Compassion continues Julie Janson’s emotional and intense literary exploration of the complex and dangerous lives of Aboriginal women during the 1800s in colonial New South Wales, which she began in Benevolence as a counter-narrative to colonial history in Australian literature. Compassion is the dramatised life story of one of Julie Janson’s ancestors who went on trial for stealing livestock in New South Wales, and it is an exciting and violent story of anti-colonial revenge and roaming adventure.
Fight for Liberty and Freedom: the origins of Australian Aboriginal Activism (revised edition) tells the story of the first politically organised and united all-Aboriginal activist group Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association (AAPA), begun in 1924 under the leadership of Frederick Maynard. In this exploration of the life and times of his grandfather, John Maynard uncovers the AAPA’s invaluable legacy.
Part of the Write Here Festival 2024. Full program details here
Books available for purchase and signing.
Entry: gold coin donation
Julie Janson is a NSW Burruberongal woman of the Darug Aboriginal nation. Novelist, playwright, and poet. She is the author of Madukka the River Serpent UWA Publishing, an Indigenous crime novel. Benevolence Indigenous historical novel - Magabala 2020 and HarperVia USA, UK 2022. Nominated for NIB Literary Award 2020, Voss Literary Award 2020, Barbara Jefferis Award 2022. Her latest novel Compassion is published with Magabala. She is a co-recipient of the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize 2016 and the winner of the Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2019. Her career as a playwright of 10 plays began with productions at Belvoir St Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre, Sydney Opera House, USA and Indonesia.
Professor John Maynard is a Worimi Aboriginal man from the Port Stephens region of New South Wales. He is a former Director at the Wollotuka Institute of Aboriginal Studies at the University of Newcastle and Chair of Indigenous History.
He has held several major positions and served on numerous prominent organizations and committees. He gained his PhD in 2003, examining the rise of early Aboriginal political activism.
He has worked with and within many Aboriginal communities, urban, rural and remote. Professor Maynard’s publications have concentrated on the intersections of Aboriginal political and social history, and the history of Australian race relations. He is the author of several books, including Aboriginal Stars of the Turf, Fight for Liberty and Freedom, The Aboriginal Soccer Tribe and Aborigines and the Sport of Kings.
John Maynard has rereleased his book Fight for Liberty and Freedom.
About the venue
The Warners Bay Theatre can be accessed via a ramp on Lake St with flat entry inside the building. The venue has accessible toilets and accessible parking is available out the front on Lake Street.