It's Like Standing On The

Our Prime Minister Could Embrace And Forgive The People Who Killed Our Beloved Sons And Fathers, And So He Should, But He Could Not, Would Not, Apologise To The Aboriginal People For 200 Years Of Murder And Abuse. The Battle Against The Turks, He Said In Gallipoli, Was Our History, Our Tradition. The War Against The Aboriginals, He Had Already Said At Home, Had Happened Long Ago. The Battle Had Made Us; The War That Won The Continent Was Best Forgotten

I Had Known Loneliness Before, And Emptiness Upon The Moor, But I Had Never Been A Nothing, A Nothing Floating On A Nothing, Known By Nothing, Lonelier And Colder Than The Space Between The Stars. It Was More Frightening Than Being Dead.

So In The First Draft, I'm Inventing People And Place With A Broad Schematic Idea Of What's Going To Happen. In The Process, Of Course, I Discover All Sorts Of Bigger And More Substantial Things.

Living Where I Live New York I Don't Think Anyone's Going To Make A Fuss. But It Is More Deeply Satisfying Because It's Of Your Place And Means That You Aren't Forgotten; Someone's Noticed What You Have Been Doing With Your Life.

Writers, At Least Writers Of Fiction, Are Always Full Of Anxiety And Worry.