It's here - the new book!
I have been wanting to write this email for AGES: Tall Poppy #12, our second book of 2025 is here.
We Were Just Little Boys is a book by Tace Stevens/Tall Poppy Press and is all about a group of elderly Indigenous Australians who survived a residential home that was part of the Stolen Generation.
For those reading from abroad, the Stolen Generation are a large number of Indigenous Australians who, as children, were stolen from their families, moved across the country, put in horrible homes and, broadly, people tried to make them white.
Language was banned. Punishments were harsh, often and pointless. Family ties severed. Parents were replaced with teachers. Culture was replaced with labour. Tremendous damage was done.
This book was made to mark the 100 year anniversary of the specific boys home that’s featured opening. Tace, an Indigenous woman, spent months building relationships with the Uncles, and brought a huge amount of sensitivity to the work.
When she entered our open call last year (our every-other-year avenue for anyone to submit a project for publishing) I knew we had to award her the prize. This is exactly the sort of project that means a lot to me. As I’ve grown up I’ve felt increasingly strongly a sense of sadness and frustration at how Indigenous people were treated and how that treatment has real echoes today. I wonder, more often than not, why we can’t just do better.
So to have the chance to work with a young Indigenous artist and create something that communicates so much felt really important.
I also proposed to her that she and I should show the Uncles the book and invite them to write, scanning their handwriting and including that as part of the book. Tace, to her credit, was so open to this and had great advice about getting really good writing. It was really humbling following her and reading the stuff these really lovely guys wrote - things about being hurt, broken and unloved. Just the worst stuff, happening to people who’d done nothing wrong, too young to see what they saw. My words don’t do the job, but the Uncles, their words do.
What else can I share?
50% of the sale price is donated to the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Home Corporation - a non-profit that exists to support the survivors and their families.
If you want to avoid shipping, please come visit me at the Zine and Book Market at Honey Bones Gallery on June 22nd. It’s where my studio is, and I’m actually teaching a short workshop that day, so you can grab a book, pop your head in and say g’day and get a great coffee from the cafe on site.