Sun, Nov 1  •  1pm

Yearning as the Antidote to Despair

Quill Christie-Peters, Alicia Elliott, Bebe Oliver, and Evelyn Araluen

Part of the Festival of Indigenous Stories

Festival of Indigenous Stories
Conversation
Ticket or Pass Required
Passes available
Yearning as the Antidote to Despair
Yearning as the Antidote to Despair

Sun, Nov 1  •  1pm

Yearning as the Antidote to Despair

Quill Christie-Peters, Alicia Elliott, Bebe Oliver, and Evelyn Araluen

Part of the Festival of Indigenous Stories

Conversation
Festival of Indigenous Stories
Ticket or Pass Required
Passes available

About

What might it mean to build movements from a place of yearning? What forms of action become possible when we privilege stories of desire, connection, freedom, culture and joy over the stories of damage told about, but never for our communities?

Bringing together four Indigenous writers from the stolen lands of Canada and Australia, this panel explores yearning as a creative and political force. Against narratives that define Indigenous lives through loss and harm, the panel takes up Unangax̂ scholar Eve Tuck’s practice of research by desire: asking us to attend to what people want, imagine, make and move towards. This conversation will consider writing and artmaking as acts of connection, sustained by language, culture, community and possibility, exploring how desire might become a form of urgency, resistance and collective movement.

The panel’s ripples extend across generations, geographies and forms: from cultural reclamation and radical joy to queerness, intimacy and the transformative possibilities of creative practice. Through conversation and readings from their work, the writers will explore the ways yearning can unsettle inherited narratives and open pathways towards other futures.

Featuring Bardi Jawi poet Bebe Oliver, Bundjalung and Wiradjuri poet Evelyn Araluen, and Mohawk writer and editor Alicia Elliott, the panel is facilitated by Anishinaabe educator and artist Quill Christie-Peters.

Together, they ask: What do we become when we create space for yearning?

The Rot is a recalcitrant study of the decaying romances, expired hopes and abject injustices of the world. A liturgy for girlhood in the dying days of late-stage capitalism, these poems expose fraying nerves and tendons of a speaker refusing to avert their gaze from the death of Country, death on Country, and the bloody violence of settler colonies here and afar.

Published by University of Queensland Press

A mind-bending, gripping novel about Native life, motherhood and mental health that follows a young Mohawk woman who discovers that the picture-perfect life she always hoped for may have horrifying consequences On the surface, Alice is exactly where she should be: She’s just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Dawn; her charming husband, Steve is nothing but supportive; and they’ve recently moved into a new home in a wealthy neighborhood in Toronto. But Alice could not feel like more of an imposter.

Published by Doubleday

A brilliant exploration embodied wholeness as a pathway to our collective liberation Through reflections on childbirth, parenting, creative practice, and expansive responsibility, Anishinaabe visual artist Quill Christie-Peters explores how reconnecting with the body can be an act of resistance and healing. She shows that wholeness—despite pain and displacement—is not just possible but essential for liberation, not only for Indigenous people but for all of us.

Published by House of Anansi Press

A fearless and honest exploration of queer First Nations identity, and a vibrant celebration of imperfection and personal growth, if this is the end is a stunning exploration of what it means to work through childhood trauma and love yourself in the present. In a state of post-pandemic recovery, the author travels back to his hometown and grapples with all that comes with it, experiences the thrills of relationship drama and serious queer romance, works through his mental health issues and writes a love letter to Narrm from the perspective of a Kimberley man.

Published by Magabala Books

Quill Christie-Peters is an Anishinaabe educator and self-taught visual artist from Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation located in Treaty 3 territory. She is the creator and director of the Indigenous Youth Residency Program, an artist residency for Indigenous youth that engages land-based creative practices through Anishinaabe artistic methodologies.

Alicia Elliott is an award-winning Mohawk writer and editor living in Brantford, Ontario. Her first book, A Mind Spread Out On The Ground, was a national bestseller in 2019, and was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction.

Bebe Oliver is a Bardi Jawi award-winning author, poet and illustrator. Moving across Country, memory and the layered realities of Blak and queer life, his writing celebrates grief, love, identity and survival with a voice both vulnerable and strong.

Evelyn Araluen is a Goorie and Koori poet, editor and researcher. Born and raised on Dharug Country and in the broader Western Sydney Black community, she now lives on Wurundjeri Country where she works as a lecturer at the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development, as a co-editor of Overland Literary Journal and Chairperson for the Board of the Institute of Postcolonial Studies.

Dates & Times

Sun, Nov 1
1:00pm
2:00pm
A book signing will follow this event

Tickets

Full Festival Pass
SOLD OUT
Regular $159
Under 30 $79
5-Day Festival Pass
Includes 5-day festival events. Excludes Masterclasses.
Regular $159
Under 30 $79
2-Day Weekend
Includes all Victoria University events. Excludes Winter Garden Theatre events and Masterclasses.
Regular $69
Under 30 $39
1-Day Sunday
Includes all Sunday events.
Excludes Masterclasses.
Regular $39
Under 30 $29
Pass Information
5-Day Festival Pass includes Barbara Kingsolver and East West Street: A Song of Good & Evil .
2-Day Weekend and 1-Day Passes do not include Winter Garden Theatre events.

Venue

Emmanuel College Chapel, Room 319

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