Today’s post is by Jen
White, whose story Wetlands is set firmly in Australia, in the far north. Her
love for this land, which is so very old, and her knowledge of it, come across
in her tale. We can only hope that if
something happened as it does in this story, the humans would, as they do here, let it get on with happening.
I’d like to add that I am
so very jealous of Jen for having had the kind of job that would allow you to
go to work in a tinny, in that environment. Lucky Jen!
Thanks, Sue, for asking me
to guest post on your blog, along with the rest of the Mythic Resonance writers.
I’ve always been intrigued
by myth and legends. Oh, I don’t think I’m alone in this. After all, myths and
legends are supposed to intrigue us, draw us in, tell us about ourselves in
ways that we are barely conscious of.
They are deep oceans populated by terrifying and yet strangely familiar
creatures. You can read a myth, a legend, again and again and never reach the
bottom of it. They are never-failing sources of inspiration.
And yet, I have been moving
away from reading myths from other cultures. Yes, of course, they are
universal. They tell us about the human condition. But for some time now I have
been more and more interested in exploring the emerging Australian stories and
themes that may be morphing into myth, the visions, the narratives, the
memories that haunt our continent, like lost kids, extinct animals, intelligent
marsupials, old mining towns, the stories that resonate with us for reasons we
don’t fully understand. And this is what I have tried to explore in Wetlands, my story in Mythic Resonance.
I lived and worked in the
Territory for a dozen years and the environment made a strong impression on me.
It is like nowhere else in Australia. Everywhere you look, there is life and
movement: skinks, snakes, rough and dusty cockies in gangs, geckoes fighting
each other overhead. I remember going to work one Kakadu morning in a small
tinny, zooming down the river past the waterlilies and peace all around, but
acutely conscious also of what lay beneath. Only weeks before I’d done a cruise
on the same river and had been entertained by huge crocs leaping out of the
water and crashing back down again.
I’ve moved down south since
but the north still appears now and then in my writing. Wetlands is set in the surrounds of a uranium mine. How does
such a mine affect the flora and fauna in such a vulnerable ecosystem? I asked.
And what could the consequences be? It is a story I had been wanting to write
for some time, and when Specusphere announced their intention to publish an
anthology I thought the idea could be a good fit. As the story evolved it
became a comment on cultural imperialism and cultural appropriation. Which
makes sense considering our history, don’t you think?
Jen White is
an Australian writer of speculative fiction. Her work has been published in various magazines and
anthologies nationally and internationally. Most recently her stories have
appeared in the anthologies Dead Red Heart, Bewere the Night and Future
Lovecraft. Her story Damn Kids can be found online here:
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