Gaele Sobott – February 16 2020

Run for Strength (Muscular Dystrophy Australia) – February 16 2020

Gaele is a writer, independent producer and curator with national and international experience in multi-art forms. Diagnosed with muscular dystrophy in 2000, she is a disability activist and has been an independent consultant at Accessible Arts and an Access2Arts director. Gaele is currently director of Outlandish Arts and co-editor of /dɪsˈrʌpt/, a platform for D/deaf and disabled creatives all over the world. She was recently awarded an Australia Council grant to attend festivals and research access in South Africa and the UK. Gaele lived overseas for many years and holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Botswana and a PhD from The University of Hull. She has published a range of work from short stories and essays to children’s books, including Speckled Eggs, Thara Meets the Cassipoohka Man, and several titles in the Junior African Writers Series (JAWS). Gaele’s work has appeared in anthologies and collections, and has been translated into various languages. Recently she has written poems around the subject of waterways for Flow, a 2019 series of dance performances by Linda Luke, and edited Young Days: Bankstown Aboriginal Elders Oral History Project.

My Longest Round by Gaele Sobott
ReadOnTime, 2010; ISBN 9781921791215
Wally ‘Wait-a-While’ Carr was an Australian and Commonwealth champion boxer who held 12 titles in six divisions and fought an astonishing 101 professional bouts in his 15-year career. Growing up in rural New South Wales, it wasn’t until he moved to Sydney at age 16 that he began to understand what racism was all about. Retiring from boxing in 1986, Wally faced a sudden void. The triumphs and glory, the thrill of the roaring crowds, the women and high life were replaced by loneliness and despair. Wally’s story is about his courage in overcoming alcoholism and drug addiction and his incredible determination to survive and live with dignity. It offers a vital snapshot of Aboriginal and Australian history.

Colour Me Blue by Gaele Sobott-Mogwe
Heinemann, 1995; ISBN 9780435909710
In this haunting collection of short stories, fantasy and reality blend as African history and tradition meld with the grittiness of everyday life. Gaele Sobott-Mogwe’s stories tell of everyday life in Southern Africa. She captures the casual or determined oppression of men and women, the delightful tenderness of human affection, the powerful rhythm of African myth. The politics of personal relationship are explored against a background of social injustice and material hardship. Yet we never lose sight of the individual human experience, the moment of insight, the sensation of pain or pleasure.