A Jewel Of A Book
Debra Dank In Conversation With Evelyn Araluen
We Come with This Place is deeply personal, a profound tribute to family and the Gudanji Country to which Debra Dank belongs, but it is much more than that. Here is Australia as it has been for countless generations, land and people in effortless balance, and Australia as it became, but also Australia as it could and should be…
Debra Dank never set out to publish We Come With This Place. Thank goodness she did. Come and hear the story behind this remarkable “jewel of a book”, which is beguiling readers and sweeping-up awards across the country.
Artist
DEBRA DANK is a Gudanji/Wakaja woman, married to Rick, with three adult children and two grandchildren. An educator, she has worked in teaching and learning for many years – a gift given through the hard work of her parents. She continues to experience the privilege of living with Country and with family. Debra completed her PhD in Narrative Theory and Semiotics at Deakin University in 2021. Her book We Come With This Place won a record four NSW Premier's Awards in 2023.
Moderator
EVELYN ARALUEN is a poet, researcher and co-editor of Overland Literary Journal. Her widely published criticism, fiction and poetry has been awarded the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers, the Judith Wright Poetry Prize, a Wheeler Centre Next Chapter Fellowship, and a Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund grant. Born and raised on Dharug country, she is a descendant of the Bundjalung Nation. Evelyn's debut collection Dropbear was shortlisted for the 2021 Judith Wright Calanthe Award for a Poetry Collection and the 2022 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, and won the 2022 Stella Prize. It was Highly Commended for the 2021 Anne Elder Award.