June 9, 2024

Defy in order to unify

'Origin' is this week's Star Theatre's film club selection and is a reminder of why one joins a film club. A very powerful and well-acted film that, although lengthy and a little bumpy in the timeline at times, is certainly a film and a story for our times given the confected furore by News Ltd’s media recently over comments made by ABC journalist Laura Tingle, during a panel discussion at the Sydney Writers Festival last month.

 

Based on the book Caste: Origins of our discontents by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson, the film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAweg5PaMuw addresses the -isms that have been historically exploited in order to divide nations and individuals into some groups believing they are more superior than others. Think Nazis v the Jews in World War ll, and India’s ‘Untouchables’ or Dalits, who are the bottom of the hierarchical population pile in that country, relegated to doing society’s least pleasant jobs. Think sorting rubbish, cleaning open sewers and sewerage, and street sweeping.

 

As an African-American Wilkerson naturally explores her own heritage about the racial abuse towards people of colour in the US, starting from being captured and sold into slavery. And the film doesn’t hold back. The scenes where a young boy is denied a swim in the municipal pool with his baseball team-winning mates - because of his skin colour is particularly harrowing. Pressure from the coach finally results in all the white people being asked to leave the pool, before an inflatable bed is lowered into the pool. The coloured boy is then instructed to step onto the bed but absolutely must not touch the water. He lies rigidly on the bed hardly daring to breath while it is pulled from one end of the pool to the other while the whites stand silently watching.

 

This is a remarkably similar scenario to that of Australian Aboriginals being excluded from public swimming pools in this country, and for the same reason: the colour of their skin.  And this was just fifty or sixty years ago. It was hard to watch.

 

The seeds of the book https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51152447-caste were sown by the murder of a young black American boy – and we learn at the end of the film that it was published in 2020 not long after the murder of George Floyd – and before the election that saw Donald Trump elected as President.

 

I've now got the book on request at the library. There's already a queue so I imagine there are several others who’ve also seen the film and are now keen to read the book that it’s based on. I suspect the book will be a tough read too – but an important one. The only way to achieve peace in the world is for all of us to respect each other and embrace our differences - not try to dominate or eliminate them.

 


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Finding a publisher could be getting closer

By Anne Layton-Bennett • July 22, 2026
Attracting the interest of a publisher for this story of a community’s campaign to stop what would have been ‘the world’s fourth largest pulp mill’ being built was never going to be easy, but hoping the first of two 3-minute Literary Speed Dating pitch sessions will prompt at least one of the two publishers to request the full MSS. And preferably both of them. These twice-yearly Perfect Pitch sessions are offered to members of the Australian Society of Authors, and this is the first time I’ve taken advantage of them – mainly because of the need to have a completed MSS before doing so. Three minutes isn’t long to excite the interest of a publisher who is after stories in very specific genres, and who therefore needs to believe your MSS is worth investing the time needed to read it in full. I’m pretty certain I’ve excited the necessary interest, but given Jane will hear the pitches of many more optimistic and talented writers after my morning session today, there are no guarantees. That initial interest might well wane as the day goes on if other writers have written stories that sound far more intriguing – and marketable. One can never forget that aspect of publishing these days: will the book sell. I believe my story will – certainly in Tasmania it definitely will – but a wider Australian readership? That’s an unknown even if my mentor is convinced of the story’s universal appeal.  I’d certainly like to think I’ve caught the zeitgeist wave given the current widespread community unrest over AI data centres, that’s already prompting similar serious opposition, and for many of the same reasons the Tamar Valley’s community opposed the pulp mill. Environmental degradation, threats to public health, water usage – and water shortages in an era of escalating climate extremes – and the constant, relentless noise factor that’s associated with data centres, and AI data centres in particular. I’m crossing my fingers that the second pitch session will be equally positive, and that I could strike it lucky with both publishers requesting to see the full MSS. But I won’t get ahead of myself. I’ll just be keeping all fingers and toes firmly crossed for the next seven days.
Magni

Fiona's gift

By Anne Layton-Bennett • June 14, 2026
It’s taken far too many months for this marvellous model to grace the dedicated desk space in my office. When Fiona comes to visit next she will be very surprised, and hopefully gratified, that her amazing creative talent is finally on display. We’ve known each other for a very long time, and during the insanely busy time when I was helping to run the flower farm, working part-time in a school library, doing a spot of journalism on the side, and fighting the proposed pulp mill that is the subject of the manuscript I’m hoping to get published, Fiona cleaned my house each week. There’s only so much a person can do after all, and it has to be said cleaning our house during those manic years was fairly low down on the list of my priorities. But Fiona is a woman of many talents and she certainly possesses one that I so don’t have: sewing and dressmaking. So over the years she’s also made a few garments based on the pattern of a favourite garment that I was particularly fond of, and she’s also done some clothing alterations for both of us. My skills with needles and thread are limited to sewing on buttons, and taking up hems on John’s too-long pairs of jeans. Anything else is beyond me. But this fabulous model is the pièce de résistance – along with the beautiful crocheted knee warmer she gave me last year. This was when winter was approaching and so determined was I to finish writing the book, I decided to get out of bed at the insane hour of 5am and get in a solid hour’s writing in before dog walking and the demands of the day took over. Fiona was also one of many Tasmanians who needed to be circumspect about her opinion of the pulp mill. It was a project that polarised people, including families and friendships. She was one of several who passed on snippets of useful information, but on the basis of anonymity so it couldn’t be sheeted home to her.  Needless to say Fiona will be one of those whose contribution will be acknowledged – when this book is finally accepted by a publisher.

Signs of spring - when winter's only just arrived

By Anne Layton-Bennett • June 8, 2026
Early lambing season a sign of changing seasons? Or economic reality?

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