For the Love of Stories
I am very lucky to have grown up with parents who encouraged a love of books and words. As english teachers and book lovers themselves, it was inevitable that I would end up spending my days with my head buried in a book. The highlight of my school holidays was the delicious trip to the school library, nobody else there, and bringing home a box load of books. Along with this, they wove the value of old things and our planet into our lives. As a writer, words and stories have always been part of my life. I was writing stories before I started school, and winning awards when I was in junior primary. In year 1 I had already read through all of the readers and was given special permission to go to the library to choose my own readers! I have published a book on life with diabetes for children and my sustainable living book. I am now in the process of working on some children and young adult novels, which is very exciting! Stay tuned over coming months.
Stories are the way we understand the world, and they connect us and hold us together. We all have many stories about ourselves, our lives and the world. Sharing stories is at the centre of our communication, whether it be via spoken word, books, magazines, art, news, print media, digital media, blogs and social media, poetry, songs and everything in between. Sometimes we get stuck on one story that defines us, when there may be many other stories we could discover if we just looked hard enough.
As well as our individual stories, we have stories about our family, our community, our country and our planet. Being able to understand and change these stories is a very important part of advocating for change. You understand the impact of climate change for example, in a way that illustrates strongly how it affects you. It is not enough just to use facts when you want to encourage change. These kinds of stories need to engage, entertain, illustrate, make you feel and inspire you to action. Sometimes people use shock and fear to push the story. Other time they connect you personally to what is happening. Seeing the plastic in the oceans and how it is killing sea creatures is one example of how story telling is helping to support facts and political change.
As I write more fiction stories, I will be sharing more short stories, woven in between the stories about all of the wonderful people on our Hub and tips, guides and inspiration for healthy planet, healthy people, healthy home.
I am also very excited to be headed to AusMumpreneur Awards to pitch my story to the judges for the #sustainability award for Recycled Interiors and the #sustainablehomehub – wish me luck! I can’t wait to see and hear all of the other women’s stories and be inspired – do you love books?
Helen