Aunty Serena Williams: Good evening everyone. For those that don't know me, my name is Aunty Serena Williams. I'm here to do the Welcome to Country this evening. But before I do that, I would like to acknowledge why we're here and acknowledge Brooke Blurton, a proud Noongar-Yamatji woman, [unclear] knows a deep strength, resilience, and purpose. And Dr Melanie Saward is a proud Bigambul and Wakka Wakka woman. And we are here to, you know, talk about this book.

And before I do a Welcome to Country, I like to do a bit of research because I like to know what I'm talking about. And when I looked at the theme of this year for 2025 of NAIDOC and 50 years celebrating NAIDOC, we talk about the next generations. We talk about strength and these new visions, well old visions that are still there as the oldest culture in the world of over 65,000 years. And a legacy that we build upon from the giants, the shoulders that were stood before.

And, you know, this book not only celebrates the achievements of the past, stories that we continue to tell and the bright futures ahead of two beautiful young women, proud Aboriginal women empowered by their strength and their journey and your own leadership. So I just wanted to congratulate you on 'A Good Kind of Trouble'. As I said to you before, it reminds me of me in my younger day, that good kind of trouble. So I related straight away and very proud to have you here on Country.

But as I said, I'm a proud Ngunnawal – Wiradjuri woman. My name is Serena Williams. Aunty Serena Williams, not the tennis player, but a proud woman that has been here on Ngunnawal country, born here on country for over 50 years. And between me and my husband, we have nine children and our eighth grandchild coming.

And it's a legacy that we continue to build upon because our younger generation is the most important because they're the ones that are going to continue to speak the song lines, the language, to continue to dance, the song lines to continue our culture and our heritage and who we are as proud people. I say in my revitalised language as a [speaking in language] as a strong woman and acknowledging my Eldes past, present, and future. I say [speaking in language]. Hello, come. I'll sweep the lands for you to leave your footprints here in beautiful Ngunnawal country. [speaking in language], the water of the [unclear], the Molonglo, the [unclear], Ginninderry that will cleanse you of all harm. And Maliyan, Maliyan is the wedgetail eagle, the totem of the Ngunnawal people, and she will guide, protect, and oversee you here on your journey.

On behalf of myself, other Ngunnawal Elders and Ngunnawal family groups, I welcome you here to the beautiful land of the Ngunnawal, particularly used to everyone, of course. I just get when it comes to our youth, I get real excited and where you are at. Congratulations on your book and the launch of it this evening of 'A Good Kind of Trouble'. I hope that when you come back to Ngunnawal country that you will look Aunty Serena up for a yarn and a cuppa and a catch up. And welcome everyone here this evening to celebrate this launch. I think it's great to see the numbers here and also online here with us tonight. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Rebecca Bateman: Thank you so much, Aunty Serena, and Yama, everybody. My name's Rebecca Bateman. I'm very privileged to be the Director of Indigenous Engagement here at the National Library of Australia as a Weilwan and Gamilaroi woman, I'm a visitor here on Ngunnawal country. I've been here for a very long time, but I never forget how lucky I am to be here and I never cease to feel welcomed, particularly when we hear words like Aunty Serena's words to remind us that we are on Ngunnawal country, that this is country that's been taken very great care of for millennia and millennia and millennia. So yeah, very grateful for such a warm welcome.

I would also like to obviously acknowledge the Ngunnawal people whose country were on, but also to pay my respects to all of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including my own whose stories, histories, languages, knowledges, and identities live within the walls of the collections here at the National Library.

We are but custodians of very, very important materials and pieces of information and knowledges here. And we do our very best to take proper respectful care of them and to connect them with mob in any way and every way that we possibly can. We undertake our work, it's a big job when it's a national organisation and we do undertake our work for the nation and we do it on Ngunnawal country and are very proud to do so.
But tonight we are here to celebrate Brooke and Melanie and the amazing book that they've written, but also to celebrate 50 years of NAIDOC, of NAIDOC Week, actually honouring and elevating indigenous voices, culture and resilience.

Actually in the National Library's collection, we have a really special object, which you'll be able to see in a few weeks time, and it goes in our upcoming exhibition, 1975. It's the very first NAIDOC Week poster from 1975. And to the best of our very great efforts on quite a number of people here at the Library to find another copy of it in the nation, we have not been able to. So we feel very blessed to be trusted and trusted with the care of that. We'll also be sharing it really, really thankful to have the opportunity to share it in the gallery, but also further afield than that as part of the ongoing work that we're doing here.

So yes, 50 years of NAIDOC week, and I think with this year's theme, The Next Generation: Strength, Vision, and Legacy, it celebrates not only the achievements of the past, where we've come from, but where we're going to. The bright future that we have ahead, empowered by the strength of our young leaders, the vision of our communities and the legacy of our ancestors. And we are so lucky tonight to have two such deadly young leaders with us to talk about what they're doing.

So as Aunty Serena mentioned, Brooke and Melanie. Brooke Burton is a proud Noongar-Yamatji woman. She's a youth worker, advocate, speaker, working with young people who've experienced hardship, helping them to find their way in the world. And she's also an author and has released her own debut memoir 'Big Love', which came out in 2022. You can also find that upstairs in our bookshop. Dr Melanie Saward is a proud Bigambul and Wakka Wakka woman. She's a writer, editor, academic based in Tulmur or Ipswich in Queensland. She's the author of two other novels, 'Burn' and 'Love Unleashed', and she's also the coordinator of BlackWords at the University of Queensland and lectures in writing and Australian studies.

'A Good Kind of Trouble' is a book that I wish was around when I was a teenager. It's a brilliantly warm-hearted novel, full of high school, longing, friendship, footy matches and dreams to change the world. And it's so important for our young people to see themselves and their experiences spoken about and reflected in the world. And this book does that so beautifully. So it is with great pleasure that I hand over to Brooke and Melanie to talk about 'A Good Kind of Trouble' and how it came to be. Please join me in welcoming Brooke and Melanie.

Brooke Blurton: Oh wow, so many of you.

Dr Melanie Saward: Holy Moly.

Brooke Blurton: Hello.

Dr Melanie Saward: All right. Hello. We are going to have some slides up mostly because we call ourselves prize winning yappers, and the slides will just help us stay on track so that we don't waffle too much, a little bit, and hopefully we'll be able to click through. Yeah. All right, great. We haven't done this for a while. We actually haven't seen each other for a while.

Brooke Blurton: Since our book launch in Melbourne.

Dr Melanie Saward: Yeah, a couple of months ago now

Brooke Blurton: Which is exciting. Yeah, it's crazy. Sometimes I feel like a bit of a rockstar. I'm on tour.

Dr Melanie Saward: I certainly feel like a rockstar tonight here at the Library especially. We've had that beautiful welcome.

Brooke Blurton: From Aunty Serena.

Dr Melanie Saward: From Aunty, and then Bec. Thank you for that introduction as well. It was very nice. So hi everyone, I am Mel Saward and I'm a Bigambul and Wakka Wakka woman, and I guess as a visitor to this place, I know that you've heard acknowledgement and welcome done tonight, but I do want to acknowledge the Ngunnawal people and especially Aunty Serena for that beautiful welcome, which really did open something up in me just now. So it was really nice to be here on this lovely country, nice to feel some real seasons. I was in a t-shirt on my front veranda yesterday, sorry, people who live here, but Queensland, that's what we have in wintertime.

So my day-to-day life is that I am a lecturer at the University of Queensland, so mostly I'm teaching students about the publishing industry. It's what I love to teach. I come from a background where I was working in the publishing industry myself and I went to university to work in publishing. I told my parents, I was about 25 when I went to university, and I had a really good marketing job. And I loved to write and I was spending all my time, at work a little bit too sorry, I'm a bit ashamed about that, writing fan fiction. And I thought if there was a way that I could write all the time, I would like to do it. And I was writing fan fiction with Americans that were in college and I thought, okay, I'm going to go to university. That's what I'm going to do. And so I quit my job and I sold my car and I moved back in with my parents and went to uni and I told them it was just going to help me get a better marketing job with my fingers crossed and said, I don't think I'm going to write a book or win a Miles Franklin, but I had my fingers crossed behind my back. Because I was definitely writing a book at the same time that I was there.

But I did go after a job in the publishing industry. That's what I focused on while I was at uni and worked there for 3 or 4 years. And then I started to write and for 13 years I tried to get published. So that's my sort of background. I had this story called, it ended up being called 'Burn'. It took me 13 years to find someone. I got a lot of rejections. I experienced a lot of weird moments along the way, little racism moments I suppose, for this story to get published before it finally got picked up. But somewhere along the line, I got matched up with this one over here and we decided to write a young adult novel.

Brooke Blurton: We always make the joke that we met on Tindr, like book Tindr.

Dr Melanie Saward: Yeah book Tindr is the publisher playing the matchmaking service.

Brooke Blurton: They all swiped right.Thank God.

Dr Melanie Saward: Yeah. And it was love at first sight, family love at first sight. We were supposed to have a quick yarn about what we wanted this young adult book that we were writing to look like. I was in Narrm, Melbourne, where Brook lives, for a conference. And I had a little bit of free time on my first day. And so the publisher organised for us to have a coffee at Brooke's place and I arrived and what was six hours later?

Brooke Blurton: Yeah, literally a blind date. And then we had basically our little born baby. Which s kind of crazy.

Dr Melanie Saward: Yeah. So up here we put up some little bits and pieces, like I said, to try and keep us on track. So I've got some ballet shoes because my not so secret hidden talent is that I can ballet dance. And I went on pointe in 2020, funnily enough. So I spent my lockdown in my lounge room walking around in my pointe shoes. It was actually quite good. I took a lot of ballet classes. I've got a romance novel, a little book with a heart on it because I love a romance novel. I have a Barbie because if you've ever followed me on social media, I'm very, very into Barbie, have always been since before the movie came out. Obviously the movie coming out was one of the greatest days of my life, and I went to the premiere with Brooke, so it was amazing.

And then I've got Tasmania because even though I'm a Bigambul and Wakka Wakka woman, and those mobs are from up north. So we've got Bigambul on the New South Wales, Queensland, bordering around Gunda Windy Way, and Wakka Wakka's around [unclear] a little bit further up and in than the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. I actually was born in Lutruwita in Tasmania, and that country is very special to me even though I don't have an ancestral tie to it. And I've got a little Scotty dog, anyone following me on social media and know why, oh yeah, there's some hands. So that's my little Daphne, my little Scotty dog. And then the emu is because the emu is my totem.

So we just put up some things here so that we could say, here's some stuff about me. My little quote, we did these quotes for school visits because we wanted to put up advice. It was advice that we wanted to give to our younger selves or to kids in the audience. And I think there's a few young people in the audience we saw coming in. And so mine was 'don't put down the book'. And I'll tell you the reason why is that I have a school report card from, I want to say grade five. I went to school in the 90s and we had those lift up desks in primary school and we now know that I have ADHD, we did not know that back in the day, and I was hyperfocused on my Babysitter's Club books all the time. And so I would read them, hated math. So I would read them like this under in that way that kids think that you can't see them if they can't see you. Yeah, that's what I was doing. And so I've got report cards going 'Melanie would be an excellent all round student if she would put down the book.'

What I want to say to young people is maybe you do need to put it down in maths lesson, but don't put down the book. Because the scary part for me is that I hear these statistics that say that young people in high school stop reading, boys and girls often. I think it's going to change a little bit. Now I do know that social media is helping that, but I hear these statistics that say people stop reading, especially when you're in high school because you've got more pressure on you to get good grades and go to uni and whatever else. I don't want you to put down books if you can help it. Even if you just read one page a week, even if you read one book in a whole year, try and keep reading a book is my thing, because books to me are an escape. Books to me help me learn about other ways to live. Books to me are fun, but they also are a learning experience and they've always just been so important to me.

If you like to read, try and keep that because it will be something that will guide you through. Like if you want to go to uni. There's so much reading, mate. I'm a uni teacher. I can tell you even I have to read all the readings that I set for people to read. It's a lot. There's a lot of reading. Keep reading, keep enjoying it, and then it won't be a chore when you have to do it, but it also gives you something nice to do at the end of the day. So yeah, that's why I've got that as a quote. So don't book down the book unless you have maths and you probably should do a little maths. It's fairly important.

Brooke Blurton: I hated maths. I was not a maths. I was very similar to Jamie. A lot of people will ask about Jamie and say, is it just, it is Brooke, Jamie, and is Mel Stella. And it's actually not. We find that we are both characters in different ways. I feel like Jamie encompasses so much of my masc energy, and then Stella kind of encompasses a lot of my feminine energy. So I feel like that is a common question that we get all the time. But yeah, I just wanted to preface that. So I'll keep my bio very short because.

Dr Melanie Saward: I waffled.

Brooke Blurton: No, no. I always learn something about Mel and it always makes me feel closer to her. I mean, when we first got paired together, it was just after I had published my first book, my memoir, which I'll tell a bit of a story about how that even came to, because sometimes I actually really pinch myself that that's a thing and that I get to do this as a job. But I wrote 'Big Love' and when I asked the publisher to extend on the, I guess what came after, I said to them, 'I really want to write a teenage fiction' or something that is for children or young people who either have experienced hardship or been in care or just something that would encourage them because of my own experiences. And I guess talking to the NAIDOC theme, I wanted to leave more of a legacy.

And so by chance, Mel and I got paired together and I think it was just honestly like a Tindr match in heaven, book Tindr. Because as much as we are so similar, we are so different. And I think that brings so much diversity to the story and to what the book is about in terms of life experience and different perspectives and different character personalities. So I always just really thought this is a match made in heaven because not only am I getting the chance to show a bit of my story in these characters, Mel gets to do the same.
And she's one mob. I'm one mob, but we're touching a lot of other nations and a lot of other mobs, and I can draw my connections, she can draw on hers. And I think that's the best thing about being a blackfella because it's always about collaboration and it's always about sharing. We've never been a mob. That's just one for our own. And I think that was something that was really important to me in this book and I guess in collaboration to make something that was going to have more reach than just me doing it by myself. 

So a little bit about me, and I'll keep it really brief, is I was born in Carnarvon, which is about 10 hours north of Perth on Yamatji country, but my grandmother's country and her beautiful land sea is Noongar, so Ballardong Noongar from the southeast of WA. So just about an hour from Perth, hour and a bit. And I grew up in Carnarvon my whole life, unfortunately until I lost my mum and my nan and then I started living in Perth.

But up until I lost my mom, I experienced a lot of things, I think, as a kid. I was in care, I was in foster care, in and out. I had experiences with domestic violence. My family suffered from substance abuse issues. We would often go hungry, go without clean school clothes. So part of my life wasn't the most easiest as a kid, but in my mind, I don't know why and I don't know what was instilled in me. I think obviously there's some part of me that thought this is not going to be my life forever and I can make it better. I've just got to keep doing the right thing or keep staying out of trouble. Which is kind of funny because yeah, I guess that kind of plays into 'A Good Kind of Trouble' in a sense is that I put my head down, I kept being persistent, I kept taking opportunities, I kept saying yes to things, obviously all through tragedy, unfortunately. And I think that's a pretty realistic way of how kids' lives are in some ways. You don't dunno what's going on in their home environment.

And I don't think a lot of people did know that about me, but I think that's my biggest strength as well. I've turned adversity into opportunity in some ways. And I think that's probably the messaging that I always try to encourage young people is that you don't have to be defined by your circumstances or your environment. You can choose the right things and make the right choices and keep continuing.
But yeah, we did a lot of, we've done a few school things, so we wanted to make it fun. And so we put up random things. Obviously I was on the Bachelorette a bit weird, I know a bit unusual. I love footy. That was obviously drawn on my experiences with Jamie and her love for footy. I played footy for about 13, 14 years until I actually gave it up unwillingly. I actually had to, I think it was just a time thing, but if I had the energy and the time now, I would absolutely be playing footy.

The turtle is my totem, the [unclear], which is the green sea turtle. And that was given to be my by my grandmother. The beautiful story behind that, if you haven't read 'Big Love' is that my mother was pregnant in the water and she was just buoyant floating around having a wonderful time. And my grandmother was on the shore, or this is her, this story. It is crazy how stories pass on. It's just so ingrained in me. So the story is that my nan was on the shore, she was scaling a fish or something, I dunno kind of the vague memory of that, but she was watching my mum in the water and all these green sea turtles were popping up around her and taking a little breath of fresh air in kind of like a dome shape around my mum. And so my grandmother took that as a sign. First Nations people were so connected to their culture and our animals and I think she was like, this is a sign and it's symbolic to that young child that's in my mum's belly and that happened to me be me. And that's been quite an amazing journey, even just knowing that and having that story because every time I've been in the water in the shores or if I go back home or I did a job, I did a job recently for, a tourism job and no kidding, every time I'm in the water a turtle will show up and I just think that's a sign. So a sign or it's my connection being like this and it's very significant to me and I take a lot of pride in that.

But I believe in representation obviously. My quote is, 'you can't be what you can't see', but be the first. I don't come from a very strong writing background. I think Mel and I speak about this, Mel is a doctor in books. I am not. The first experience that I ever had with books is being in foster care and I was, what is it when you just put it in alphabetical order? I was organising,

Dr Melanie Saward: You were a librarian.

Brooke Blurton: Really. I was pretty much, it's very significant to being, and I've spent a lot of time in libraries. So this is actually quite full circle in a sense as well. My first experience was organising encyclopaedias in my foster home, and that was my first introduction to books. I wasn't read to as a kid. I didn't have books as a kid. The only books that I got were every time I would win an Aboriginal award at school and they would give me a book. And I remember once getting a Noongar Seasons book, which if you know WA, we have six seasons, so we don't have just summer, spring, autumn, we have six seasons and that is how we obviously connect to land. But it's also when the babies are due, like animals and the breeding times, et cetera.

But that was my first introduction to my own language, the Noongar language.I had been brought up to speak the Yamatji language, but I knew my grandmother was Noongar. So my first introduction was those sort of instances with books until later in life. I just loved writing more journaling than anything. And I think because I spoke about losing my mum and a month later I actually lost my grandmother and they're the most influential women in my life. When I hear Aunty Serena talk, it feels like I've just gained another mum or another Nan. I always find healing in my elders and I feel like I never really lost them per se because I still carry their legacy. I still talk about them as if they were still here. And I am very proud that they've instilled so many values in me.

But I unfortunately experienced a bit of a post-traumatic, just, I wouldn't say disorder, but it was a post-traumatic sort of response to that time. And I went mute and I couldn't actually physically talk. So I mean I tried. I could say thank you, I could say please, goodbye. And my dad who's British, he found it really difficult and he didn't really ask to have this little Aboriginal girl on his doorstep. He was very ashamed of me having a daughter to an Aboriginal woman, which kind of sucks as a young girl. Imagine that on my self-esteem, not really fair. But I went through this journey of being mute and not knowing my place and not knowing my belonging and not understanding the world. And I found myself journaling. I really, really enjoyed it and I journaled every day. I journaled about the shit things the good, oh, sorry, the good things, the bad things. I said no swearing.

And I found it very cathartic and very therapeutic and full circle. I guess that's kind of why we open the book. I dunno if anyone's read it. Has anyone read Big? Good? Yeah. So we opened the book with a journal entry by Jamie, and if you want to know what the book is about, we've probably rambled on about it. But there you go. I felt like I wanted young people to understand not just in the book but just in life how powerful expression is. And how powerful it is that if you feel like you're alone, that the papers and your journal can be your best friend and they don't judge. And even when you're figuring it out, just voicing it is really, because obviously I couldn't verbalise it, but I could voice it to the paper and that really helped me. And so we started 'A Good Kind of Trouble' on this journal journey and it just went from there. It's so crazy. I feel like I always wanted to write something queer from a young person's perspective. I wanted to collaborate, I wanted to be a First Nation story, and I still really pinch myself that we've done that. It's insane.

Dr Melanie Saward: Yeah, I am still pinching myself about this one. We are in the middle of edits for the sequel for this one right now. So while we're talking about this one, my head's on like, oh, they're going to love this part. And I can't talk about it yet because we're still editing it. But yeah, it's is a really pinch me moment because this is a book that was born over cups of tea in a backyard in Melbourne, two [unclear] having a yarn for the first time and writing stuff down. And just what we did was just basically what we've just done for you right now is that we've told a little bit of our story and we swapped and we went back and forth.
And I looked at pictures of Brooke's mum and Nan because she was getting ready to send those pictures to the publisher. She had them out. So we had a look at those pictures and I talked about my nan and we talked about our stories and our experiences with books and all of these stories, and then they came together to be the book.

We talk a lot about collaboration. I think they wanted us to talk a bit about collaboration tonight, but maybe we should give a bit of a story about the book too for now. So I think that you've probably got the gist of what some of the themes are in the book for those of you who haven't read, because as we said, they're really born from those conversations that we had. It's a queer tween, 14-year-old girl, novel about a girl called Jamie. She's a nunga teenager. She was in a fictional regional town, but it's maybe a little like Carnarvon, right?

Brooke Blurton: I think a lot of people who have grown up in a coastal rural town will actually connect with it as well because, especially like Queensland mob or the border of South Australia, even though she's Noonhar, we just tried to keep it as general and relatable as you can. Yeah, it could be tricky,

Dr Melanie Saward: It's tricky when you're mobbed to because of permissions and writing. Country. Country is alive and sacred and we all felt that with that welcome today, it is tricky to set it, but it is kind of an anywhere Australia small town. And reasons for doing that is more so that kids can project themselves into those stories or imagine it in that sort of a way. So yeah, it's about Jamie. She's a really cool teenager because she's a bit of both of us and I think we're kind of cool except we're sitting here at matching jumpers, so maybe we're not.

Brooke Blurton: It's a bit of Jamie.

Dr Melanie Saward: Yeah, it's a bit of Jamie.

Brooke Blurton: That was my idea.

Dr Melanie Saward: I like it. I like it too.

Brooke Blurton: Mel thinks it's so lame.

Dr Melanie Saward: I think what's really funny is when Brooke forgets to pack it and I'm wearing mine or vice versa, because we've both done things where we've been wearing it and I'm like.

Brooke Blurton: Mind you, I do other things and I always have to wear a dress and in my heart I'm like, I want to be sitting on stage in a hoodie and jeans. This is my way of being like I just want to feel as relaxed and grounded as I can. So I'm dragging Mel for the ride.

Dr Melanie Saward: Yeah, we're also channelling our inner Jamie. No way Jamie would be caught dead on a stage in a dress.

Brooke Blurton: Absolutely not.

Dr Melanie Saward: So Jamie is this teenager. She's fun and feisty. She lives with her auntie and uncle, her older, she lives with a couple of little cousins. And so Brooke will probably talk a little bit about the shape of the family at some point, but she lives with this family, loves her life, helps look after the little kids. Brothers pretty deadly. And she plays footy. It's a mixed team because they're in a regional town, so there's not enough players, but she's so deadly hurt the boys and the girls just love having Jamie on the team. And all Jamie really worries about is whether her and her best friend Loz are going to be able to play footy on the weekends because sometimes because they're a regional town, other towns don't want to play against a team with girls on the team. Or she also worries about whether Loz will ever have a crush back on her because she's got a crush on her best friend and she's kind of upset because Loz has got this huge crush on Jamie's older brother, Poss, he's so deadly. All the girls love him. So these are the only things that Jamie really worries about. But then this new girl called Stella comes to town, moves to town, and that's when this trouble sort of starts.

And yeah, so that's the teaser for you picking up the book for those of you who haven't picked it up, but we've got all these things that are in the book. So we've talked about queerness, footy, hobbies, diary, storytelling, representation. We wanted romance.

Brooke Blurton: We really jam packed it.

Dr Melanie Saward: Hey, we so jam packed it.

Brooke Blurton: We were like, you know what, we're just going to throw everything at the wall and see what fits. I feel like, where do you read a young fiction that encompasses that much? But it is so relatable. I work at a boarding house and all my [unclear] girls are reading it and don't really .Some of them are really strong readers, but it's the ones that don't necessarily read that are reading it. And I think that's the best thing that I've seen firsthand, grassroots seeing it firsthand, the impact that this book is encouraging and helping. And like I said, I didn't read, so when it came to themes and topics, I just went with my gut and I'm sure Mel can say the same thing. It's like you just want to give young people as much information and as much advice and as much skills you can to see the world, understand it a little bit better and make choices that can better their life.

And I think for me, Jamie is a little bit more confident than I would've been in high school. And I think making her like that is this staunch character that just exists and just is allowed to exist and she's queer and there's no coming out. She doesn't need to come out, she's just exists as a queer person as she is. Everyone accepts it. There's no story about it, there's no big party. And I just wish that that was my same experience or I wish it was other kids' experiences. So it's easier for them to come to their identity, whatever that is. Whether that's facing gender, whether that's facing sexuality, whatever it is in terms of their own identity, hopefully it makes it, reading it makes it a little bit easier for them to understand and to feel seen and to feel a little bit more heard, which I've never read anything like that. I'm not too sure if you guys have read anything that just really just when you read something and you're like, it hits.

I think again, my experience with books, I read the Bible, I was like, what the hell? What in the hell is this? I was like, not that I wanted to understand that, but it was just something that was given to me and told that if you read this you would understand yourself. And I was absolutely not understanding it. But I can understand the faith in it and I understand people who turn to faith, et cetera. But it didn't connect with me. And it wasn't until I saw shows, like queer shows and I guess queer advocates and people who, like I said, you can't be what you can't see, that I started to see people that existed as they are and that I sort of replicated that. And was like, okay, well if they can do it, I can do it. And I think Jamie just exists in the world and she just continues pursuing life and doing the things that she enjoys but not doing it lightly. Like I said, she does it with such grace, but I think also with such staunchness.

Dr Melanie Saward: Yeah, she runs away a little bit too. I think as well. I've been thinking about Jamie a lot this last couple of weeks. This is Jamie by the way. Yeah. You can see the reason for the purple jumpers, right?

Brooke Blurton: Yeah.

Dr Melanie Saward: But yeah, I've been thinking about Jamie a little bit and sometimes when things get too much for her, she does. She runs, but she runs to process it and then she runs to the people in her life or the places in her life. So very early on in the book, she takes off down the beach and she goes to a women's place and she goes there to connect. Or she gets into trouble and isn't allowed to play footy so she's straight in the water because getting in the water is restorative for her and it's going back to country. Or something else happens. There's a few times it happens. She runs off and she finds her uncle and he gives her the wisdom that she needs. So she has all these people lifting her up around. And we were really adamant with Jamie too that her family wouldn't look like that white nuclear family either. Because very few mob, I think my family's quite nuclear, but very few mob, especially kids that have been in care or out of care, in community, a lot of our way, a lot of mob, when they're living more traditionally we'll have, I think kinship is different.

I was listening to Aunty talking about some of her brother cousins and I was like, oh yeah, yeah, we got those too. And we have those systems in place. So we really wanted Jamie's family. We wanted to show you all kinds of families. So you will see all kinds of families in this book. So yeah.

Brooke Blurton: I hope we're not giving too much away.

Dr Melanie Saward: I'm trying really hard not to give it away.

Brooke Blurton: Yeah.

Dr Melanie Saward: What was on our next slide?

Brooke Blurton: The power of storytelling. I think just to touch on family dynamics is even being in foster care, obviously children, I think kids belong with family, especially mob, I think. But I had a lot of other people in my life that supported my mum and my family that weren't just my parents, were the aunties and the uncles and they lived next door and they lived two houses down. And I think we wanted to pay homage to that. And that family isn't always by blood, sometimes it can be by choice. I've had many different role models in my life and I think they've really inspired me and to kind of get me to where I am now, which is kind of crazy. 

I think in year 11 and 12, just to give you some context is I got kicked out of home when I was 15 and was experiencing some homelessness and I didn't know if I was going to finish school. Honestly. I really liked school. I actually really loved learning and my education I really valued it. But my home life was really tough. And so I thought, oh God, what am I going to do? So I was couch surfing, I didn't know what to do, but a teacher literally tracked me down and was like, found me at my best friend's house, and I hadn't been to school for about a week, but she noticed, and if you work in community service, if you work with young people and you care about them so deeply, you notice these things. And even as a teacher or service worker, whatever you do, she noticed that I hadn't been at school because she knew my character and then found me and was like, absolutely not. You're getting to school. And got me back on track. So she actually became my full-time guardian in year 11 and 12, and she got me basically to graduate and I graduated as head girl. I graduated with multiple awards because I was actually supported and I felt encouraged and I didn't feel forgotten.

And I think that's a really big feeling, and maybe our family dynamics don't make sense to a nuclear family or to services that are trying to provide care, but if it makes sense to the family and the community, just understand that it is a real thing and a real connection. And there's a lot of support in community for kids outside the parents. Sometimes it's the aunties, it's the uncles, it's the grandparents as well. My grandparents are so sacred.

So yeah, I guess in this story, Jamie lives with her aunty and uncle, and there's just big mob of people and you'll find the characters all make sense. And I'm sure if you come from a blackfella family, you'll connect with that and you'll know, yep, that's my aunty Pat, that's my uncle and that's my cousin brother. And you understand, but even if you are not First Nations, you'll see and understand the dynamic and how much love there is in community from outside that.

And I think that's really quite special to us to encompass and to get other people to understand as well because it's very, very sacred to us. Obviously family and community are really high in our values, and that's obviously the point of our legacy comes down for family.

It's really hard for me to grasp the fact that I have my last name, even though it's an English name. But when you go back to WA and you go, I'm a Blurton, everyone will know you, everyone. I've got the biggest family back home, they'll be like, I know everyone. So even though it's an English name in my back home, it's just crazy to think that I have my name to something. And I know it might seem so unusual that you pick up something and it's so tangible, but it's so powerful.

And I feel like that's Mel and I's vision is that we can keep putting not just our name, but our stories. And I think that's the power of storytelling is passing that on and encouraging. And one day I want to see more stories from First Nations perspectives. And I'm seeing just now being in the book world and conversing with Mel all the time, she'll tell me about an author and immediately I'll write it down in my notes and I'll be like, yeah, I need to go write. I need to go read that. And I've read so many stories that just feel like my own, which I wish that I had when I was younger. So we just need to keep not just putting our name to things, but keep telling the stories, keep the fire burning, to keep encouraging our young people to read. Because we know the statistics of young people, they do drop off. But they need to be reading stuff that they enjoy, so make it fun and we're trying to make it fun.

Dr Melanie Saward: We're trying.

Brooke Blurton:I'm 30 now and I found it really hard because someone's like, yeah, yeah, okay, you're 30  now, you're not youth. I was like, guys, I've been not youth for about a while, but it actually hit me really hard.

Dr Melanie Saward: I did really enjoy Aunty calling us young women before. I was like, yeah.

Brooke Blurton: And I feel like because I still work in youth work, I still feel so connected to young people and I don't think I'll ever give my job up because I think that's my biggest passion. Obviously writing books is a part of what I do, but youth work is my core and I'm just so inspired. I feel like a part of the storytelling there's a lot of healing. And when I guess just, yeah, every time I tell my story or I see a young person thriving, it's not just like them thriving, it's also healing for me too. So yeah, I just love and I get the opportunity to talk to you guys about it and you guys show up and I think that's the most beautiful thing is having people show up. So thank you as well.

Dr Melanie Saward: Yeah, thank you.

Brooke Blurton: Do you have anything else?

Dr Melanie Saward: Yeah, I guess the last thing I can see that we are almost ready for question time. The last thing I do just want to say is if you see First Nations books out there, buy the if you have the disposable income to do so.

Brooke Blurton: Or borrow from the Library.

Dr Melanie Saward: Libraries are an amazing resource, and I'm not just saying that because we are in our National Library. Libraries are an amazing resource, and if you're ever worried about supporting authors, the libraries, we actually get paid from the libraries. We get a thing called lending rights from libraries. And honestly, I'll see more money from my public lending rights than I'll ever see from royalties. So if you're ever worried about those sorts of things. But the reason that I say these things are because we have this impression widely that there are many, many more First Nations stories being published than there had been. And anecdotally, you're right, but my work with the BlakWords database does show that yes, while there are more original Torres Strait Islander stories proportionally in Australia, we are competing because that's how the market makes us do. We are competing with your big white authors out there that are book a year people.

And Brooke and I absolutely adore writing, but Brooke's already said she has like 47 jobs. So do I. And so we can't be writing full-time. If someone liked to pay me a lot of money to write full-time, I would absolutely love that, but we are not. And so we can't compete with a book a year or two books a year or whatever kind of people. So if you see our books out there, recommend them to your friends, get people to borrow them from the library, buy copies if you can gift them to young people.

And I only say these things because it does look like we have more stories out there. Yes, we do, but there's so much more room for it. There is so much more diversity out there in First Nation stories. And also, I love Brooke's quote about, you can be first, but I don't want any more firsts. I was the second First Nations rom-com writer in Australia after Anita Heiss. Cool. But that's sad to me because Anita's books came out in 2010, I think her second last one. I mean, she's had one this year and then there was no one till me. That is a really long time, last year. Let's not do that anymore.

I just went to the launch of Jasmin McGaughey's 'Moonlight and Dust', which is a deadly Torres Strait Islander fantasy book that came out this week, actually last week, Tuesday, it's been out for a week. And she was the first person writing about Torres Strait Islander culture in Cairns in a fantasy book. Lystra Rose. There are all these wonderful people, but it's hard to be first. So the more of us that can be out there, and the more you support us, that will help us and that will help our kids, and that will help the future of our kids. So I guess that's my last shake my fist at you, please.

Brooke Blurton: Yeah, call to action.

Dr Melanie Saward: My call to action. I think we are going to have questions now.

Brooke Blurton: I just want to pay tribute to Ruby as well. Our designer who actually animated the book, well illustrated the book Ruby. She's another First Nations woman, and she has the most incredible art. So we were very, very lucky to have her create something that encompassed what we envisioned for Jamie. So I obviously want to pay a tribute to that because there are actually so many other great First Nations illustrators out there as well, and we are just so lucky to have them. So if you know now one support their work, it's amazing.

Dr Melanie Saward: And it takes a village. We had Casey Mulder, who is a Noongar editor as well, and that was just absolutely amazing to actually have a Noongar person editing in helping with the slang when I was writing. So it takes a village in every one of those books you're supporting, not just the people whose names are on the cover, but the ones that are on the inside as well.

Brooke Blurton: So it's funny how your life changes. We want to hear from you guys. If you have any questions.

Dr Melanie Saward: If you pop your hand up, there's a mic coming around.

Brooke Blurton: I really encourage to not be ashamed, because in our culture, well, shame doesn't actually exist. As in the word in English literature. We don't have a word for shame, so prove me right.

Audience member 1: I'm just curious. Sorry. Hi, I'm Peter. I'm just curious about how you actually wrote it, like the logistics of writing it together.

Brooke Blurton: Very hard.

Audience member 1: And say hi to my cousin who's online from Bathurst.

Brooke Blurton: Oh my God, I love that. Hi, cousin from Bathurst.

Dr Melanie Saward: Wiradjuri Country.

Brooke Blurton: Well, like we said, our first meeting was honestly the birth of the book. In the first instant. We spent how many hours? Six, six hours, nutting it out and just kind of going back and forth. We had to wait quite a while for it to actually be published. It had been written and ready to go, but we had to wait it out. Hey, it's publishing politics.

Dr Melanie Saward: 47 jobs, I tell you.

Brooke Blurton: Yeah, I don't agree with publishing politics, but maybe I'll just become my own publisher. But in terms of writing, Mel's a much stronger, I'll always admit this, and she's too humble to admit it as well, but she's a much stronger writer than I. I'm very, I think when I found my voice and I could actually talk, I've really valued recording and just talking about things. And so in the six hours that we spoke, the story was kind of birthed. We already had the timeline, how we were going to start it, the journaling part, and it was kind of just the logistics, the names, characters.

Dr Melanie Saward: We didn't quite have the names because I was looking at my diary the other day, and they were called Sporty and Arty for a start.

Brooke Blurton: Like Sporty Spice and Arty Gal

Dr Melanie Saward: Yeah. And we sent each other. So we are both in different states. I'm in Queensland and she's in Victoria and text messages.

Brooke Blurton: Ideas were through notes, through text messages, notes, emails.

Dr Melanie Saward: Google Docs, all of those sorts of things like, oh, what do you reckon? If Loz has got a crush on Pose? Oh yeah, okay, let's do that. And it's just so fun because when I'm writing that stuff by myself, you can't go, what if this character had a crush on this character? Because there's nobody who goes, who the heck are you talking about? But it's so fun to have someone to bounce ideas off of. Yeah, and we've just done it again with the second one.

Brooke Blurton: I love Mel because she keeps me light and fluffy. I am so a bit diplomatic and I can be quite pragmatic, so sometimes I can get a bit dark. And so writing a teenage fiction was not really challenging, but try to keep it as light and fluffy and as obviously inspiring and encouraging as possible. And Mel was just such a light in my life that sort of balanced out. I was like, okay, we want to talk about politics, but we don't want to go too deep into it, so how far do we go with that? I guess my connection with working with young people directly and in schools, it helped because I had some real life experiences that I could use in it, and I just would go to Mel and be like, what do you think of this?

I think, honestly, I say this every time, collaboration is the best thing because you don't just have one perspective. You've got two, and we've got two life experiences that it brings such a diverse range. I mean, obviously writing is hard. You've got to be seated and doing it. Very hard for me, very hard for me. Not saying it's easy for Mel, she's always on a plane too, but. I think it's in the conversations, the yarns and the Yyaps, that a story was pretty much born.

Dr Melanie Saward: I think even when you're writing by yourself too, we forget how much of the writing process, and I'm sure there's a lot of you here who are writing as well, but a lot of the writing process is the thinking as well. And I know a lot of people feel guilty when they don't sit down. They hear that stuff. I get up in the morning and I write 1000 words every day. I don't do that stuff. I do not do that. But what I am doing is constantly thinking about those stories and maybe writing a note. I was on the plane today and I'm writing my own new book at the moment, and I was listening to music and I was like, oh, there's a line. And I couldn't get my computer out of my bag, but I was just tapping it out on my phone because I was reading another book. I had to put it down and think about this story. So constantly being in it, and that's just as much as writing and sitting your bum down at the computer and doing those things. And for the computer stuff, I have dexamphetamine for my ADHD so I will sit there and do it. That's how I do it. Right?

Brooke Blurton: Yeah. I think that any inspiring writer is that I think is just owning that you've got a story to tell as well. Yeah.

Dr Melanie Saward: Other questions? As you can see, we can dine out on one question for 15 minutes.

Audience member 2: Yeah. Hello? Can you hear me?

Dr Melanie Saward: Yeah.

Audience member 2: Okay. I'm just imagining that. Hello, I'm, I had a question. Since it's come out and you've spoken to young people and their experience in reading the book, you had really clear intentions in queer representation and the political aspects that are through it. But is there a response to the book from young people that you've been surprised by or didn't expect?

Brooke Blurton: I had one recently. It was my acting teacher's daughter. She kind of expected it to be sort of an anime story at first. And I think that was probably in terms of the character design. And I think the comment, I'm trying to think what he had repeated, but I think it was one of it was like, oh, I didn't know we have one queer person at school. And I was like, oh. And she was kind of relating that as if it was Jamie and as in her queer person at school was Jamie, and she was like, I didn't know that people were queer. That's only a 10-year-old. Do you know what I mean? She didn't actually understand the reference of queer, because I think a lot of kids use gay, and they use gay as that's stupid. So I think her understanding the language around queerness and sexuality, so that was big for me. I thought you got to celebrate the little wins.

I think a lot of the girls relate to, particularly I think a lot of the girls relate to loving footy. They just love footy, and they're like, does she win her grand final? That kind of question and that sort of relatability. So that I guess is enough for me. I mean, I'm not going to, hopefully out of any kid in the end, if they can pay homage to 'A Good Kind of Trouble' and it changed their life later in life, they're the future prime minister, yes, of course that's going to be the biggest win. But if it's just relatable and they can understand a little bit about other people, a little bit about themselves, then I think that for me is enough. Have you had anything?

Dr Melanie Saward: I've actually been surprised by how many adults have contacted me about it and how many, they're like, I just read it and now I'm pressing it into the hands of this young person that I know. And I actually really forgot how much the adults sway a young person's reading, reading experience. And so I've been really, also really grateful by the amount of librarians who have contacted me and said, oh, we put this on our library shelves. And I did a writers festival by myself, and the book shop hadn't been able to get the book in, and the kids were fighting over the two copies of it that were in the library. And I was like, great. Because now they're going to come back to the library or they're going to put holds on this book, and the library's going to buy more copies of it and great, I don't really want them fighting over it. But it was those sorts of things that you were sort of seeing the demand in action, which was really nice.

Brooke Blurton: I mean, I agree. There's lots of adults that are, like I said, my acting teacher bought it for his daughter, and then that was her response. And I think that's really beautiful. But to give you another MITS reference, God, I'm obsessed. It's my work. But we had our launch and we had, what was the, who came the Reading?

Dr Melanie Saward: Amplify Bookstore.

Brooke Blurton: Amplify Bookstore. And they sold out at our book launch, which was really amazing to feel that, to get it out there. And it's only been out since Feb, so it's still early days. But I, I think I bought, no, how many did I buy? 50, 50 or a hundred, something like that. Something like that. And it cost me like a thousand dollars. I think every one of my MITS girls got it. I've got 44 girls and everyone took one home. And so that's 44 girls that have got 'A Good Kind of Trouble' and it's living on their bedside and that is just the visual and the feeling of that. 

And the girls come up to me like, I'm reading your book, and I'm like, oh, yay. I didn't expect the MITS girls. Sometimes they just get so much stuff all from rural remote areas and they come to Melbourne for schooling and so they're borard with us and there's just access to so many opportunities and things like that. I thought they're not going to read, they're going to have it and then throw it or something. But I was like, I'll just give it and make sure, but most of the girls that in the 44 that I've got have said that they've either read it or it's on their bedside or it's around in their room. And I think just even having that access is really important.

So we have good intentions. Obviously our intentions aren't really to get bestseller. That's not our goal would be great to get best teen fiction or whatever, but that's just a label that we don't really feel that connected to. It's more about getting it in the hands of people that would love the story and feel related to it or in some way. Yeah. Any more questions? But great questions. Thank you so much guys.

Audience member 3: Hello. Big fan of both your work. I follow you guys in socials. I am also studying creative writing and a lot of my tutorials, they talk a lot about the publishing industry and it seems kind of wild from what it seems to be, what the professors are saying and what essays I'm reading and journalism articles and things. I was wondering what maybe you guys think at the moment is one of the bigger, maybe not problems or whatever, but something that the Australian publishing industry could work on overall.

Brooke Blurton: I'm just going to say how much time do we have? Because she looks

Dr Melanie Saward: Like I can see Mel sitting in the chair like winding up.

Brooke Blurton: I can see her rising up.

Dr Melanie Saward: My whole area. If you follow me on social media, you know that my biggest issue right now is white men from the Bachelor franchise getting 175,000 followers on TikTok and two weeks later getting a book deal and those sorts of things. And then the people in the industry that turn around and go, oh, Mel, you can be upset with it, but that's just the industry. The industry. It gets a little shake up every couple of years I reckon. And I think it's really ready for another one right now. Yeah, you're right. It is wild. It's absolutely wild. Slightly better these days to get your foot in the door.

But you also, if you're mob, you have to be really careful about are they just looking to take your story, a young blackfella and you look good? And I'm really concerned about those sorts of things. I'm concerned about acquisition of Young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's books because we want to hear more voices and I certainly do want to, but then the lack of support in the industry when they do go through, publish their book and then forget about them kind of thing.

I think I'm also really concerned about the way the actual publishing industry looks at. We've talked a lot of my research is also in this area as well, and to fix the publishing industry, which is a big thing, there needs to be diversity and First Nations people ideally, but First Nations and people of colour are in the publishing industry at all levels of the publishing industry. Oftentimes if you walk into a publishing house now, you'll see young people of colour, they're editorial assistants, they're publishing assistants, they're sales assistants, they're publicists, and then they burn out really quickly, low pay, low support.

And then when you think about what, if you read our book, family systems might look like we don't have the same financial security backing to stay in low paid high intense jobs without other people that are not culturally safe. And so when we drop out, so then we don't get to be senior editors and senior publishers and acquisitions managers and CEOs and CFOs and the people making those decisions. So that's kind of what I want to see. I want to walk into my other publisher's office and see so many people of colour I can't even count. That would be amazing. So yeah, there's a lot going on in the publishing industry and lots of things that I will rail against, but I rail against it because I love it. I love books. I love the people who love books, and I just want to see it be better. I can imagine it being better. I dunno if that's answered your question but.

Brooke Blurton: Well, I think it's people that need to be inside those publishing industries and changing as well. We need to, I get quite equally frustrated at the publishing politics obviously with Mel, but I got 47 other jobs to get to. But I think one thing that I find really frustrating, and I often have this chat with people who I know are amazing writers and their work equally deserves to be published. I was very lucky, but my thought about writing my book was that I'd been writing since I was 10 years old. So I was like, I've been writing this memoir. It's already pretty much, when I went to the publish when I went to Harper and was like, this is what I've got. They were like, this is pretty much a book. And I was like, yeah, I am ready. So my thing is just have it ready and don't have any obstacles. Don't put those obstacles in front of you before you've even given it a chance.

I get really frustrated though at the fact that we tend to platform the people that look at every AFL player, not to dismiss AFL. Obviously Jamie Loz and I love it, but AFLs, AFL players will retire and then they've published the book. And we all know, come on, they haven't written it and it's so fine not to diminish their careers, not to diminish their stories. Everyone has a beautiful story to tell, but we often in the publishing world, platform people who are relevant in the media, and I felt really guilty of that in some sense because I'd just finished The Bachelorette and then I just released a book, but I actually delayed it a year. So I signed my Harper Collins contract a year before that I even published and I was like, because it's not the right time and I'm not ready, et cetera. But I was like, oh, they're just going to think that I've done this post a big media thing.

Mel's conflict with BookTok Guy is not the issue that he's not a reader and he doesn't enjoy reading and he's not, I've never seen any of his writing. I've only seen him on TikTok. Show me some of your writing and I'll give you a bit more credibility.

Dr Melanie Saward: He did put up some of his poem.

Brooke Blurton: His poem. Yeah, sorry. But it's the fact that he got a book deal after one video and that's where I have a problem. There's actually so many diverse stories to be told who are experiencing so much more that people could relate to other than a guy that lives on a tractor. So that's my only stance and my own opinion. But I feel like with publishing politics, I think for people who are creative writing and have a story to tell, still put it to paper, still get it done and just take your off chance that if you put that work forward. And if not, you get rejected, go to another publisher.

Dr Melanie Saward: And getting rejected as part of the publishing life. When 'Burn' was coming out, I was saying to people, the only difference, and especially to my students, because I've been in a classroom with writing students for 15 years, the only difference between me and you is that someone said, yes, that's it. I was rejected. I went, I want my book to come out. I'm going to keep going. I'm going to keep going. I believed in my story. I kept writing. I listened to advice. Sometimes you do need to listen to advice, but yeah, keep going because the only difference between you who might have a story and us really is that someone said yes to us. And we would love to make space for you with, I think there's room for all of us.

Brooke Blurton: Mel is the most creative writer. If you need advice, not that I'm giving you more work, and the head of Canva, she got 99 nos and then one yes or something. And so rejection is a part of it

Dr Melanie Saward: And it took me 13 years. So I will say hopefully it doesn't take you 13 years. I wouldn't wish it on anybody. Any more questions? Oh, there's one in the middle.

Brooke Blurton: Two more.

Dr Melanie Saward: Oh, they're shaking their heads. They're saying No more questions.

Brooke Blurton: Okay.

Dr Melanie Saward: Sorry. We've run over time. See, I told you, prize winning yappers here us.

Brooke Blurton: We're going to do a next session called Yarn and Yap.

Dr Melanie Saward: Yeah, Yarn and Yap.

Rebecca Bateman: I'm so sorry. I wish, I wish I didn't have to wrap it up. I feel so bad and I wish we could keep taking questions, really do. But what I can do is invite you all to come upstairs where Brooke and Mel are going to very generously be signing some books. And to just thank you very, very much for such a deadly yarn tonight and just sharing so openly and generously of your own stories and experience. If you're around on the 6th of August, I'd love to see you here again when we're hosting Uncle Kutcha Edwards songwriter and storyteller who will be talking to us about how he's using song as a tool for language revitalization amongst many, many other things. But between. In the meantime, please join me in thanking Brooke and Melanie and join us upstairs.