Dreaming With Eyes Open @CBCA #BookWeek

This year, the CBCA’s Book Week theme was ‘Dreaming With Eyes Open’, celebrated with the rich illustrations of Jasmine Seymour. When asked about her engagement with the theme, Jasmine said it was based on how dreaming can be “now, then, and always”. This resonated with me, so when a local high school, Mater Maria, kindly invited me to give an author talk about my writing journey – how I have developed my creative career to date – I was excited to be given the opportunity to talk about creativity in my life ‘now, then, and always’.

When I was sixteen, I started my school’s first writers’ society, and one activity involved watching the film ‘Dead Poet’s Society’. I still know the Henry David Thoreau quote mentioned in the film off-by-heart:

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Henry David Thoreau, as quoted in ‘Dead Poet’s Society’

My talk explained to the students how I came to live by these words, travelling the world and living in different continents, but also how I failed them when I was an intellectual property solicitor working in London and Sydney, because my eyes were closed to my true dreams; how the words ultimately inspired me to become a writer one day and overcome the many obstacles in my way; and how I now interpret these words in my everyday life as a full-time creative, as well as the advice I continually give myself to drive my creative practice and allow me to dream into the future.

I wasn’t sure how the speech would be received, so tested it in advance on my own 15-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son. They gave me the thumbs-up, so off I went to present it to a library-full of students ranging from Year 7 to Year 12.

I was thrilled to get a thunderous round of applause at the end, then once more after some Q&As. I don’t remember how many bookmarks I signed when surrounded by students seeking a memento of my visit, but I do remember the blossoming warmth of their appreciation and how it made me feel.

Every year since 1945, the Children’s Book Council of Australia has organised Book Week to encourage reading, and to bring children and books together. However, it’s also an opportunity for authors to emerge from their writing nooks, step tentatively out into the realm of readers, and experience the joy our imaginative worlds can bring.

So a big thank you to CBCA for this year’s amazing Book Week theme, and for Mater Maria for letting me talk to their students about how writing is for me as necessary a thing as breathing; how a theft-from-my-person one night in Birmingham and a close-call one day in Java taught me to listen to my heart; how Steve Jobs was right about connecting the dots between past, present, and future; and how my drive-to-write almost had me giving birth at home.

I have many more stories to share about creativity, since I’ve been a creative all my life – whether my eyes were open to it or not. There can be much hidden inside an author than what readers initially see, and it was both scary and exhilarating to reveal some of that.

In fact, the next time I have the opportunity to talk about my writing journey, I might be tempted to reveal even more!