In Conversation with Veronica Gorrie

Veronica Gorrie and Eddie Cubillo

CONTENT WARNING: The following video contains strong language and materials that viewers may find confronting, viewer discretion is advised. Please be aware that this discussion will contain material that readers may find confronting and disturbing, and that could cause sadness and distress, or trigger traumatic memories, especially for Aboriginal people, and those who have survived past abuse, violence or childhood trauma. If it would be beneficial to you, we encourage members of the University Community to contact the University Health Service for support, or to reach out the VAHS or Lifeline.

Summary

The Indigenous Law and Justice Hub listened to Gunai/Kurnai woman Veronica Gorrie in conversation with Dr Eddie Cubillo, to discuss Veronica’s memoir Black and Blue: A Memoir of Racism and Resilience.

Black and Blue tells a story of growing up as an Aboriginal woman in Victoria, sharing experiences of racism and violence, and how Gorrie drew on these experiences to seek to create change for Indigenous people over her decade long career in the police force. This powerful memoir explores themes of justice, safety, policing and racism, as well as the profound challenges of seeking to create change from within institutions, which are of great importance to all members of the MLS community.

About the speaker

Veronica Gorrie (Ronnie) is a proud Gunai/Kurnai woman, a writer and the author of Black and Blue, published by Scribe Publications. Black and Blue won the Indigenous Writing Award in the 2022 Victorian Premiers Literary Awards as well as the 2022 Victorian Prize for Literature. She is the first Indigenous author to win this major award. She is passionate and skilled in non-fiction memoir and is working to extend her writing to film and theatre.

Ronnie received Creative Victoria’s First Peoples funding program to write Nullung and The Wheeler Centre Hot desk Fellowship in 2020. Nullung was read at the Melbourne Theatre Company in 2021, as part of the Emerging Writer’s Festival First Stage program. Ronnie is also the recipient of the Inaugural First Nation Writer’s Residency from the Australian Council for the Arts 2021 and the First Nation Writer’s Fellowship for Varuna, the National Writers House. Ronnie’s writing appears regularly in The Guardian and she has also written for The Age.