Indigenous young people, the climate crisis, and Indigenous realism.

My debut novel Borderland discusses issues around urban Indigenous youth identity, the impact of colonisation and the complex relationship that Indigenous communities have with the mining industry. This is done by grounding the narrative in a rich and complex Indigenous fictional Dreaming where I worked closely with Gungarri elders to build a speculative Indigenous reality for the characters.

My aim is to discuss and make the audience aware of the types of issues that young Indigenous people deal with during adolescence in relation to growing up in a time of climate crisis and how I built a world speculative narrative that addresses these issues.

Topics covered

• The complexities of growing up Indigenous in contemporary Australia through my own experiences.
• The relationship between Indigenous communities and the mining industry.
• The protocol process around the creating of Indigenous works of fiction.
• How I incorporated an Indigenous realism that aligns with the conventional horror genre.