Laying Down the Lore: a survey of First Nations speculative, visionary and imaginative fiction with Dr Mykaela Saunders.
SCI-FI: Mythologies Transformed at Science Gallery Melbourne. (Phoebe Powell, 2024)
Hear from a leading voice in Indigenous storytelling at our annual Hugh D.T. Williamson Lecture!
Dr Mykaela Saunders, a Koori/Goori and Lebanese writer, researcher, and educator, will explore her groundbreaking research on First Nations speculative fiction. She’ll delve into seven key subgenres—fantasy, horror, climate fiction, science fiction, ghost stories & the gothic, futurism, and weird & slipstream fiction—and share how these genres allow First Nations writers and readers to reimagine and reflect on past, present, and future issues in inventive and unfamiliar ways.
Investigating how First Nations writers are employing speculative fiction to tell their stories, Dr Mykaela Saunders reads these texts through a cultural genre lens, not a Western one, though, of course there is some overlap. She takes a long view of First Nations storytelling traditions, rejecting the idea that speculative, visionary or imaginative fiction is new or novel.
Hosted by Matt Coffey, Deadly Science Pathways Program Manager at Walter & Eliza Hall Institute, Melbourne.
Please note Auslan interpretation is available on request, for more information see our Access page.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr Mykaela Saunders is the author of the speculative fiction collection ALWAYS WILL BE (UQP 2024), which won the David Unaipon Award, and the editor of THIS ALL COME BACK NOW, the Aurealis Award–winning, world first anthology of blackfella spec fic (UQP 2022). Mykaela has won other prizes for fiction, poetry, essays and research, including the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize and the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Indigenous Poetry Prize. Of Dharug and Lebanese descent, Mykaela belongs to the Tweed Goori community, and is a postdoctoral fellow at Macquarie University researching First Nations speculative fiction.
Mykaela is part of the SCI-FI: Mythologies Transformed Expert Advisory Group and compiled a selection of speculative fiction books by First Nations authors for the Science Fiction Timeline.
This event is proudly supported by The Hugh D.T. Williamson Foundation.