It feels Orwellian to write this, but I thought you should know: I’m a human. This is being written by a human being. Me. Bel. And now, I’m certified!

Proudly Human is a new organisation set up to verify that works by artists, writers, composers and other creators are of human origin. It uses proprietary AI tools to detect the use of AI.

“Isn’t that hypocritical?”, Proudly Human’s FAQ section of its website asks, rhetorically. They answer (themselves):

“Not at all. We aren't anti-AI. We are pro-human. We acknowledge that AI has a place in the world and people may want to use AI for many things. We believe that people should be informed so they can make a choice about whether they want human-created content and services or AI-generated content and services.”

In the same month that Google turned away from climate goals in pursuit of AI and The New York Times reported the growing backlash to AI, I reached out to Proudly Human (honestly, every time I read the name, I feel like I’m in the middle of a sci fi novel. But we’re already here).

After a very undemanding verification process, I can now warrant that all my work as a writer is and will be of human origin (if the typos weren’t already a giveaway).

I’ve signed up in solidarity and also with curiosity, to watch where this all leads. I like the idea of being the control group in the experiment- and to see how I hold to these convictions within myself about wanting my work to remain human- made. Will it all age terribly? Will I regret this? Will my half human, half database in the cloud great grandchildren laugh at their primitive grandmother and her backward, earthly ways?

To be honest, I find Proudly Human’s terms for the use of AI in creation quite generous. Their de minimis standards allow you to use AI to generate titles, ideas and story concepts, as well as research and checks. For years, earlier iterations of AI have saved me months of transcription and translation work for my documentaries and research, and that’s within the standards allowed here.

For those interested in finding out more, I heard about Proudly Human via Peter Lewis, the writer and analyst who announced in The Guardian a couple of weeks back that he was the first Proudly Human-certified columnist. He wrote in his (new and proflic!) Substack outlining the certification process:

Burning Platforms

I Am Human, Hear Me Roar

First, it says a bit about the times we are in that we are even talking about human accreditation. But here we are…

Read more

21 days ago · 8 likes · Peter Lewis

I feel something in the air, a growing momentum against this polycrisis of AI, and authoritarianism and setting fire to our beautiful earth, and towards something different. And yes, a trademarked symbol with a smiley face on my little substack isn’t going to bring on revolution. But it feels good to tell you where I stand.

Bel

Send me your reflections, suggestions and critical feedback to notes@belindalopez.net. If you’re reading this over email, you can also hit reply.

Send me your reflections, suggestions and critical feedback to notes@belindalopez.net. If you’re reading this over email, you can also hit reply.

If you’re having [life] problems, I feel bad for you, son
I got 99 problems, but a [book] ain’t one

With massive apologies to Jay-Z.

99 Problems But a Book Ain’t One is a new project from Story Doula, to remind ourselves of how books, writing and literature can be a balm, a salve, a tonic, as we collectively find ourselves turning to other ways of tuning out and numbing.

Today, first-time author and domestic violence specialist Melissa Sharman has chosen Crazy Love by Leslie Morgan Steiner as her book balm of choice.

I first met Mel when I interviewed her for a narrative documentary I was making for the wonderful, now folded podcast This is About at the ABC. I always run long in my interviews, but this one went on into the evening, her and I delving ever deeper. I knew as I heard her tell her story in her generous, heartbreaking, hopeful way, that it deserved a wider audience.

She’s a domestic violence specialist, the founder of Egg Donation Australia and herself an egg donor and surrogate who has helped 22 children come into the world. And now, she’s a published author. Her book ‘The Beauty of Broken Things’ will be released in May 2026.

Bel: I think that you and I first spoke to each other for the first time nine years ago. And sometimes when I’m interviewing people, I can just see the book that they have in them. Like I can see the shape of it. And I just remember thinking, and I’m sure I told you as well: ‘Here it is’.

And now here’s the book. It’s here!

Mel: After that conversation that we had, while I’d been struggling for years to sort of figure out how to shape it, I went home. And for three months, I wrote. And then the Hatchette QWC Manuscript Development Awards came out. And I submitted it and then became one of the eight people that they chose across Australia. So after that conversation, it just became really super clear.

Bel: Oh, I didn’t realise it had happened straight after. That’s such an honour! And now you have a legit, physical, living in the world, book coming out, The Beauty of Broken Things. Where did that title come from?

Mel: Well, after COVID passed, I started working in suicide prevention. And so we would get referrals from the hospital right after they had sort of attempted. And I saw so much pain from them, but it was also in a very healing stage of my own life where I had gone through so much, but had gotten to the stage where I realised that if I hadn’t gone through what I’d gone through, I wouldn’t be in a space where I could help these other people and, you know, just help show them that sometimes brokenness isn’t the end, it’s actually the beginning.

Bel: So we go right to the beginning. I was interested in the book you’ve chosen to talk me through today, Crazy Love by Leslie Morgan Steiner. Can you tell me, if we are going back to the beginning, where you were when you read that book and what was happening in your life at the time?

Mel: I was fresh out of a 13-year relationship where I’d undergone some pretty extreme violence of all different kinds. And I’d spent years, you know, barely surviving and just trying to find a way to be okay through it, I suppose. And I loved him more than I loved myself.

When I first read this book it would have been mid 2015, about a year after I’d left. I was still grieving the loss of a marriage and a family and all the things that I’d sort of ever hoped for myself. I was working at a hospital at that stage and I went out on a break. And in my news feed came a TED talk from Leslie Morgan Steiner. And it was entitled ‘Why domestic violence victims don’t leave’ and I watched it in my break and I cried my eyes out.

And I realised that she had a book [Crazy Love]. And a month after that, I was going over to Europe. And we went from place to place, I would read this book and I didn’t put it down for days, really. And I think it’s probably the best way to describe it is when all the things you’ve been trying to find a name for, they sort of find you. All the questions that I had inside that I wasn’t sure how to make sense of, all the feelings, all the emotion, I read it in somebody else’s story.

I came back from that trip a really different person and I think it shifted past the grief and the ‘what if’ and into the ‘what is’. It allowed me to move on to the next step, of moving forward.

Bel: Are there any favourite quotes that have stayed with you from the book?

Mel: There’s a scene where she was in an interview. She had previously worked at Seventeen magazine as a writer. [Reads]:

I looked at my next question. At this point, I knew what the answer would be, but I needed to hear it from him: “The men you work with in your recovery groups, do they ever get better? Do they ever stop hitting their partners for good?”

His biggest sigh yet. I could practically see him shaking his head.

“No one I’ve ever studied has ever stopped being violent, all at once for an extended period of time. I’ve seen batterers make a lot of progress towards controlling their anger and expressing it in more productive ways. But I’ve never seen anyone who didn’t regress and beat their partners again at regular intervals, even while making significant progress. There is no one I work with who I could say, ‘this one is done, he’ll never batter anyone again.’”

“Okay,” I told him, “last question. If one of the wives or partners of your batterers came to you and said, what should I do? Should I wait for him and help him work it out? What would you tell that woman to do?”

He gave a short, humourless laugh.

“I would tell her that she is probably the last person on earth who could help him. First, she should help herself and her kids, if she has them, to stay away from him. And I’d warn her to be extremely careful, because abandoning a batterer often provokes his deadliest rage. But leaving is actually the best way for her to help the batterer, too, and to help our society, because she is letting him and the world know that what he’s doing is wrong and totally unacceptable. By removing herself from the relationship, she makes it clear that she cannot help him, paving the way for him to realise that the violence is his fault, his responsibility, and that he is the only one accountable for his behaviour.”

Bel: What did that speak to for you, ‘he is the only one accountable for his behaviour’?

Mel: I went to counselling and we went in as a couple once, and after a couple of sessions they said, “you don’t need to come anymore, he’s the one who needs to do the work”.

My ex gave me a black eye during a fight once and I took the kids and I ran to the Sunshine Coast and rocked up on my parents’ doorstep with a black eye, and I called the guy who ran the Men’s Behaviour Change programs, and I remember asking him, and I was pleading with him, going, “you know, can these men change? You know, is it possible for him to change?”

And he was really quiet, and he said, “it’s possible but it’s unlikely” and all I heard was “it’s possible” [laughs]. And the guy had said as well: “I’ve never seen a man change”.

He gave me the answer that I needed. I just hadn’t been ready to hear it yet.

And I think for this [book], it was just somebody else in a completely different context repeating what I already knew.

Bel: And it’s remarkable during that trip to Europe, even after you’d left the marriage, I think people don’t realise, you know, there is still a grieving process that takes place after the fact.

Mel: There’s a section in my book where I talk about, how do you grieve somebody who is not just your monster, your, you know, your abuser, the one who hurt you, but also your friend, your confidant, you know, the father of your children? You know, who could be a really nice person when he was a really nice person. How do you explain that to other people? How do you explain that to yourself, that you’re making this decision? Because I don’t think any perpetrator is 100% evil. Otherwise, it would be much easier.

Bel: You said you read this book in 2015. So 11 years after you read that book, you’re bringing out your own memoir, which is about domestic violence, but so much more — About surrogacy, egg donation, the kind of pioneering work you’ve done there, and the work you’ve done with other survivors. What do you want your book to give to the people who read it?

I suppose as time passed and as I started to heal, and as I started to be able to see things a little bit more clearly, I wanted to be able to put words to it that might help others realise that there was hope beyond their pain.

I work as a domestic violence specialist now in a drop-in centre. So I have women sit in front of me every single day who are experiencing domestic violence or have left or are in various stages of it. And they’re in pain and they don’t see, or they can’t see yet, the hope on the other side. They look at you and they ask questions like: “Will I always feel like this? One day will things be better?”

And I can look at them honestly and say, “The best is yet to come”. And I can say that with absolute clarity and honesty: that these are the dark days, but life does get better, after.

Mel’s book can be pre-ordered before its release on May 3, 2026.

Workshops! Would you join online?

For those in Sydney and the Illawarra, there’s still some tickets left for my four-week in-person course in Coledale. ‘Find Your Story’, running on Tuesday nights from May 5th.

It’s meant to serve as a gift to yourself, at the start of a new creative project, or in the tricky middle, or those who have a desire to start telling stories but are not quite sure where to start. We’ll spend four sessions experimenting and playfully testing things out, to see what germinates.

Please share this newsletter with someone who might be interested!

Online workshops

I’ve had a few people ask me if I offer online workshops in storytelling, narrative practice and community work. The answer is: I’m thinking about it! If you’re a regular reader of this newsletter, would you mind letting me know if there’s any courses you’d be interested in taking up?

Or hit me up with suggestions and reflections on what you’ve read at notes@belindalopez.net. If you’re reading this over email, you can also hit reply. I love notes more than anything.

These days I’m opting out of the algorithm for a more organic kind of outreach. So if you’ve liked what you read, please forward this newsletter to a friend.

Take care,

Bel

P.S. Paired readings

Pair 99 Problems but a Book Ain’t One with other clarion calls for books, reading and original thought, from Jeanette Winterson, and Charlotte Wood.

Jeanette Winterson: Mind Over Matter

When in difficulty, read a book

The world is a mess. The new global crisis is a Totally Trump Enterprise but it’s making life expensive and worrying. I hope the unlooked-for end result will be a more concerted effort towards non fossil-fuel energy. Calling time on Big Oil…

Read more

a month ago · 739 likes · 62 comments · jeanette winterson

Subscribe now

I begin with a sale offer I’m getting no commission on: Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark is 40 percent off right now, for US$5.99 as an ebook. I pitch it to you because it has given me consolation more than once.

I was able to download the book for free many years ago. It was during some world disaster in the last decade, and among so many, I can’t quite remember which one. Back then, Solnit offered it as a gift to her readers, and the book did something to my brain, a visceral shot of hope and strength.

I own the third edition, and in the foreword Solnit opens:

Our opponents would love you to believe that it’s hopeless, that you have no powers, that there’s no reason to act, that you can’t win. Hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away. And though hope can be an act of defiance, defiance isn’t enough reason to hope. But there are good reasons.

She outlines the many world disasters of that time, and the many social movements of 2015, when she wrote these words. The last ten years following that look to me now as a time of bad-faith actors and attitudes across the political spectrum, of profound cynicism and closed-mindedness. And so Solnit’s words, though aged, seem more current, somehow, more open and clear-eyed, for the reality we now face.

It’s important to say what hope is not: it is not the belief that everything was, is, or will be fine. The evidence is all around us of tremendous suffering and tremendous destruction. The hope I’m interested in is about broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act. It’s also not a sunny everything-is-getting-better narrative, though it may be a counter to the everything-is-getting-worse narrative. You could call it an account of complexities and uncertainties, with openings …It’s a statement that acknowledges that grief and hope can coexist.

Buy it here

Pig Feast

Pig Feast is a new groundbreaking documentary about ecocide happening on Australia’s doorstep, and almost entirely ignored in the mainstream. Made by leading Papuan and Indonesian filmmakers, it pays much-needed attention to the largest deforestation project in Indonesia. The ecocide is paired with another kind of destruction, of democratic norms and silencing of critics.

We held an event at the first Australian showing of the film last week, and I moderated a discussion with the filmmakers, director Dandhy Laksono and executive producer and Tabloid Jubi editor Victor Mambor. It’s a vital documentary I wish everyone I know would see. When it’s available publicly I’ll be sure to let you know.

In the meantime, for excellent Australia-based First Nations independent reporting, Amy McQuire has relaunched Black Witness

BLACK WITNESS

Black Witness fights for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Resistance. Presence. Justice. Power.

By Amy McQuire

Workshop

For those in Sydney and surrounds wanting to get back into beginner’s mind for a new project, or lagging project (or a yet-to-be dreamed of project!) in fiction or non-fiction, writing, documentary and more, I’m running a course with the South Coast Writers Centre called Find Your Story.

It’s pitched at all levels of experience, because we know that each new project, your first or your fiftieth, is as risky as the last. It’s a gentle and germinating four-week course designed around small experiments that will get you making in a supportive group. Love to see you there.

Find out more

Send me your reflections, suggestions and critical feedback to notes@belindalopez.net. If you’re reading this over email, you can also hit reply.

x Bel

If you're having [life] problems, I feel bad for you, son
I got 99 problems, but a [book] ain't one

With massive apologies to Jay-Z (Please don’t sue me).

99 Problems But a Book Ain’t One is a new project from Story Doula, to remind ourselves of how books, writing and literature can be a balm, a salve, a tonic, as we collectively find ourselves turning to other ways of tuning out and numbing.

My first guest, the writer, host and multi-hyphenate Benjamin Law, has chosen a self-development book to discuss, but this column won’t be limited to self-help tomes. I’ll allow for a wide interpretation of ‘book’ — poetry, literature, nonfiction all welcome. Maybe not romantasy— it’ll have to be a case-by-case basis on fairy smut.

I’ll get on with our conversation, but in the meantime, please help me think of an acronym for this project. 99PBBA1 sounds like some kind of AI hallucinationatory coding slop, which is very far from what we’re trying to do here.

And feel free to suggest who else I should speak to!

As always, send me your thoughts, suggestions and critical feedback to notes@belindalopez.net

Bel

There isn’t much Benjamin Law hasn’t done— the Australian writer has published nonfiction books, screenplays, stage plays, journalism, columns, hosted radio and TV shows and much more. His body of work is impressive and prolific, and so his choice of book surprised me.

You can read an extract of The School of Life’s On Failure before we begin, or afterwards, up to you.

BEL: When I wrote to you, you said you were not a guy who was into self-development.

BEN: Oh, no. I’m such a snob. I’ve been a snob. You know, Bel, I used to work in a bookshop for five years, an independent bookshop, Avid Reader in Brisbane’s West End. When you work in a small family-run bookshop, you have a very close relationship with your customers because it’s a curated service. And when it came to the self-help / self-development section, I just didn’t know anything about it. I think that was why I had maybe an allergy or a preconception to it, mainly because I didn’t actually read that world. And I’m sure a lot of it is not good, but I think that’s in every genre, right? There’s really bad fiction and really good fiction. There’s really bad cookbooks, you know, it’s the whole range. I ignored that section of the bookshop to my peril, but you get to your late thirties and forties and life throws shit at you. And you realise, actually, maybe I need help from a book. I’ve gotten help from books in other ways. Maybe I should literally get help from the help books.

BEL: So tell me about the book you found. What was happening in your life that you thought you might go looking for it? Did it find you in a way, or were you specifically seeking out something?

BEN: I had reached my late 30s. I was 39 at the time. We were just coming out of COVID as well. So I think a lot of the opportunities that I had for work had kind of folded in on themselves or the path ahead was not clear. I was quite cocky and confident in my 20s and 30s about what I wanted to do, how I wanted to get there. But there are many things that were out of our control as we all discovered, one way or another, during COVID. And when certain projects didn’t get up, or certain projects did get up and I would read the bad reviews— I would read the good reviews as well, but the bad reviews just really stay with you, right? They kind of pollute everything.

I just had this sense of failure that I couldn’t really shake off, which is ridiculous because it’s not really seeing things in proportion. But for some reason, my brain, and maybe this is most human brains, really attaches to the failure aspects of things and instead of seeing room for improvement, then wipes the entire thing out as ‘you failed’.

So I’ll give you an example, Bel. This is a really strange example because it’s not to do with my main line of work at all, but I was cast on the TV show Australian Survivor and that was a really nuts experience. It’s not anything to do with my main line of work, it’s not in my wheelhouse, like I wasn’t a super physically fit person at the time. You know, I’m not made for reality TV, but I got cast on this show and I really wanted to do well. And to be honest, I did well by my standards, like I lasted 22 days out there, 22 days without proper shelter, proper food, lost like close to 10% of my starting weight. But I came out of it feeling so ragged and so mentally discombobulated. I was like, oh, I guess I failed at doing that.

But I really needed to find something to kind of console myself over work, over feelings of what I could have done better in that show. And this book, which is The School of Life’s On Failure, just kind of stood out of the bookshop at me like a personal attack (laughs).

So, of course, I had to look at it. I’ve been a fan of, you know, some of Alain de Botton’s work for a while. I think there’s something that appeals to me about finding help in philosophy. You know, my boyfriend did philosophy at university. I’ve got a lot of time for that. I want it rooted in principles and research, whether it’s philosophy or psychology, to give it grounding. It’s not just someone who’s, like, come up with a vibe and wrote a book, you know?

So this is the book that I found and if you read it, it’s intelligent. It doesn’t feel patronising. It feels personal. It feels consoling. I was like, ‘oh, I think I’ll return to this book a lot’, because when you work in the creative industries, everything’s a failure until it actually works. So I thought I had the muscles to be good at failure, but I realised, oh, I actually could do some more training.

BEL: I just finished Helen Garner’s How to End a Story.

BEN: Oh, the diaries.

BEL: The diaries, it’s the third of her diaries.

BEN: Oh, the third. So everything with Murray Bail was falling apart [her soon to be ex-husband, named in her published diary as ‘V’]

BEL: Everything with, yes, with Murray Bail. I just found it fascinating because it’s at the point where she had just published The First Stone and she was getting some flak for it, but also a lot of acclaim. And the whole book is just oozing in this sense of failure that she has, in this sense of not being able to continue.

As you’re reading it, and she’s thinking about whether she’s going to leave her partner and if she can even write, you just feel like yelling at her through the pages, ‘you’re HELEN FUCKING GARNER. Write your book and leave him!’

BEN: Get a grip, Helen!

BEL: Get a grip, Helen! You’re Helen Fucking Garner! And I guess people hearing about, you know, what you were feeling would probably be thinking the same, like, you’re Ben Fucking Law!

BEN: (laughs)

BEL: And yet, and yet you had this sense of failure. And that has been one of the revelations to me, kind of being in proximity to people who have experienced the opposite of failure. Or reading about it, like in Helen Garner’s diary. I always thought there was a point where a sense of failure would end. We would just reach nirvana, and we’re done. There’s no more work to be done.

BEN: That really resonates with me, Bel, because, you know, when I talk to people, you know, especially with a public profile, whose names are synonymous with an incredible body of work, and they just don’t think it’s special. It’s not coming from a place of false modesty at all. Like we will be comparing notes and in moments of vulnerability and complete sheer honesty.

They’ll talk about a work that I love and talk about, you know, all of the flaws that I don’t see, that their readers, their audiences, that their fans don’t see. Or their advocacy and why X, Y or Z failed. And I’m like, ‘you realize your advocacy made this social change, like you actually have a legacy’.

But I don’t know, maybe it’s the way that we’re also asked to present ourselves as well. You know, we don’t necessarily want to present or showcase or be public about failure. It’s often what people say they’re not interested in. You want to curate a kind of… I was going to say persona, but like an image of what’s going well. But I also don’t think that’s lying either. I think that’s also us trying to protect ourselves and trying to remind ourselves of the good so that you can keep going when you have those dark nights of the soul. It’s interesting. I think we all wrestle with it. But like you, it’s always surprising when you hear people you look up to wrestling with exactly the same shit.

BEL: Yeah, and it’s almost like we’re only allowed to present failure narratives as something that has been overcome, you know, and a confession to a feeling of failure in the moment is like, ‘oh, they’re having a breakdown, it’s seen as weakness. We’re not very good at wrestling with it in the moment.

BEN: No, no. So I wrestled (laughs). No, I read this book, spoke to my therapist a lot. But I think it’s important to have those quiet moments where the first thing that’s the challenge is that you even acknowledge that you’re wrestling with it at all. You know, I think most of us would just prefer to deny that that’s even something that we’re concerned about. But if you’re honest about it, it’s like, ‘oh, actually, yeah, I’m struggling with this’. I mean, that’s a hard enough step, I think.

What I really like about this book is everything is like self-contained paragraphs. So it’s quite snackable and consoling. I mean, one of the things I love, but also one of the things I get annoyed about with the School of Life is that there’s no author. Like, you know Alain de Botton is behind it, but there must have been a team on a Google doc, like co-authoring this entire thing.

It’s always strange to me when there’s no author, but when you pick it up, there’s something kind of biblical about it. It’s like you’re receiving the word. It’s just so definitive because there’s no human author behind it. So both annoying, but kind of authoritative as well.

BEL: Are there any passages or themes that really stood out to you, that you felt like, ‘yes, this hits the spot?’

BEN: I remember picking it up and when the introduction was so direct and spoke to me in very plain language, like it wasn’t even story or metaphor or simile, to just say what it needed to say. Can I read the first part to you?

BEL: Please.

BEN: (reads)

One of the many cruel aspects of failure is that when it strikes, it can

feel like the most unusual and particular event. ‘Why did it happen

to me?’ we wonder, ‘Why have I been singled out?’ Our failure looks

to us like a monstrous exception in an area of life dominated by

success – a quite spectacularly strange and rare affliction. We’ve not

only failed, we are – it appears – almost completely alone in having

done so. Everyone else’s marriage is stable, even terrific; all around

us, there are lovers going out on dates and wedding anniversaries

being celebrated. Most people’s jobs are continuing without trouble;

it’s hardly ‘normal’ to be at a loose end at what should be the height

of our career. There’s no evidence that the others around us have

lost command of their reason.

I love that because we all know that feeling. It’s like, ‘Oh my God, everyone else has got it sorted out and we are completely alone in this singular, abject misery and shame’. But of course, when you read that, you realise how ridiculous that is. Of course, that’s a universal experience. The problem is we don’t talk about it with each other because of that shame.

I love that it just pinpointed the specific feeling that we feel is so special to us. But in another way, it’s saying, ‘you’re not so special, dude’. And that’s kind of consoling as well.

BEL: So tell me, just before we finish, what shifted for you?

BEN: After reading the book? I think I felt like I had equipment. You know, that understanding that it’s a very normal part of life, that often your failure isn’t that crushing total end of the world that it should be.

I remember there was one really useful exercise. And of course, like a lot of philosophers, especially School of Life, go back to the Stoics, you know, Marcus Aurelius and things like that. And my friend Bridget Delaney has written a great book about Stoicism. So I’ve got the language around that now, but I’m also like, Oh, that’s just like, that’s just Chinese culture. Sure. The Stoics invented it, but you’re actually just talking about Chinese people.

But I remember there’s a Stoic principle that’s introduced in this book, which is: sometimes it’s not the failure that’s crushing us, but that anticipation or dread of failure. That you feel like you can’t go on, because you’re already imagining or thinking that it’s going to fall apart.

One of the exercises that the School of Life suggests is to imagine the worst-case scenario. Everything fails. You are shunned. You are rejected. You are cast out. You are exiled. And the failure is so total. You’ve been disgraced. Like that’s the ultimate failure, right? Disgrace. It asks you to imagine that, the specifics of that, and asks you two things:

One, how likely is that? And two, could you survive it? And it sounds like a really masochistic, maybe mentally not healthy thing to do, to actually go through that exercise. But I actually find it’s an exercise in logic as well, because when you imagine it, And my imagination is a little too vivid. When I script it in my brain, I realise, oh, it is pretty heightened. It’s pretty ridiculous what you’re imagining, right? Like people booing your opening night, people walking out of the corridors, whatever. Actually, I don’t think that’s likely to happen, but that is the worst-case scenario. And if it did happen, would you survive it?

Well, actually, yeah. You’d probably have like a month of complete nervous breakdown and have a lot of massages and bathhouse bookings and whatever. But you get on with life, and to realise that I think is very helpful. And then you can get on with whatever the fuck you’re doing.

Hello. I was the ghost of Substacks past there for a while, but I’m back for the new year, and wanted to tell you about what I’ve been doing in the meantime. First, a new course for those based in the Illawarra, Australia:

Storytellers and writers draw on life experiences to create fiction, memoir, documentary, poetry, plays and more. How do we decide what we want to share, and what should stay private or obscured, at least for now?

Designed for storytellers who are starting a project, or those stuck in a rut, this inspiring, germinating course will gently spark creativity, curiosity and the confidence to turn your personal stories into creative work.

Over the course of four workshops, participants will explore how their experiences can become narratives, and which mediums might best serve them for sharing these stories.

Each two-hour workshop will be led by Story Doula Belinda Lopez, an award-winning documentary maker, writer and narrative practitioner, who has long collaborated with storytellers, journalists and writers to help their works come to life.

Hosted by the South Coast Writers Centre, I’ll be giving this course over four Tuesdays from May 5. The workshops are designed to gently loosen up any fear, hesitation, confusion or numbness that overrides your desire to create, and spark clarity about the way you want to share your stories. You can come to the course with a specific project in mind, or none whatsoever. The tickets are $170 (for SCWC members) or $200 general for all four sessions at Coledale Community Hall.

Book here

Story Doula sessions

If you can’t attend this course, or live elsewhere, you might be interested in working with me one-on-one.

For at least a decade I’ve been reading about Narrative Practice, deepening my understanding of this modality, which draws on holistic psychotherapy, anthropology and community work principles. In 2025, while this newsletter lay dormant, I was lucky enough to train as a narrative practitioner at the internationally renowned Dulwich Centre in Adelaide, the home of Narrative Therapy and Community Work.

Narrative Practice feels like a formalising of what I have always attempted to do in my work in journalism, documentary, anthropology and community arts— to help people explore the stories of their lives, and to co-discover other narratives that offer new insights. These skills served not only the people and communities I spoke to, but also the award-winning journalists, writers and documentary makers I have supported working as an advisor with the ABC, Audible and Listnr, among many other places.

I’m now offering individual sessions and group workshops to people who want to explore the stories of their lives, in a non-diagnostic, non-clinical, non-pathologising way, for creative outputs and psychosocial wellbeing. Reach out to me at notes@belindalopez.net for more info, and to organise a 15-minute introduction call, on me.

More coming soon,

Bel

When people ask me what my favourite thing about documentary making and non-fiction writing is, they often assume it’s the public-facing part of it: hearing my voice on a podcast, seeing my words in print. But the truth is that’s often just the necessary byproduct of one of the main reasons I do this: to sit with a person and hear their story, to fossick together until it reveals something new to both of us.

For the last two decades, I’ve crafted conversations that I call ‘deep dive interviews’, and I’m going to crystallise what I’ve learned into two busy hours, on Saturday morning, November 15th at Coledale Hall in the Illawarra, south of Sydney. Here’s the spiel:

WORKSHOP: How to Ask the Right Questions

9:30–11:30am

Award-winning documentary maker and writer Belinda Lopez has spent many years asking the right questions to discover untold stories about families, history and society.

In this workshop, she focuses on the art of interviewing—an often-overlooked but crucial skill for writers of family and social histories, memoir and biography, as well as in documentary and journalism. She shares the approaches she has developed to unearth illuminating stories in collaboration with her interviewees.

The workshop is $50! Hurry and book if you’re interested.

It’s a part of the program for True Story Festival, a celebration of nonfiction writing and storytelling, and the most wonderfully intimate festival held over two days just an hour from Sydney. The full program is here - I hope to see you there.

Stories elsewhere

— Papuan journalist and editor of Tabloid Jubi spoke in Sydney this week, alongside human rights lawyer Veronica Koman. They shared two films this week that go to the heart of human rights issues in West Papua. One of them is available to watch free on YouTube with English subtitles: My name is Refugee, directed by my friend, the Papuan journalist Yuliana Lantipo. It’s a moving explanation of an internal refugee crisis happening right on Australia’s doorstop.

— I Teach Creative Writing. This is What A.I. is Doing to Students: Gifting you access to this article- let me know if it doesn’t work.

— Jane Gilmore, feminist crusader against sexist headlines and consent advocate, has written about her cancer diagnosis below. You can support her and, for a limited time, get a signed copy of her new book about teaching consent to kids here.

Jane Gilmore

Waiting to live. Waiting to die.

I’ve never had cancer before, but I’ve seen people in my family through it multiple times. Mostly, cancer is about waiting. Waiting in uncomfortable chairs and uncomfortable silences. Waiting for results. Waiting for a diagnosis. Waiting for a prognosis. Waiting for treatment. Waiting to recover. Waiting to live. Waiting to die…

Read more

7 months ago · 74 likes · 2 comments · Jane Gilmore

Send me your reflections, suggestions and critical feedback to notes@belindalopez.net.

Until next time,

B.

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The Australian war correspondent John Martinkus died this week. John's reporting on East Timor, Papua, Indonesia and many other places helped shape history.

John’s journalism helped make me aware of what it was to be a citizen in my region, far more than my school education ever did, of belonging to a place in the world beyond Australia, and our obligation to understand the past and present that enveloped it.

And when I began to work in Indonesia and Australia, I came to understand that the pecking order of journalism, of star reporters and poorly-paid freelance stringers— as John had often worked — was not always a merit system, or reflective of the effort and dedication of a journalist's commitment to telling the truth about a place and its people. I was glad to see he was recognised with the Order of Timor-Leste last year by President Jose Ramos-Horta for his courageous reporting in 1999.

There’s a great interview on the ABC with his former colleague Mark Davis this week about his work and the price he paid for his dedication to East Timor and other struggles, long before the Australian press was paying attention. Mark said:

“The demons never left John…He was very frustrated that people weren't paying attention to the story… It's a trauma to live amongst that and to see people tortured and often people were killed…It really ate at him. It never left him.”

His work first appeared in small stories, a single voice that slowly helped attract a larger swarm of international mainstream media attention to human rights abuses in East Timor in the 1990s.

At the time, John was rarely granted access to the VIP club of international foreign correspondents; instead living off precarious freelance payments that sounded more like an honorarium than a living wage.

But now we are in a new era. The VIP clubs are closing their doors. Many of the bureaus overseas have shut down, and the foreign journalists have gone home. Life as an international freelancer has for many years been mostly untenable, perhaps even more so than in Martinkus’ time.

What often remains now are foreign journalists compiling articles from digital sources far away, and local journalists reporting on the ground at great personal risk. Most recent reports in Gaza state that more than two hundred Palestinian journalists have been killed in the conflict, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

In a great recent article, journalist Nour Swiriki told the ABC:

“In other wars, the vests and helmets are signs to keep open fire away. This is the norm in the world but not in Gaza," the journalist said.

“It tells me one thing — that my life is worth nothing to the world.”

Al Jazeera has compiled a list of names of those killed. ‘Israel deliberately kills Al Jazeera journalists’, the broadcaster now states.

Most of my subscribers are Australian, and so I think we also need to reckon with what it means to actually support journalism in our region, the place that we belong to. Last week, Pacific journalists were reportedly barred from Anthony Albanese’s press conference… at the Pacific Islands Forum!

The pecking order in Australian journalism still remains, and the measure of those who take the most risk is often inverse to those who reap the highest rewards.

I can offer one suggestion, particularly about the region of the world where John worked that I know best, in West Papua. It is to support the ecosystem of independent Papuan media outlets who work in often challenging conditions, including Tabloid Jubi, which accepts donations via their website, and Suara Papua, which allows monthly subscribers (a tiny AU$1.49 per month currently) via Facebook (and disclosure: I used to contribute to a now defunct newsletter called Voice of Papua, which summarised Suara Papua’s reporting in English).

Most of these outlets’ reporting is in Indonesian, but that doesn’t matter, even if you don’t read the language. Like Martinkus’ small articles, their reporting provides on-the-ground testimony from Papuans that is consumed in leads and quotes and news angles (not always credited!) by mainstream outlets in Indonesia and Australia, at a time when access to Papua is severely restricted, especially for foreign reporters.

Tabloid Jubi has recently published more stories in English with the Pulitzer Centre, another step in the proper recognition of its reportage internationally.

And for those in Sydney, you have an opportunity to hear the brave editor of Tabloid Jubi, Victor Mambor, speak in person. Victor has faced several threats because of his reporting and leadership, including Molotov bomb attacks at the Jubi office and his own home. Police later closed the case for ‘lack of evidence’.

Victor will be speaking and showing two excellent documentaries produced by Tabloid Jubi next Wednesday, 24th September, in Marrickville. Tickets are free! Let me know if you can come, and let’s meet up!

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A few months ago, I went to a writers’ residency at Bundanon, on the NSW South Coast. The artist Arthur Boyd left the property as a creative meeting ground for the wider community. The artists-in-residence accommodation hosts painters, writers, musicians etc. in a variety of small cottages set in the bush, close to the studio where Arthur Boyd worked.

In the studio, there’s the scrabbly mess of his paintbrushes set amongst the scrabbly bush. As soon as I entered I felt jealous, not for the first time, that painters can work with the material and the real— wet paint, hard canvas, a brush to wield.

I usually carry with me a pen and index cards, held together with a fat bulldog clip. Still a poor consolation for the painters’ tools, a grasp at hoping that not all words are backlit, scrollable, ephemeral, although I guess at some point they are now.

I looked around and was immediately struck by this, hung on one wall; A painting of Boyd and his wife Yvonne, titled Night of the Pirahnas (1995):

A Bundanon brochure says of the work:

This painting relates to Arthur’s comment in an interview about no longer being an artist but a maker of paintings. Arthur experienced some disillusionment with the arts industry. The piranhas signify the pressures and demands he had on him, yet in the midst of the turmoil the two figures represent himself and Yvonne, as he has said it was Yvonne’s love and support that got him through this stressful time in his life.

The little green frog can be interpreted as a voyeur, whimsical– a symbol of hope.

Boyd painted landscapes on end— and a photo in the studio shows a stack of little paintings of the bush lined up, as though in a factory, which it was. The ravenous galleries in Sydney and Melbourne demanded of him ‘paintings of bush’, and so he delivered, again and again.

And now we are in the infancy of a new age, of what it means to create, when we are collectively wondering if that too will be taken away from us, or swallowed up— let alone to hold the great title of Artist. (I have mandatory links to reads on AI, below).

Boyd wanted to be an artist, not a maker of paintings. But I have wondered if there is value in the opposite view, especially now. For many years I have tried to dismiss lifelong private desires of Artistry, and to think of myself instead as a maker. To insist on being a verb, and not a noun. Not a professional title but focused on the act of doing the thing, a determination to verb all the way through.

By the end of the retreat I’d achieved what I’d been longing for during the early years of motherhood— to return to working in a trance. The manuscript entered my dreams and wrote itself, and while I missed my kids they felt for the first time in their lives very far away, elsewhere, at some strange periphery, a 15-minute chat on video calls twice a day, a few texts to continue the administration of life for them.

I think I’ve carried some residual benefit from the retreat back to real life and the relationships that ground me. Some kind of lingering trance that will carry me through to the end of this, of the doing, the act, the physical thing, even as the world burns around us. What else is left for us, but to insist on viewing ourselves as verbs in action? As doers, regardless of titles and outcomes? It doesn’t guarantee anything. But at least, the machines can’t take it away.

Stories elsewhere

Meet the AI vegans

Page against the machine

Your brain on AI

AI chatbots often advise women to ask for lower pay than men: new study

A promising new column to follow about AI from Christine Kenneally:

Unnatural History

Stories from journalist, Christine Kenneally, about science, history, tech, power, mystery and the world of “Ghosts of the Orphanage”.

By Christine Kenneally

What’s next for Meanjin?

Indonesia: End Crackdown on Protesters, Arbitrary Detention

Send me your comments, reflections, suggestions and critical feedback to notes@belindalopez.net.

Talk soon,

Bel x

A few years ago, in a previous iteration of this newsletter, I wrote about why I use Story Doula, first as a private North Star, one I found too embarrassing to share: to be in service of stories, people and connection. The cliche happened— I got older, I cared less. Now it is my project, my business, my newsletter and more (stay tuned ;) ).

I could write you an essay on why I have claimed Story Doula, I could write you a book or a poem. Or I could just quote Toni Morrison:

“The systematic looting of language can be recognised by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation.”

Morrison spoke those words in 1993 when she accepted her Nobel prize, but she foreshadowed what we see so much of now, a creeping discourse that is entirely unhuman— sped up, synthesised, rendered meaningless through the haze of online discourse, unable to tolerate nuance and perspective and points of view, until we use our fleshy voiceboxes to speak in digital bytes, reaching for each other but never able to humanly connect.

“It is common among the infantile heads of state and power merchants whose evacuated language leaves them with no access to what is left of their human instincts for they speak only to those who obey, or in order to force obedience.”

In the form of a parable Morrison shares the antidote— and in this age what she suggests feels as though it involves risk. But read it, and take it on today if it is useful to you.

“Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created. We will not blame you if your reach exceeds your grasp; if love so ignites your words they go down in flames and nothing is left but their scald. Or if, with the reticence of a surgeon’s hands, your words suture only the places where blood might flow. We know you can never do it properly – once and for all. Passion is never enough; neither is skill. But try. For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul”.

Stories from me

— I’ll be at a writing residency with other writers on the NSW South Coast at Bundanon in a few weeks. We’ll then share our work on Sunday the 4th of May— more info here

— At the same time, Apil 24- May 4th, the Byron Bay Underground Film Festival will show Australian Mongrel, the short film I made with the excellent Rocco Fazzari. Check it out if you’re around that way

Stories elsewhere

— Speaking of Toni Morrison’s warnings: The Ideological Brain [an article, but I plan to read this book]

— How to Be More Alive: Artist and Philosopher Rockwell Kent on Breaking the Trance of Near-living

— I’m a German citizen in 1933 and is it just me or is it really hard to get any work done right now

— A free story for these times by veritable story angel George Saunders

— Has your work been pirated by AI on LibGen [Mine has! I feel conflicted— like I do when I get catcalled in my old age— disgusted but also masochistically flattered]

— Rick Rubin, legendary producer, but I know him for his book The Creative Act which I listened to on audiobook and it felt like channelling the voice of a Creativity God delivering useful sermons from on high. He’s started a substack on the same theme.

Send me your reflections, suggestions and critical feedback to notes@belindalopez.net.

Talk soon

x B

This week I spoke to recipients of the Jesse Cox Audio fellowship, an amazing opportunity for emerging storytellers to be mentored to make long-form narrative audio documentaries. Jesse was a friend, colleague and master of the craft, so I’m so glad the fellowship has landed at All the Best, the incubator for narrative audio storytelling in Australia.

I gave the opening workshop for the fellows and was supposed to be kind of like the hype guy for the storytelling process. Instead, I showed them this visual representation of the narrative structure The Hero’s Journey:

My theory is this, I told them:

The Hero’s Journey is available to us care of Joseph Campbell, the mythologist who analysed and synthesised many, many human stories and myths over time, into this narrative framework.

We appreciate this structure as storytellers not because we want our stories to be tropes or archetypes or cliches, but because Campbell understood that the millennia of stories created by humans tended to have something in common.

And I don’t have millennia of years’ experience in telling stories, but I’ve gathered enough now that I can tell you that story-making often follows its own trajectory— in that there is a universal story structure to the actual experience of documentary-making that I think replicates the narrative trajectory of so many stories we love ourselves.

And by now I know you’ve clocked the firey (or tentacle-y?) pits of death and rebirth. Seasoned documentary makers nod their heads.

It all starts out so well: There’s a call to adventure— a hunch, a desire, a drive to pursue this as your vocation and destiny. To reveal truths hidden in our over-saturated world. Or at least, a way more interesting occupation than most other jobs on offer in late-stage apocalyptic capitalism.

You connect with a mentor — note: vital no matter how experienced you are. A mentor can be a peer.

Then of course you cross a threshold, you enter the world you’ve committed to explore and portray. There are trials and failures of the minor kind, and crucially, helpers. Helpers are shape-shifters, they appear in all kinds of forms. As a documentary-maker you have to keep your eyes open to them— to the kind of interviewees or advice givers who might help your story twist in a direction you hadn’t anticipated. What’s crucial is to not close off your story too early— to direct yourself into a dead end. You should say yes a lot in your early gathering process.

There’s growth, new skills, a sudden blaze of self-assurance. Maybe you’re just like… a natural interviewer?! Who connects to people and reveals truths to all? Maybe you’re just like… oh wait,

TOTAL CATACLYSMIC DEATH.

I can tell you at least ten different ways I have story-died during a project, when the core of the work and the world seemed to fall from under me, and all hope was lost. It is never completely lost.

But it leads to the part of the work where you gain the knowledge you could never have gained if you hadn’t gone through that hell: the revelations, the atonements, the knowledge of what you’ll do differently next time.

You return changed — transformed. You’ll read your scars like a compass and you’re already, almost involuntarily, percolating new stories in your head.

Anyway, pin this to your wall if it’s useful, pass it on to a newbie. This is the luck and the absolute curse of wanting to be a part of sharing complex, multidimensional stories, but at least, we can remind ourselves, it’s been done before, and there’s something of a map for it.

Send your reflections, suggestions and critical feedback to notes@belindalopez.net.

Secrets We Keep: Pray Harder (Series 4) is an investigative podcast series about a cult-like fundamentalist church and the people who managed to escape its grasp.

I was one of the executive producers on the series, hosted by investigative journalist Richard Baker and released late last year. The stories by traumatised ex-members were heartbreaking, as were the horrific cases of child sexual abuse before the courts as we were making the series. Link regarding the case follows- please note, incredibly distressing content: Here.

The series has just been nominated for the prestigious Quill journalism awards, which is cool. But more heartening are the same ex-members now advocating for a widening of coercive control laws to cover cults and churches– as well as to cut them off from cushy tax breaks— to stop emboldening these organisations to doing harm.

Paired reading reccos elsewhere:

• “Don’t disassociate” as an act of defiance

• ‘Maybe scrolling the traumas of the world is not in itself a moral act’

• A Christos Tsiolkas review- they don’t make ‘em like this much

That’s it. More a bitsy what I’ve been doing update. More coming.

x B

*The fine print: I did not write the published headline- they are not my words!

Reflections, suggestions, critical feedback very welcome at notes@belindalopez.net.

My friend saw it and said I don’t usually like slogans, but I like that. I told him I don’t like slogans either. But this isn’t a slogan. It’s a poem posing as an Instagram hashtag. The poet, Toi Derricotte, uses the line to begin The Telly Cycle, and as Austin Channing Brown writes, it revolutionised Black feminism.

The other week I sat around a table of women of varied life experiences, at a dinner curated by another friend and facilitator Gretel Van Lane. And after many conversations, I thought that the accidental theme of the night was productive rage— the hard-earned I don’t give a fuck of having lived, not a weight but a rocket, a desire to choose deliberately.

And I showed them the lino print as we discussed productive rage. It seems off-topic, but it is not. Because joy and rage are not opposites. They hum on the same frequency, an energy source you can direct.

And as we find ourselves asking what we can do now, in this age of so much suffering (though every age has had its suffering), what do we have left but to turn to joy? And to have it multiply as we turn our attention to it. To not capitulate to suffering.

To consume

— Pray Harder: a podcast about an Australian church called a cult by ex-members will be free and out in the wild on November 28th- but you can subscribe now on the Secrets we Keep feed to get updates (or download the Lisntr app and listen right now). I was the executive producer alongside Emma Lancaster (who not incidentally, very deliberately, gifted me the Joy is an act of Resistance lino print). It was hosted by investigative journalist Richard Baker and made by a fantastic team.

— This essay by Anna Krien is everything I have been mulling over about the internet for the past decade and would like to use some productive rage on in the decade to come.

— Excellent reporting on migrant women’s experiences of sexual harassment

— Ray Bradbury on how to work. Inject this in my eyeballs, recite this in my dreams.

— And to finish- the perils of newsletters

Send me your reflections, suggestions and critical feedback to notes@belindalopez.net.

I did get involved in some other cool things though, and consumed some good stuff too. I mostly resist the idea of being a curator of internet links, as though this is our entire mode of creation now! Also deeply suspicious that it distracts most people from the ‘real work’. Whatever that is. But I get distracted anyway, so I’ll allow myself the pleasure of sending through cool links.

Read and listen

— Like nearly every woman I know in their mid 30s to 40s, I recently read All Fours by Miranda July. It was electrifying, funny, brazen. My post-novel deep dive on this one were the autobiographical links between July’s life and the fictional book, which as a ‘creative’ (vomit) is very treacherous of me, but I just can’t look away.

— An actually measured essay by writer Michael James about Rachael Gunn ‘RayGunn’ and the politics of breaking.

— Jon Ronson has started a newsletter on narrative non-fiction storytelling! And it’s proper shop talk, which I like, not just the artsy bits.

— Question Everything is a new podcast by the maker of S-Town, Brian Reed, questioning the craft of journalism and storytelling itself, after he had his own work questioned. I will be listening. Thanks Em for recco.

— A fellowship for Jesse Cox, who was my frequent collaborator and an all-round wonderful human/wunderkid who left us way too soon, has found its home at All the Best. ATB is the first storytelling show he co-founded on Fbi Radio Sydney. I was part of a special show about Jesse’s legacy. You can also subscribe to All the Best to listen (also because it’s a rad show).

Coming up

— An audio documentary I worked on as an executive producer for over a year, PRAY HARDER is about to drop— you can hear the trailer and sign up via the LiSTNR app here Hosted by investigative journalist Richard Baker, it’s a story about Australia’s oldest, most secretive and disturbing ‘cults’.

Papua and THE BOOK!!

— A Human Rights report about discrimination towards West Papuans was released not too long ago and is worth reading.

— This month the editor and staff of the independent Papuan newspaper Tabloid Jubi were harrassed with molotov cocktails among other things. It’s part of the hazards of being part of a ‘free press’ there.

— Considered posting my book word count daily to Facebook as a public hazing ritual but was gently walked back from that idea by true friends. I respond well to peer pressure and shame ( I grew up Catholic) so let me know your ideas for efficient progress

x B

Today: Free documentary films, advice from a story oracle, and the connection myth buster we had to have.

I’m in the fermentation stage of the manuscript I’m working on. Fermentation sounds like a passive process, just letting things sit, but the inside of a compost bin will tell you differently. There’s also something very metaphorical about composting for the writing process— something about the smelly decomposition (of the soul!) all for the promise of rich soil/text. Then again, remind me to tell you my theory about how you can turn any physical activity or hobby into a metaphor for creative work. Or maybe some theories should stay private.

But in this fizzing, oozing turning over of words, I often feel reluctant to jump to set conclusions about what else is happening in the world. Hence my early reluctance towards Twitter et. al. In my part of the world, in New South Wales in Australia, there have been a series of violent incidents, a few where women in particular have been killed. And then, of course, we’re in a time of excessive violence and war worldwide. These events are also fermenting, for me, and for all of us. A reminder, to myself as much as everyone else, that it’s ok, we have not evolved to come to rational conclusions about incomprehensible events in record time. To negate what I just said about Twitter, I did read this great tweet once, lost now, about how we are not personal embassies needing to issue statements regarding one’s feelings on all world events. I’m paraphrasing- it was better than that. So go gently, and quietly if you need to, as you ferment.

Free films on West Papua!

Ok, the free bit was a cheap attention hook, but these films don’t need it. The West Papua Mini Film Festival has made its way through several Australian cities and now, having finished, I wanted to share where you can find these excellent films online.

The films are special for a few reasons- they give an insight into Papua, where media restrictions and surveillance is common; and they’re produced by Papuan journalists and filmmakers from the excellent independent media group Tabloid Jubi. But also because as an observer of Papua for a long time, I really did hear some new perspectives and new stories from a part of the world that is so often reduced to news talking points, and dehumanised because of it. There’s been some fermenting here. All the films below are in Indonesian but with English subtitles:

My Name is Pengungsi (Refugee): Directed by my friend, the wonderful journalist Yuliana Latinpo, My name is Refugee follows the families of children named Pengungsi (meaning ‘Refugee’) as they were born while their mothers were forced to flee their homes due to increasing military presence and violence between Indonesian security forces and the Free Papua Movement guerrilla fighters.

Papuan Hip-Hop: When the Microphone Talks: A very cool set of interviews with West Papuan rappers sharing lyrics considered political in Papua, and the consequences they’ve faced because of it. Awesome to see the translated lyrics in the film— it would be great to have more lyrics available for an international audience. These guys (and all guys, my only gripe) were really insightful about making art under threat.

Black Pearl & General of the Field: About the Papuan football team Persipura- the Black Pearl— more proof sports is simply a side theatre for national politics. The film is good, but I highly recommend seeing a Persipura game in person to really feel that fact.

Pepera 1969, A Democratic Integration?: The question mark in the title is the key— this film examines the evidence to consider if the Act of Free Choice in 1969, the process by which Papua was formally annexed by Indonesia, was not a democratic process. It was great to meet one of the directors of this film, Henky Yeimo, at the film festival in Sydney— a brave journalist who has faced intimidation in his reporting work before.

For more documentary films on Papua, keep an eye on Tabloid Jubi’s playlist on Youtube. There’s other documentaries there, and I’m told plans to produce new films in the future.

And while we’re here supporting Papuan journalism:

Another independent Papuan media group, the Papua Journal, is fundraising to support Papuan journalists to produce work for two years if you are able to support them.

From Junot Diaz’s newish newsletter about writing stories: ‘Never let your controlling immigrant parents write your characters; or Liberty’

For all my ethnic migrant creative types, this is so good. Diaz’s Substack is cerebral and weird (good traits), but I particularly love this one. Hi mum, I know you’re reading this and no you were not controlling you were lovely.

StoryWorlds with Junot Díaz

NEVER LET YOUR CONTROLLING IMMIGRANT PARENTS WRITE YOUR CHARACTERS; or LIBERTY

There always seems to be a moment in my early drafts when my main characters feel close to coming alive. They are well-made; they have a Want and all the Invincible Channels and a Three-Body Problem and I’ve made sure they are dynamic (change-rich) and are facing an interesting conflict…

Read more

2 years ago · 59 likes · 5 comments · Junot Díaz

A long read: ‘Mother Trees and Socialist Forests: Is the Wood-Wide-Web a fantasy?’

On how the theory that trees are interconnected may not be so true after all. I loved this article because it challenged my priors— when I first heard about the wood wide web I felt in my bones there was something right to it. But perhaps not. And maybe that’s the most revealing thing of all. This quote is the best:

“Why do we so badly want this to be true?” Karst has asked. Maybe the unrelenting news of global warming and its attendant catastrophes – wildfires, hurricanes – has driven readers for respite toward calmer environmental stories. Or perhaps recent political cruelties have led us to seek reassurance that, in nature, beings are thoughtful and kind. The connective aspect seems important, too, as if trees’ fungal friendships could release us from our phone-checking isolation. Fairly or not, we’ve loaded our aspirations on to the forest: be the tree you want to see in the world.

The dispatch is done, I’ve worked on it in snatches over the course of the day. Newsletter writing feels like such a fruitful way to procrastinate! Like drinking kombucha instead of social media soda. So thank you. And till next time x

Send me your reflections, suggestions and critical feedback to notes@belindalopez.net.

This is, at worst, my stream-of-consciousness typing passing for a newsletter. The unsubscribe button is at the bottom of this email if that already feels like a good idea.

At best this newsletter is an exploration of why we tell stories and how we stay connected— with our communities, with each other, with ourselves— and a portal to those who are probably doing much better thinking about this on both fronts.

When I started writing a newsletter in 2018 (ahem, ahead of the curve but couldn’t keep it up— my personal vibe), I wrote that I wanted to have ownership of my own archives, and that’s still the case. But moving to Substack feels like the middle way between remaining connected to an ecosystem of thinking, while not living in service of the great social media machine.

I’m going to try not to mull too much over these newsletters and treat them like the ephemera they are. If what I’m writing sounds like it has a glint of hyperactive madness to it, it’s because my child has kept me up from 3 am, and I’ve now surrendered to the dawn with a cup of coffee. Said child is now back asleep- so so happy for that kid.

I feel as though I’ve just moved between worlds. I left my role as an executive producer making audio documentaries about crime and injustice, to return to the work I was doing just before I had children, on Papua/Indonesia. For the most practical of reasons, the manuscript I was working on was put to one side while I survived the baby years, but I’m now clear-eyed and ready to set out to it again.

I once read an article about Zadie Smith, and the profile writer Jeffery Eugenides wrote something that has stayed with me. The metaphor is imperfect, but I think it resonates with anyone submerging deep into a project that has an element of solitary work:

Novelists are like fur trappers. They disappear into the north woods for months or years at a time, sometimes never to reemerge, giving in to despair out there, or going native (taking a real job, in other words), or catching their legs in their own traps and bleeding out, silently, into the snow. The lucky ones return, laden with pelts.

But it’s a strange thing, disappearing to do slow, deep work on a subject that feels like it has great urgency. Just a couple of days ago, a video of soldiers in Indonesia torturing a West Papuan man in a barrel made the headlines (note: the link is to a news article, not to the video). This kind of torture is unspeakable, but also a part of the fabric of life in West Papua. Similar kinds of videos have been shared by Papuans for many years, desperate to alert the international community. Scholar Budi Hernawan says that torture has been used for over half a century by the Indonesian state to control locals. What was new here was this time, the commander of the Indonesian military [in that province] offered an apology for what had happened.

At the same time, my friend Joel Carnegie interviewed me for his excellent Storymakers Institute podcast. I told him, in my usual eloquent way, that in the darkest times of my working life, I’ve asked myself: “What’s the point of all these f****g stories?… What is this actually doing?”

We go pretty meta, and I get a bit too earnest, but we do land somewhere that’s a hill I would die on, or at least get really uncomfortable for:

“Stories help us learn what to do not to destroy ourselves”

Signing off, the kids are waking up (again). Send me your links, send me your notes, send me your warm encouragement and your cold-hard criticism— I love it all.

Send me your reflections, suggestions and critical feedback to notes@belindalopez.net.

x B