That's the thing about climate change, it comes home to you. In our case, literally - the fifth night after my husband's departure, while the children and I were sleeping in the front bedrooms, the old tree next door gave way and smashed through the kitchen roof at the back.
Brave and beautifully written, the stories that make up
Here Where We Live chart the relationships white Australians have with the land and the Indigenous people they share it with.
A woman moves her three young children south in search of rain; a girl throws her glasses in the river to avoid bearing witness to uncomfortable truths; a boy involved in an act of desecration becomes a man with an identity crisis at an Indigenous healing ceremony; a pair of desperadoes take lessons in love from a woman and the ghost of her lifelong partner.
Cassie Flanagan Willanski's debut collection is about the invisible threads that connect us to old griefs, and the situations that give us courage for an uncertain future.
Winner - Wakefield Press Unpublished Manuscript Award
Praise for Here Where We Live:
'Each story in
Here Where We Live provides much room for reflection about our own lives and our reactions to climate change and - for those who are white - our attitudes to Aboriginal people. Equally importantly, each is beautifully written.' - Annette Marfording,
Rochford Street Review
'This is a stunning, beautifully written and original work and I advise everyone to read it.' - Bill Holloway
The Australian Legend
'An original and engaging collection with many passages showing lyrical beauty and psychological depth.' - Gay Lynch,
Transnational Literature
'Willanski not only illuminates the issues that would arise if a white Australian wrote from an Indigenous Australian’s perspective, she also creates a desire in the reader to read more work by Indigenous Australians themselves ... The stories that she produces in this collection reflect the beautiful and often somber descriptions of their settings. Readers can appreciate both the honest subject matter and the rich language used within this work.' - Lucy Walding,
Westerly
'This is the sort of writing I like: undramatic, understated, reflective stories about ordinary people coping with breakups, death, new relationships, but overlaid with a strong set of values and contemporary concerns, in this case encompassing the intertwined issue of respecting indigenous people and caring for our country. While not always comfortable reading, it’s a hopeful book - and I like that too.' - Sue Terry,
Whispering Gums
'These are elegant pieces of exploration into the human condition under particular circumstances.' - Willie Campbell,
Otago Daily Times
'Whether writing in the first or third person, as an adult or as a child, [Cassie's] skill as a short story writer is evident in her ability to create convincing characters and their worlds in a few pages ...
Here where we live is challenging, occasionally confronting, multifaceted and satisfying literature.' - Elizabeth Bor,
ReadPlus
'She [Cassie] will have you questioning your views while encouraging you to broaden your outlook.' - F. J. O'Dwyer,
The Chronicle, Toowoomba
'A well crafted and provocative collection that will leave readers pondering just who we are and exactly where we are doing for a long time after putting it down.' -
The Senior
'The collection is beautifully written, with enough description to see and get a feel for each place, without being flowery and overdone. It could be dipped into when you are looking for something short, or read from cover to cover, as I did, and really enjoyed it.' - Annie Steven,
The Big Book Club
'I was moved and I was haunted.' - Brian Castro
Cassie Flanagan Willanski is a writer and environmentalist. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in publications including
Meanjin, and she received the SA Independent Arts Foundation Scholarship for Creative Writing in 2001, a Varuna Retreat Fellowship in 2011 and the Wakefield Press Unpublished Manuscript Award for
Here Where We Live in 2014. Between 2002 and 2008 she volunteered and worked with the Conservation Council of South Australia, Friends of the Earth Adelaide's Clean Futures Collective, Greenpeace Australia Pacific and the Wilderness Society of South Australia, where she was Community Outreach Campaigner. She has a Graduate Diploma in Environmental Studies and a Master of Arts in Creative Writing, both from the University of Adelaide.
She lives in Adelaide with her husband and daughter.
