Swag of Yarns: Stories, Articles and Interviews
Swag of yarns was Australia’s first storytelling magazine and began in 1997. Its aim was to unite people all over Australia through story, with a strong emphasis on encouraging the art of oral storytelling. Each issue has interviews with storytellers, articles relating to storytelling, stories from other lands, aussie yarns, book reviews, Australian folklore and much more. For four years I was its senior writer.
An Australian Christmas Story This is a family story handed down to me by my Grandmother Vera Hewitson (nee Stevens) and it happened to her when she was a young woman living with her family at the Lakes Hotel Ngambie. Snowy Jackson was a regular at her dad’s pub and he helped her out one year with presents for local children at the districts bush hospital. Snowy, my grandma, always use to say that Snowy had a striking resemblance to Father Christmas himself. Read Story here |
Born of this Land I am born of this land and it has always been in my blood.From early school holidays to the coast, where the wild seas thrilled me and the wind swept dunes nestled my solitary figure. To the territory for three years where I was privy to some of Australia’s most spectacular landscapes; where I came to understand the feeling of sacredness of land. A gorge, a waterfall, a sheltered creek bank, sheer cliff faces that reached to the sky demanding as much respect as the mightiest of cathedrals. I am born of this land, it is in my blood. Full article here |
Brambuk: Aboriginal Cultural Centre
Brambuk is a living cultural centre named for the Bram Bram brothers who created the features of the Grampian mountain ranges. Known to its traditional owners as the Gariwerds, Brambuk is situated at Halls Gap in the heart of the ranges. Full article here |
From Daylesford to Nhulunbuy and back
The Northern Territory is a foreign country: they do things differently there, with apologies to L P Hartley and The Go Between. But it is like another world, another time. From the moment you step off the plane things are different. The humidity hits you like a warm face washer, you remember the constant bead of sweat above the lip and the sweet fragrance of frangipani fills the air. Read article here |
Dromkeen
Over hundred years ago Judge Arthur Chomley planted pine trees along the road front of his Riddell’s Creek Property. Today they hide one of Melbourne’s best kept secrets. Up the dusty old track to a magic maze of garden, bronze sculptures and winding paved paths, Dromkeen, the homestead nestles in these magnificent grounds and these days, the stately old home houses the Dromkeen Collection of Australian Children’s Literature. Read article here |
Eureka A glossy brochure with the gold stars of the Southern Cross, proclaims Ballarat ‘ Birthplace of the Australian Spirit”, a mighty big claim! Ballarat is 110 kilometres N NW of Melbourne and in 1854, on the fledgling goldfields, it became the site of the famous Eureka Uprising. Read article here |
Haunts of the Bards The haunts of the bards; that’s where storytellers Eirwen Malin and Phil Thomas took us with their stories and songs of Wales at the National Storytelling Festival last year. They immersed the listeners in Welsh landscape and lore, painting pictures of mountains and lakes, valleys and the sea, telling tales of mystery, myth and magic, another time and place and people, that left me entranced and intrigued. Read article here |
Once Upon A Time: Storytelling for the very young Mem Fox has a tremendous appreciation and passion for stories, language and literacy. Telling stories, she explained is like the pouring forth of precious jewels, each delicious word to be savoured, to be handed to children with love, respect, passion and reverence. I cut my teeth on pre-school storytimes. Read article here |
Are You Up To Your Destiny?
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our star, Hath elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar?’ Wordsworth Where to from here? An academic treatise? I think not.But where to start? The brief for this article was to tie together all the thoughts, ideals and creeds of a group of passionate and practicing storytellers at a weekend conference in country Victoria. We were to wind our way through to a conclusion about Where to from here. Where are storytellers headed and why? Read article here |
Spiritual Gathering of the Elders In the heart of spa country central Victoria, just out of Daylesford under the shadow of Lambargook (Mt Franklin), Dan O’Connor and Sue Ewart have offered their majestic property for Australia’s first ever ‘spiritual gathering’ known as The Spiritual Unity of the Tribes……… People have gathered on the Easter long weekend from near and far to celebrate the Wisdom of the Elders, along with them Nell Bell, life member of the Australian Storytelling Guild, proclaimed shanacie, respected elder and loved grandmother. Read article here |
Interviews
Bryce CourtenayBryce Courtenay is a man of strong convictions; he readily acknowledges the power of myths and storytelling. He creates his stories by calling on his genetic and environmental inheritance, listening to the voices of his people and mixing it with the contemporary times and forces he lives with, ‘like a bowl of museli with many ingredients thrown in. Anne E Stewart interviewed him when he delivered the Dromkeen Luncheon Address.
Read full article here |
Gael CrespGael first entertained the idea of becoming a storyteller in 1981 whilst undertaking a unit of ‘storytelling’ as part of her Graduate Diploma in Children’s Literature. The medium appealed to her and it became apparent that she had that intrinsic ability needed to be a storyteller. Pace, timing and conscious choice of story was to come later. Although she credits 1984 as the beginning of this career her father maintains that ‘she has been telling stories all her life’
Read full article here |
Graham LangleyThere’s something deliciously conspiratal about Graham Langley, especially when he tells stories. Long and lanky, he drapes himself about the story, swaying in and out of the action. He paints pictures in your head as he takes you on a journey using colouful imagery, words, local vernacular, body language and heightened emotions…
Read full article here |
John MarsdenJohn Marsden is a man of ‘generous wisdom’ and proclaimed ‘Poet Laureate of Australian teenagers’. A romantic notion but one John questions, he wonders whether teenagers would even know what it means. He ponders the ‘weird situation’ of a fifty year old man giving teenagers a voice but he does concede that maybe he ‘brings a perspective to the voice, a reflective ability gained with age and experience.’ Read full article here
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Pauline McLeodA childhood story that Pauline McLeod instantly recalls is the tale of Peter and the Wolf. You all know it. Peter is told he must remain in the garden or the wolf will get him. But does he listen to his grandfather? Oh no! The young boy has no fear of the wolf. But how does an aboriginal woman whose ancestors come from the south coast of New South Wales and the Adelaide area come to have this story prominently in her psyche? Sad to say, Pauline was one of the stolen generation and she heard the story from her adoptive German parents. Becoming a storyteller set Pauline on the road home to find her aboriginality. Read full article here
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Boori PryorHe introduces himself as Monty Pryor; his aboriginal name was only given to him recently by an uncle. Boori means fire and it was the gift of this name that gave him the strength and the determination to continue the legacy of passing on his culture as the family’s storyteller Read full article here
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Graham RossGraham brings considerable experience as an educator and entertainer to his storytelling, with over thirty years’ experience teaching at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. His emphasis through these years was ‘to use storytelling as a vehicle for language learning and cultural teaching’ and prepare teachers ‘to appreciate cultural diversity’ and to ‘teach English to speakers of other languages.’ Read full article here
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Pat TorresWhen I talk to children at schools I separate one strand of my hair and remind them that white man’s history in Australia is like this compared to our history, my whole head of hair.”
“These are the stories of my land and my people,” says Torres. “But you must be aware that you should never generalise about Aboriginal people. Our Kimberley stories, our traditions, they are not the same as the stories and culture of other indigenous people of Australia.” Read full article here |
Jan WositzkyIt’s hard to know where to start with Wositzky’s story because he enjoys exploring all the twists and turns in his life’s path. But to give you a sense of the man we must go back to his arrival in Australia. He immigrated to Australia with his Czech-Scots family in 1956 as a very young boy and herein lies the earliest influences on his work. One of the strengths of his storytelling is ability to have his audience empathize with his characters. Wositzky tells a poignant and humorous account of these early days. He’s a young lad who cops a fair bit of flake for having such an ethnic name. Although we laugh, you feel for the small boy. Was it this early displacement that has seen him travel far and wide in the search of his own story? Read full article here
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