Smyth, Elizabeth (2024) Alone Together. Meanjin, 83 (1). pp. 122-128.

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Abstract

[Extract] It’s Saturday. Lunchtime. Michael crouches over roast meat and vegies. He stares at Kayla the way he does when he doesn’t get his way. His mouth opens as he chews, and skin crawls up his nose. Kayla pretends not to see. She looks instead at the shoes on the new waitress. They’re a bit too fucken shiny for this joint.

The siblings gulp anything that passes as food. Cane toads do the same. Kayla slips her feet from her thongs. She could do with some new ones. Michael lets out a grinding fart.

Research Statement

Research Background	In recent years non-Indigenous writers have grappled with inclusion and representation of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in creative works. Historically, and at times in contemporary fiction, writers have misrepresented, marginalized, or omitted Indigenous people as characters (Leane 2010, 2016; Lucashenko 2017, 2022). With the rise of First Nations authorship and authority, non-Indigenous writers are often advised to either avoid writing Indigenous characters or to get to know traditional owners and refine their writing skills to achieve authenticity.
Research Contribution	"Alone Together" is a fictional short story that depicts the social and physical environment in which a teenage girl, Kayla, lives. It is a world of drinkers, risk-takers, family dysfunction, violence, abuse, crises and death. The story also offers a representation of an Indigenous character, Royle, who has agency, demonstrates leadership, is central to the narrative, and yet does not reveal his cultural knowledge or ways of thinking. With this approach, my writing refuses to omit or marginalise Indigenous characters while respecting a cultural interface and the boundaries of Indigenous knowledge, beliefs and authorship.
Research Significance	This short fiction offers a new way of understanding the challenges of Indigenous representation. "Alone Together" was published in Meanjin 83.1 in March 2024, where it adds to a wide collection of texts by Australia's leading contemporary writers. This work adds a new original voice from Australia’s Wet Tropics Bioregion.
Item ID:	82527
Item Type:	Article (Creative Work)
ISSN:	0025-6293
Keywords:	Fiction, North Queensland, short story, wet tropics, poverty, Indigenous representation
Related URLs:	Publisher
Date Deposited:	14 May 2024 23:29
FoR Codes:	36 CREATIVE ARTS AND WRITING > 3602 Creative and professional writing > 360201 Creative writing (incl. scriptwriting) @ 100%
SEO Codes:	13 CULTURE AND SOCIETY > 1302 Communication > 130203 Literature @ 100%
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