I have thought of The White Earth often in the years since I first read it, years I came to the music of Gurrumul, years I had come to terms with my own crimes against humanity, years I had started to piece together something altogether different from whatever I had learned in school about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Read MoreI first listened to Gurrumul’s final album Djarimirri (Child of the Rainbow) on my way home from a writers' festival organised by the small Queensland town of Boonah where I ran a workshop earlier this month. Driving through country dry and sparse - trees, grass, granite peaks, a long straight road, farms, cows - I was far from the sea and sky and crocodiles of Gurrumul's Elcho Island home. But the songs were here too.
Read MoreAndie Fox is a writer I know. She writes heartachingly honestly about women, mothering and where we’ve got to in this sweet old world. We have coffee now and then, very occasionally swim. I have a memoir coming out this year – terrifyingly personal – and Andie, who often writes with herself in the frame, has been my model of how to write courageously about yourself.
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