Australia’s First Nations people are our country’s first memory holders and storytellers. First Nations writers Elfie Shiosaki, Jarrad Travers and Cass Lynch come together in this session to discuss the power of language, storytelling and poetry in capturing testimonies and (re)building communities.

Elfie Shiosaki is a Noongar and Yawuru writer. She is a lecturer in Indigenous Rights at the School of Indigenous Studies at the University of Western Australia.  She was the Editor of Indigenous Writing at Westerly from 2017 to 2021.

Jarrad Travers is a Yamatji and Bardi scholar from Derby in the North-West Kimberley region. In 2021 he graduated from the University of Western Australia with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Law & Society and Indigenous Knowledge, History & Heritage. Jarrad is also a published poet, featuring in the ‘Australian Poetry Journal 7.1’ and ‘Maar Bidi’. His poetry focuses on Indigenous struggles and truth-telling where he hopes to change the narrative of Australia’s history.

Cass Lynch is a writer and researcher living on Whadjuk Noongar Country. She has recently completed a Creative Writing PhD that explores deep memory features of the Noongar oral storytelling tradition; in particular stories that reference the last ice age and the rise in sea level that followed it. She is a descendant of the Noongar people and a student of the Noongar language. She is the co-founder of Woylie Fest, an all-Aboriginal culture-sharing and literature festival, and through the associated Woylie Project she facilitates bringing Noongar stories into print. Her Noongar language haikus, published in Westerly 64.1, won the 2019 Patricia Hackett Prize. Her audio storytelling works have been featured at Perth Festival, Arts House Melbourne, Cool Change Contemporary, and PICA. Her short story 'Split', a creative impression of deep time Perth, can be found in the UQP publication Flock: First Nations Stories Then and Now.