ran with it – more like sprinted. I wrote a novel at a feverish pace, edited it for a couple of months and sent it off to the State Library of Queensland’s black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship competition, a prize intended to foster and develop Indigenous writers. To my utter shock my novel Terra Nullius was selected for a fellowship.

The black&write! win was immeasurably important to me. Not only because it helped refine my work and eventually led to Terra Nullius being published, but also because of the confidence boost. I am scarcely willing to admit it, but I had absolutely no faith in my ability as a writer. A part of me believed I could write, but my habitual low self-esteem told me nobody would want to read anything I could produce. I sent off my manuscript despite my lack of belief in myself; the small part of me that believed in me insisted I do it.

Since then my novel has been longlisted and shortlisted for multiple prizes and I have seen my essays, opinion pieces, poetry and short fiction published on various platforms. In addition my novel has been picked up for publication in North America. All this happened in the less than six months since my novel was published. I doubt my voice would have been heard without the black&write fellowship.

Indigenous stories are fundamental to Australia’s understanding of itself. Until very recently most writing about the continent’s first people has been by white people. White people’s practice was to ask Indigenous people for our stories, write them down, get them published and claim the royalty and copyright for themselves. This is theft of cultural and intellectual property but copyright goes to whoever records the story, not who creates it, remembers it or tells it to the writer. I won’t name who – those are not my stories to tell – but I have heard first hand of people having their stories stolen in that way; of someone else being the person to write their story down then claiming the copyright and the royalties.

Despite the importance of Indigenous voices our writers are often undervalued and this discourages people from writing. And when Indigenous people have the audacity to write, we are sometimes attacked for daring to use the Queen’s English. I was publicly abused for criticising the invasion of Australia in the invader’s own language.

There are solutions. If you have a story, record it yourself – it doesn’t matter if you scrawl it on paper or video yourself telling the story on your smartphone and email it to yourself. Just make sure the bones of your story are recorded somewhere, by you. The more drafts or versions of your story you have, the more evidence you have for a copyright dispute. Get a written contract with the person helping you tell your story maintaining that the copyright is yours or to be shared.

Get advice.

If you are someone intending to tell another person’s story, it is certainly legal to claim all the copyright for yourself. It is, however, deeply unethical, especially when there is an unequal power balance, such as when the storyteller is Indigenous. Don’t steal stories – you know that stealing is wrong.

There is a far better way to solve the problem of stolen stories and stolen cultural capital. Indigenous people need to be assisted in finding the means to tell our own stories. This is where projects such as black&write! come in. By encouraging Indigenous writers and training Indigenous editors, then pairing them up, the project enables and encourages Indigenous voices such as mine.

There is also a way readers can help. If you want to read a book about Indigenous people or culture, privilege books by Indigenous authors or co-written works with shared copyright over Indigenous stories written or recorded by non-Indigenous people. Although lately there have been many books written by First Nations authors there are still more books by non-Indigenous writers on Indigenous stories. The legacy of privilege will take some time to rebalance, white people have been writing about us for 230 years and have written a lot.

I urge you to go out and find a book from an Indigenous writer to read. We write fiction and non-fiction. You might be surprised by what you find.

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