These bushfires, this summer of horror…how writing helped
I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t have writing and curiosity as an outlet this Summer. The smoke, the threat of fire coming through the forest, the koalas, the farmers, the farm animals, the insects, the villages, the carefree Summer that never came.
Here’s a link to my article in the Sydney Morning Herald regarding the death of a koala in the bushfires. It appeared early in the fire season on November 20th and it was just heartbreaking to see the lack of action taken to preserve life up and down the coast and all the way to Kangaroo Island over the months that followed.
Luckily, the lovely people at Mindful Parenting Magazine had commissioned me to write a piece for Issue 3 (months before the fires) and it discussed eco anxiety and solastalgia and ways to deal with what is happening to the environment around us. They’ve kindly given me permission to share it here in case it helps anyone else out there.
Writing helps me to focus while I try and make sense of the world and my place in it. Reading does that for me too. Thank goodness for words! Thank goodness for our world. Now to actions.
All the best to you, Anna
