The annual PEN Lecture at the Sydney Writers Festival.
The Black Witness must be believed, insists Amy McQuire. Black Witnesses have been silenced for two centuries, their accounts only accepted when legitimised by White Witnesses. In order to begin telling the truth of this country, she says we must support and adequately resource a black media that acts as an arm of advocacy for protest, and which always recentres the voice of the Black Witness.
The event is currently sold out but you can join a waitlist.
Amy McQuire is a Darumbal and South Sea Islander writer, journalist and academic currently based at QUT’s School of Communication. She has worked as a journalist in black and independent media for the past 16 years. She writes on racism, justice and feminism and is the co-host of investigative podcast Curtain The Podcast. Her first non-fiction book Black Witness will be published by UQP in the near future. Her first children’s book Day Break, which contests settler colonial narratives on Australia Day was published by Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing in 2021.