Talking Location with Lisa Fuller, Award-Winning and First Nations Australian YA Author

7th November 2021

Talking Location with Lisa Fuller, Award-Winning and First Nations Australian YA Author.

Tiny TripFiction is thrilled to welcome award-winning and First Nations Australian author Lisa Fuller to the blog to tell us all about the Australian landscape that inspired her YA debut Ghost Bird (Old Barn Books, 2021) which our Kid’s Lit Writer in Residence described as a ‘rich, original, 5 star reading experience.’

Talking Location with… Lisa Fuller

When someone mentions Australian writing, the first thing that pops into my head is ‘landscape’. Sense of place and locations seems to permeate most works here, regardless of the background of the author. Maybe it’s down to the epic-ness of our environment, or the diversity? I couldn’t tell you what it is for others.

A lot of non-Indigenous Australian writing focusses on the unknowable nature of the land, often to a terrifying degree. Most First Nations Australians works aren’t like that. Not only are we writing our homes and spaces, but of places that have deep cultural and spiritual significance. Our connections run tens of millennia and thousands of generations deep.

While editing Ghost Bird, there was a question from an editor about possibly making the landscape more terrifying. My response was simple – it’s not scary to my mob, it’s home. That may seem strange to say, given that Ghost Bird has been called chilling, and even been categorised as horror by some. But if you listen close, it’s not the land that’s scary. It’s the things we know exist in the dark, watching for the unwary person who wanders where they shouldn’t, or does the wrong thing.

There is a reason many First Nations Australians use Country as a proper noun. It’s like a lot of Aboriginal English words – it sounds the same in Standard Australian English but has varied meanings. Country is not just home, or borders on a map, and we don’t ‘own’ it. Country is us and we are deeply connected to our ancestral homes; we belong to it and vice versa. I struggle to explain this because it’s a multi-stranded connection and it’s different for everyone. I’m not even sure I should explain it, given I still consider myself a relatively young(er) community member.

Photo credits Lisa Fuller

Suffice it to say, I had to set Ghost Bird in Eidsvold, because it centres on my community, culture, and spiritual beliefs, with the permission of my aunties. Country and place are so much at the heart of who we are, that it’s not a story that would make sense anywhere else. And I may not ever have had permission to set that kind of story on someone else’s land anyway.

There’s a running joke amongst many of us, that upon meeting a new First Nations person, the first questions out of our mouths is: ‘Who’s your mob? Where you from?’ Answering them allows us to ‘place’ each other. I’ve watched older community members sit and speak for ages till they find a common connection.

‘Write what you know’ is a great tenet for debut writers. It definitely made life easier, taking places I know so well, and transporting the reader there. When people tell me Eidsvold feels like a character in the work, I am thrilled.

A lot of the places featured in the book are ones I still visit today. I am happiest sitting around a fire by the river at night with my family as we yarn. My favourite times are mid-winter, when the air is frosty, and the moonless sky above lets the Milky Way flood overhead in all its glory. Thinking about it makes me homesick.

I left in 2002 to pursue university, and I haven’t lived back there since. When I started writing Ghost Bird, the words just wouldn’t come. I was working in a non-Indigenous space, living with my non-Indigenous partner and hanging out with mostly non-Indigenous friends. I ended up winning a fellowship that allowed me to travel home and spend six weeks sitting down with my aunties to talk it through. Being back, surrounded by everyone again, the words spilled out of my fingers.

Photo credits Lisa Fuller

I still visit whenever I can. And I take a lot of joy bringing my partner with me. Home is going out fishing, hunting, and exploring. It’s having Uncle drive us out into the middle of nowhere, and with zero signposts or markings, he can tell us which property is which, who owns it and who used to own it back generations. We constantly stop the car (or cars) so my mother and her siblings can point out food to pick, show us medicine, trees, point out animals that our urban-adjusted eyes fail to spot. They show us where dams and tree-bulldozing have devastated the land, destroying precious resources, hurting Country, hurting everyone.

Being back home, reinforces all the stories, and wakes up ones that the older people had thought forgotten. It reminds me what I’m missing daily, but the pursuit of a good career and funds keeps me away.

I’ve lived on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land (Canberra) since 2006. I moved here for work. It’s our responsibility to thank the Traditional Owners for allowing us to live here. To pay respect to their elders, past and present. To acknowledge their care of, and unbroken connection to, Country.

Photo credits Lisa Fuller

I appreciate and love this place. They call it the Bush Capital for a reason. It’s the first time I’ve experienced having four seasons – autumn is by far my favourite. I’m close to nature, live walking-distance to a lake, can drive twenty minutes into the city, or two hours to visit the beach or snow. It’s wonderful. But it’s someone else’s sacred space.

Lisa Fuller, author of Ghost Bird

Lisa Fuller is a member of the Wulli Wulli Nation, recognised in 2015 as the traditional custodians of 108,000 hectares of Queensland, Australia. Ghost Bird was an Honour Book in the Australian Book of the Year Awards and Winner, Readings Young Adult Book Prize and Queensland Literary Awards. Lisa has previously published poetry, blogs and short fiction and is passionate about culturally appropriate writing and publishing.

lisafuller.com.au/ | @lisaSfuller

Ghost Bird by Lisa Fuller is available now!
Published by Old Barn Books | Paperback | £7.99 | Age 14+

Join Team TripFiction on Social Media:

Twitter (@TripFiction), Facebook (@TripFiction.Literarywanderlust), YouTube (TripFiction #Literarywanderlust), Instagram (@TripFiction) and Pinterest (@TripFiction)

Subscribe to future blog posts