WORDS Catherine Marshall

Writer Alice Nelson finds inspiration in her encounters with people on the margins.

It was a chance encounter with a homeless Rwandan refugee in Perth that led to an awakening for young Australian writer Alice Nelson. With a baby strapped to her back and a toddler clinging to her skirt, the woman asked Alice for directions. Unable to find emergency accommodation for the family, Alice invited them to stay with her.

'Florens had been through the kind of violence that is unimaginable to most of us, and most days she would sit gazing blankly, showing no emotion, ignoring her children. The boys thrived but their mother remained grief stricken.'

A breakthrough came in the form of a story. 'Florens was listening to me reading the boys a storybook from my own childhood and, hesitantly, she told me one of the stories her mother used to tell her and her brothers and sisters. Slowly, as the months went by, Florens and I shared each other’s stories. We talked about the boys, our concerns and hopes for them, our pasts, our plans. She told me stories of her village, her younger brother who had wanted to be an artist, the aunt who had taught her to sew. We became part of each other’s story.'

The experience reinforced the importance of stories in forging an understanding and cohesive society. 'Our stories teach us that what each of us holds is irreplaceable. Florens taught me that telling and listening to stories gives us the capacity to know that the stranger is like ourselves.'

Alice's first novel, The Last Sky, was shortlisted for the Australian/Vogel Literary Award and later won her the TAG Hungerford Award. This year the Perth-based writer was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Australian Novelists.

In addition to volunteering as a High-Needs Coordinator with the Coalition for Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Detainees, Alice combines her twin passions for writing and social justice in her day job as a Communications Advisor for the Catholic Education Office in Western Australia.

'I absolutely believe that we have a personal as well as a global responsibility to use our talents and privileges to bring about justice and peace', she says. 'We have to take seriously the commandment to be responsible for our neighbour. And by this I do not just mean vague, shallow feelings of compassion. One of my favourite writers, the Canadian author Anne Michaels, says in her novel Fugitive Pieces, “we must carry each other. If we do not have this, then what are we?” For a long time, that has been a premise that has guided me.'

While studying creative writing at City University in New York, Alice worked as a family caseworker and advocate in a Catholic multi-service agency in Harlem, dealing mostly with undocumented migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

'I remember going on my first home visit to an Iraqi refugee family of eight who were sharing a one-room apartment with three other families. Their allocated living space was one bunk bed. The mother was heavily pregnant with her seventh child and she showed me the dresser drawer lined in newspaper that she had prepared as a cradle for the baby', she recalls.

Alice's social justice work, in which she has encountered slum dwellers in Mexico City, displaced people in Chiapas, and Palestinian women still clinging to the keys to their old homes, reinforced the importance of connection and of acknowledging the pain of others.

'The telling of their story, of being heard, is a way of reconstituting the scattered shards of their lives. Developing an open-heartedness and generosity in listening to the stories of others is one of the most important steps towards recognising human dignity.'

Despite the recognition she has received as a writer, finding the time to practice her craft is still a struggle, says Alice.

'To be a serious writer requires an enormous amount of discipline and hard slog. The writer’s secret is not inspiration—for it is never entirely clear where that comes from—but stubbornness, endurance and sheer tenacity. For a long time I’d get up several mornings at 4am to write for a few hours before going off to work.'

While writing The Last Sky Alice would escape to a friend’s house on Cape Cod 'and hole myself up with a good log fire and endless pots of tea and write for days and days. It was bitterly cold and I’d force myself to go for walks along the sea in the afternoons. It was there that I realised that to be a writer you have to really be content to spend many of your most passionate and absorbed hours alone in a room with the door shut wrestling with words.'

The recipient of residential fellowships in Australia, the US and France, Alice advises aspiring novelists to work hard and combine the things that inspire them.

'Don’t let yourself become jaded, don’t ever believe that your story is not worth something. And don’t forget the responsibility that we all have to carry each other.'

Alice Nelson is currently working on a second novel which is inspired by her work with East African refugees. The Last Sky is published by Fremantle Press.

Pictured: Alice with Simon Hakizimana, three, and some of the other refugee children she works with.

Young Journalist Award

The Australian Catholics Young Journalist Award is again inviting students from Catholic schools around the country to become reporters, going out to find interesting stories and share them with the world.

The competition is open to students of all ages, with winning stories published in our Spring edition.

For details on how to enter, resources for teachers, and tips for students, click here .