My Town Magazine, Discover Queensland Edition 8th September 2014 Edition 41 | Page 66

Unfolding myths at Sandcliffe by Jackie Smith Writers Festival Authors inspire writers both young and old to pick up a pen and find their voice at this year’s Sandcliffe Writers Festival. Fellow David Unaipon award winners, Dr “Aunty Ruth” Hegarty and Samuel Wagan Watson attended the second annual Sandcliffe Writers Festival with one message in mind: writers must write, and it’s never too late to start. Aunty Ruth Hegarty wrote Is That You Ruthie?, the story of her early life as a dormitory girl in Cherbourg, at the age of 70 and shows no sign of slowing down. Recently awarded an honorary doctorate from ACU for her work in the community and in literature, Aunty Ruth is passionate about reading and writing. In her frequent visits to schools and local community groups, she stresses the importance of writing your story down for the next generation. Now 85 years old and with only a fourth grade education, Aunty Ruth is the proud author of four books, including a debut novel, Suffer the Children. Writing has become her life, she admits, and she couldn’t be happier. ‘I can’t go to sleep without things flying through my head,’ she laughs. It is a sentiment which acclaimed poet, Samuel Wagan Watson echoes. He found inspiration in his daily journal when the Brisbane Writers Festival approached him to write an opera in 2004. ‘I conceived the idea in my journal and worked it over and over,’ he says. Jackie Smith with poet Samuel Wagan Watson 66 Watson will often turn to the quirky or unusual when struggling with a concept, like workshopping the infamous Coco Pops slogan with a group of young Tiwi Island residents who had limited access to television in his role as an Indigenous Literacy Foundation ambassador, or trying to re-create ghost’s blood with dry ice and red food colouring in a cocktail glass for his own writing. He concedes that such techniques may not be for everyone, but as Rumi, a 10th century warriorturned-monk Watson often likes to quote, once said, ‘Don’t be satisfied with the stories that come before you. Unfold your own myth!’