OnDusk

I spent three years in Bourke. A few people said to me when I’d announced my next career move was going to be Bourke, ‘have you heard about Bourke?’ …’It’s got problems’ … ‘It’s dangerous.’ For some people, it might be. I had been around, but I had never seen anything like it. I said I would be there for three years. And I was, give or take a week or so. I have nothing short of respect for the people I met in Bourke. ---------- I ran a crisis service for kids in Bourke. I was backed up by a big quiet, unassuming and purposeful guy, and it wouldn’t have been possible to live and work there without him. My 14 to 17 year old clients were what the locals called the ‘bad kids’. The kids who were not going to school, who were in and out of the courthouse and juvenile detention, who caused trouble in the street, and who didn’t have access to safe and secure accommodation in Bourke. It hadn’t been my first choice of a job. I’d been approached three times a...

After weeks of blogging indecision, it’s obvious I need to start small. This post will be around one word. ‘aks’ Used in a sentence:   ‘go aks your sister’ , or ‘ I aksed her and she don’t know…’ Urban dictionary, for what it’s worth has a definition.   UB has in fact listed several of the variants, so they’ve given it some thought. I spent a while chasing the word around the UB site – reading about ebonics – along the way. UB is American, and that’s pretty clear from the site. So when applied to an Australian context, they were a bit cockeyed. But the reference to ‘manipulation and transformation of the English language’ works for me. You may be aware that aks is not slang. Its not rap, and its not lazy. It’s a little word that packs a big story.   What inspires you to write – a dream, a disappointment, a word? I was once inspired by a circle of tin nailed half way up a wall. It covered a hole, and had been painted over man...