Big Sky Festival: Authors Caitlin Maling and Emily Brugman among visiting writers to go on Abrolhos tour

Guest authors in Geraldton for the 17th Big Sky Readers and Writers Festival were treated to a tour of the Abrolhos Islands on Thursday — for some it was seeing the natural wonder for the first time, while for others it was a return to a family legacy.

Author Emily Brugman visited the Abrolhos Islands in 2016 for the first time, but her family lived and worked there between 1959-72.

Brugman released The Islands in February this year. She said her first novel was inspired by her family history on the Islands and seeing them first hand. She will be speaking at Northampton and available to meet at a literary morning tea on Sunday.

Brugman said she hadn’t returned since 2016 when she first began writing the book and looked forward to bringing her mother Kaija Talviharju back.

“We went out and spent five days in a fishing camp out there. It was an extraordinary experience and provided inspiration for the book,” she said.

“It’s been a number of years, and mum’s here with me again . . . We’re actually taking my grandpa’s ashes with us to scatter.

“We’ve grabbed some leaves from an olive tree that my grandmother planted in Bluff Point so we’re leaving a little bit of both of them out there today.”

Brugman said her family had a camp on Little Rat Island on the Easter Group, but would scatter the ashes in the Wallabi Group.

“On Little Rat now, only three or four families live there in comparison to 25 back in the 60s,” she said.

Brugman said The Island was a family saga which charts the life of a family from the time that a young couple are in their 20s, all the way through to old age.

Poet and author Caitlin Maling visited the Islands for her first time and said besides the tour, she was looking forward to moderating the crime fiction panel in Mullewa, presenting at the Shipwreck gallery and co-hosting a night of poetry.

“I’ve done a deep dive into the Batavia and that’s a very dark thing to be talking about on a nice Saturday afternoon,” she said.

“I love Randolph Stow . . . He had this idea that the Batavia summarised metaphorically — in a weird way — Australia’s society.”

Maling said she was excited to hear what locals would present at a poetry gig at the Rocks Laneway.

“It will be a really nice space for people to present work they’re not used to presenting,” she said.

To view the full line-up for the Big Sky Festival, which runs until Sunday, visit www.eventbrite.com.au.