IV. Uniapon
Pronounced: U-nye-a-pon
Part of the Queensland Literary Awards, the David Unaipon Award is for an outstanding unpublished manuscript by an emerging Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander writer.
Established in 1988, the award is named in honor of David Unaipon (1872–1967), a Ngarrindjeri author, inventor, and activist who was the first Aboriginal writer to be published in Australia.
When I won the Uniapon, I hadn’t prepared a speech.
I really wanted to win that year. The Queensland Literary Awards 2012 had been cancelled by the Qld Government. The Awards went ahead in a tidal wave of volunteers and good will.
There was no prize money as per previous years.
That was the award I wanted to win, so I finished my first manuscript in a month, drove with my sister to Queensland and submitted it at Avid Reader Bookshop, West End, Brisbane with 15 minutes to spare.
Winners are invited to read from their manuscript.
I jumped on and rode the spectacular.
~ Lantash, Alison Tafel
The night before I met with Frank Moorhouse, a gentleman of words.
“Most people will want to hear you read”, I reasoned.
“They’ve already read me.” A matter of fact.
I fingered what is still my only copy of the manuscript, held tightly together with a large bulldog clip, and a coffee cup stain on the front, off centre, below the title.
Mr Moorhouse kindly said, “They want to hear why you won. Pieces with dialogue, where the characters speak are well received...”
“If only they didn’t all swear so much.” I’d made sure of that.
His best advice was that’s fine and best not attempt any accents.
I went through my manuscript in my hotel room overlooking the sparkles of South Bank. How to convey the essence of me, bare, upright and humble?
I’d love to know if I’m the first Uniapon winner to drop the c-word in a selected reading in the State Library of Queensland hall, filled to standing at the back. Only once, I had other words.
I was blessed with a standing ovation, and a bright eyed moment with Mr Moorhouse.
…
The family senses I’ll be on the move soon.
I put their mind at ease, “Overseas this time”.
“Whose going with you?” They ask always.
“No-one.”
“You’re not a bit scared?”
“I’m not safe here. I’m either othered out of my humanity, or people just flat out trying to kill me. I can go anywhere.”
“What will you see?”
“The sky mostly.”
…
I have no sense of direction. Not in the sense most understand that to be. Tracking the sun helped, I easily drove hundreds of thousands of kilometres across Australia. I travel light. No navigator, no runner to open the gate. No-one else’s music playlist, schedule or allergies.
Being in the one place long enough to learn the night sky, now I know exactly where I am.
Orion strides, chasing his foes and eluding the scorpion. Jupiter is retrograde over my shoulder as I complete the work I chose to publish first.
It’s a literary tour of everything that makes me happy – meeting people in generosity, new skies, and I’ll be able to watch day turn to night for six minutes and 33 seconds.
When the first of the few pics of me appears on the family’s social media network with the sky in glorious movement and colour, they’ll say, “Who’s holding the camera?”
...
Recommended Reading:
Bruce Pascoe, Dark Emu
Bill Gammage, The Biggest Estate of Earth: How the Aborigines made Australia
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