Kyra Rose

Welcome to In Conversation with Writers, the podcast where we dive into the minds of writers and explore their ideas and processes.

Joining us today is Lillian O'Neill, an emerging writer who works within the forms of creative non-fiction, poetry, and literary fiction. Lillian is the author of 'The tent village at Musgrave Park', which appeared in issue 83.4 of the literary journal Meanjin. This recording takes place on Bundjalung and Meanjin lands.

This is part one of our conversation in which Lillian discusses the inspiration and process of writing 'The tent village at Musgrave Park'.

So Lillian, welcome and thank you for joining us today to discuss 'The tent village at Musgrave Park'.

Lillian O'Neill

Thank you for having me.

Kyra Rose

Okay, so you talk about a community in 'The tent village at Musgrave Park' that's been created from necessity, but also presents the complexities of the people within the park and their relationships with each other. So, how did you balance representing the paradoxical nature of this community in your piece?

Lillian O'Neill

That is a good question and it's a little bit of a hard one to answer in the sense that, I think for me, the form that I chose allowed me to mimic the paradox of the park and the community itself. I guess by that, what I mean is, is that with a lyric essay, it is, the way I look at it, it's very much almost like a collage of words. So you can jump from piece to piece, from research to interview to thought process. And so for me, I think that allowed me to, I guess, leave gaps in the sense that, you know, not everything can be said for the community in the park. Not everything can be told and it's not, I guess, a linear story. So, I think that the way that I tried to represent the paradox of that was in the structure of the piece and the structure that I chose.

Kyra Rose

You balance it really nicely, you know, like, you individualise each of the people with whom you speak and give some insight into their stories. But then also that that broader context of this community who have been, for want of a better word, forced to reside as as a collective in a communal area.

Yeah. You do that quite well.

Lillian O'Neill

Thank you. It was a challenge. I guess I did have to change my perspective on what the piece was about, kind of halfway through doing the research, and I guess realising that the intention that I had going in wasn't the intention that I had finishing the piece, if that makes sense.

Kyra Rose

Can you talk about that a little bit, how that intention changed throughout the process?

Lillian O'Neill

Yeah. So I think. I live very close to the park, so, for me, I've passed the park from it being one tent to then being over 50 tents. So I did kind of see the growth of it, and I think I went in with the intention of just wanting to give the stories of this community a space to be heard. I think throughout the process, I came to the realisation that I don't know if just being heard is enough for these stories. And so I did have to shift as to what was my intention with the piece, and what, I guess, what I wanted the outcome to be after the piece was published, if that makes sense.

Kyra Rose

Um. So what was it that you were hoping to achieve by the time you got to the end?

Lillian O'Neill

If I'm being honest with you, I did have to take a bit of a break from the piece, so I did not look at it for about a month, because I did get quite confused. And I think that, at the end when I was happy with the piece, I think what I wanted to show was, I guess, the juxtaposition of, you know, people's opinion of what's going on in Musgrave Park. And, I guess, kind of bringing them back to the sense that these are people, it's not just their being, them being houseless isn't what makes them, you know. They are sons, they're daughters, they're brothers, they're sisters, they're friends. They're a lot more than, you know, just the stories that they're telling me. And there was no neat end to the piece, and I had to accept that.

Kyra Rose

And you mention that. Like, it's quite clear that this piece has been written over a period of time. Like, from when you first started going to then I think it's approaching summer or something again where you talk about you returned and as you walk past and the like, and that you can see those shifts in it.

So in 'The tent village at Musgrave Park', you talk about the power of language and how it can shape perspectives of people. So how do you believe language as a whole can be used to affect change, but also to help readers see an issue in different ways?

Lillian O'Neill

I think language is a very powerful tool and that can be said for written language, but also conversation as well. And I think that the most powerful written language is what sparks, I guess, conversation and that type of power of language as well.

Kyra Rose

And we've, we've mentioned that a little bit, in talking about that paradox and the complexities of the people who live, who reside within the park and their relationships. So how do you believe language can be used to affect change, both as a whole, and when we're exploring this, this issue of houselessness?

Lillian O'Neill

As a whole, I guess what I, the experience that I've had after the piece being published, I've had a lot of people come to me and say, you know, within the community that I live in and say, 'You know, I've never actually thought about it in this way' because it is such just a, it's something that we don't think about. I think oftentimes, you know, we all get very caught up in our own lives, which is very understandable. But we become accustomed to, I guess, categorising, or just accepting certain things within our day to day when it shouldn't have to be like that. I think for me, the power of language is allowing space for ourselves as individuals to reflect on issues that sometimes we don't have, I guess, the time or the energy to really think about in such a depth of language, if that makes sense.

Kyra Rose

Yeah, and you mentioned it. You mentioned specifically how we refer to people who don't have somewhere to live, and I think that's a really powerful provocation that you offer your reader as well, that there's that challenge for them, to reflect upon their own choice of language and how they perceive people.

Lillian O'Neill

And I think especially, after doing a lot of research, I guess, into the housing commission and how the issue is trying to be addressed within a government scale. There's lots of terms of language that haven't really been identified within the Australian landscape, but we have adopted out of ease and out of, I guess, a following of other countries, adoption of said categories or said terms. And I think that that's something that should be really thought about as well.

Kyra Rose

Yeah, and like language has that power, doesn't it? Like it's labelling and naming and then all of the connotations that we associate with those labels.

So, we touched on this a little bit, but how do you see language being able to shape, just in general, being able to shape a reader's understanding of an issue?

Lillian O'Neill

I think with the, with the genre of creative non-fiction, I think it is very, how can I say this? I think it is very individual in the sense that yes, I am telling the story of other people, but I am also interjecting my own personal beliefs throughout the piece. I can't deny that. And I think that as a writer it allowed me to even explore what I thought about the situation. And I think that it allows readers to realise that it doesn't have to be thought about that certain way. You know, there are other options. There are other ways to think about things that we just assume as part of our day to day.

Kyra Rose

Okay. So this, this is a really thoughtful and empathetic piece of writing in which you humanise a group in society that we're often uncomfortable talking about. So your, your work here sheds light on many issues in our society. So how did you refine 'The tent village at Musgrave Park' to get it to a point where you felt that you had done that community justice?

Lillian O'Neill

I did briefly touch on that before, but like I said, I did have to take a big step away from the piece, because it was a piece that, it was kind of like a lived, a lived in piece. So it was my day to day, like I'd go to the park every day and I built relationships with the people living within the park because I did want to understand them on a deeper level than just the surface. And, in saying that, my writing did become a little bit confused at a point.

And like I said before, I did kind of have to switch as to what my intention was with the piece. In saying that, I think that it is very productive to take a little bit of time away from writing if you, if you can, if you have that capability. 'Cause I did get to come back with more of a clearer outlook and how I wanted to go about the piece. I did actually completely restructure it from the original piece that I had. So it did take a lot of drafting and a lot of redrafting and redrafting, and that's okay.

In terms of, how did I get to the point where I felt that I had, I guess, provided an adequate piece for the people actually living within the situation? I did have to come to the conclusion that the piece that I was writing wasn't gonna be a neat, I guess, linear piece.

It didn't have a closed in ending, the ending was more so of an opening, if that makes sense. You know, it was supposed to be the start of a conversation, not the end of a conversation.

Kyra Rose

Yeah, it's, here's the provocation.

Lillian O'Neill

Yeah. And it's like, what, what to do now and what's the next steps? and It was supposed to be a starting point of that, not the endpoint.

Kyra Rose

Did you, did you take a stack of copies of Meanjin, to the park after and just go 'here it is'?

Lillian O'Neill

Well, the crazy thing is, is that a lot. So, the park, Musgrave Park, it's actually kind of home to a lot of festivals and a lot of the, I guess, protests actually end in the park. And so, as of recently, even since the piece was published, I've stayed in contact with a lot of people. A lot of people have gotten housing, which is really good.

But with the recent cyclone, they all had to find emergency housing. And then there's been a lot of issues surrounding them going back to the park. So it's a lot of coming and going. So I still go to the park and I still talk to them and I've shown all of the people that I've, you know, spoken to the piece and they've loved it.

And it's been a very emotional journey as well with the piece. You know, especially with Jay in the piece, he was somebody who really opened up to me and this was, you know, a middle to late aged man who has never really had somebody to talk to. And so just having, I guess, somebody who actually wanted to hear his story, and listen to what he has to say and value his life and his experiences, it's a really rewarding thing.

Kyra Rose

Yeah. And, and that comes through, I think like when we're talking about how you've humanised the people who live in the park, like, like you've, you've clearly made those quite strong relationships. I think that's a credit to both you and how that comes through in your writing as well.

Lillian O'Neill

Thank you.

Kyra Rose

How did you know when you were done with 'Tent village'?

Lillian O'Neill

I actually probably wrote, rewrote and rewrote the conclusion, the final paragraph, probably about 20 times or more because I wasn't really happy with it the first few times. And it was a bit of a point of contention for me because I didn't know how to end it. But I think once I'd come to the acceptance that it is an ongoing issue and that I didn't have to bring it to a, a conclusion how I guess you would with a normal essay or how you would, with a, a short story, everybody wants, you know, these neatly tied endings. I think that's when I knew that I could end it and it didn't have to be perfect and it didn't have to be a neat circle.

Kyra Rose

No, it does. It does, and you know that as an English teacher, I love the fact that you're telling me that I wrote 20 drafts for the conclusion alone.

Lillian O'Neill

Yes.

Kyra Rose

It's not one and done, kids.

Lillian O'Neill

No, it is definitely not. I probably sent about maybe 15 of those to my other writing friend, and each time he was like, no, try again, try again. And I was like, okay, I can do it. Come on.

Kyra Rose

Yeah. Yeah. So, did you know that, was this a piece that you were writing then that you then submitted to Meanjin?

Lillian O'Neill

I think I started writing, so I actually started writing it during my degree. So I graduated last year with my degree. But I actually wrote it as an assessment piece because I walked past the park every day to go work. So it was something that was, I guess, in the forefront of my mind and my day to day, and I didn't really have the intention of publishing it at first.

My intention was that I actually wanted to try and do something to help the community, but I didn't know what that was at that point in time. And then I think the feedback that I got from some of my lecturers was that I should try and take it to publication. And so I reached out to Meanjin purely for the fact of ... I think Meanjin's a really good platform that allows more, I guess, I guess, focus pieces on community as well, but also from a literary point of view. If that makes sense.

Kyra Rose

So Lillian, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you join us today. Thank you so much for sharing your insights into 'The tent village at Musgrave Park' and into your own writing processes.

'The tent village at Musgrave Park' is an incredibly powerful and provocative piece of writing and I'm so glad that you've put it out there. And that we, we have the ability to, to read and respond to that and think about our own world.

To our listeners, thank you for tuning in. If you like today's episode, please subscribe to In Conversation with Writers, leave us a review and share with your friends.

You can also follow us on social media for updates and upcoming episodes. Until next time, keep exploring the world of Words and ideas. This is your host signing off. We look forward to you joining us in our next episode.

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Kyra Rose

Welcome to In Conversation with Writers, the podcast where we dive into the minds of writers and explore their ideas and processes.

Joining us today is Lillian O'Neill, an emerging writer who works within the forms of creative non-fiction, poetry, and literary fiction. Lillian is the author of 'The tent village at Musgrave Park', which appeared in issue 83.4 of the literary journal Meanjin. This recording takes place on Bundjalung and Meanjin lands.

This is part 2 of our conversation in which Lillian discusses her influences and writing processes.

You're a writer of creative non-fiction, so can you talk us through your use of creative stylistic devices in your work and how you think the use of these features helps you achieve your purpose?

Lillian O'Neill

Um, so as a writer of creative non-fiction, I also, like you said before, I do work within the forms of poetry and literary fiction as well. So, for me, a lot of blending happens even when I am working within a set form. I guess the thing that I love about literature is that all types of literature in terms

of poetry, creative non-fiction, literary fiction, I love to feel something as a reader when I'm reading something. So I wanna be able to provide that feeling for the readers that are reading, I guess, my work as well. So I think that using, I guess, literary devices like allusion or emotive language, or even the cadence of how said sentences sound, I think that it's really important no matter what form I'm writing within. Does that make sense?

Kyra Rose

Yeah and, and do you find, like in feedback that you get, that people find that more engaging as a, as a way of reading creative non-fiction?

Lillian O'Neill

I think what I love about creative non-fiction is, is that it does allow, I guess, more experimentation with different, I guess, techniques, and I think that people do respond to it so well. I think that, for me, from what I guess what I learned is that creative non-fiction, it is an experimental form and there are lots of smaller, nicher forms within that greater genre, a nd I think that people do receive it really well if it does sound more of a story style, if that makes sense.

Kyra Rose

Absolutely. Yeah, thank you for that. So, in 'The tent village at Musgrave Park', you talk about going to Musgrave Park with a notebook and sitting on a bench. Is this type of immersion a part of your regular process for writing non-fiction? Do your processes change according to the form in which you are writing?

Lillian O'Neill

Um, I think that for me personally, it is part of, I guess, the way that I write within creative non-fiction as I am, I guess, heavily inspired by what's happening around me and the world around me. I'm very much a people watcher, so I do like to go outside and, you know, sit in cafés, sit in parks, and that is half of the process. But, I guess that's where the inspiration draws from, but the other half of the process is also research. I guess it's a balance between the 2.

Kyra Rose

And so as, as somebody who's always on the lookout, sitting on the bus and the conversations that you overhear or when you're on the train, those types of things, and thinking about, the snippets that you pick up and how they can inspire you as well.

Lillian O'Neill

Yeah, I feel like a lot of the inspiration comes from just little things that, I guess, sometimes I think we let pass us by. So certain situations like you said, or certain conversations and just the little things that are often go unnoticed. But I think that's sometimes where the magic lies for stories is that you, you know, get inspiration from these tiny little minute details and then through your research and through, I guess, experimenting and writing, then it becomes something bigger.

Kyra Rose

Okay, so, so being a part of the world is a big part of your process.

Lillian O'Neill

Oh, a hundred percent. I'm very much a sticky beak. I'm a sticky beak at heart.

Kyra Rose

I love that. I love that. Who are your literary inspirations?

Lillian O'Neill

I have a lot. A classic has to be Helen Garner. I have loved Helen Garner since I started reading more literary fiction and then also getting into more of her, I guess, non-fiction works as well. Especially as a, as a female Australian writer, I find a lot of her work very inspirational. Somebody who I've been really inspired by recently is Janaka Malwatta. He's a Meanjin, poet, who touches on a lot of social issues within his poetry. So it's kind of like that blending of, I guess, really abrupt, confronting issues through a poetic style of voice.

Kyra Rose

Yes. Yep.

Lillian O'Neill

I love Joan Didion in terms of creative non-fiction, beautiful storyteller. I guess Joan Didion for me is like the epitome of what creative non-fiction should be in terms of being able to tell a story in such, like, a literary sense, but then have it, be so real and visceral as well. Who else do I really enjoy? I really like, I might not be saying this correctly, but I like Nayuka Gorrie as a creative non-fiction writer as well, especially within lyric essays. I know she writes a lot of comedy script for television and movies as well. But her creative non-fiction pieces are, again, quite confronting. I think I like things that are quite confronting and pushing boundaries of what literature is in known to be.

Kyra Rose

Yeah. Yeah, and Nayuka does, they're quite powerful. A really very powerful voice.

Lillian O'Neill

Yes. Very, very powerful.

Kyra Rose

So, in terms, like, you've mentioned Didion and Garner, are they, and, and Lui, when, you are honing your own craft, particularly when we are looking at that lyric essay, or creative non-fiction in which you write are they your big role models would you say?

Lillian O'Neill

I think yes and no. As much as I love creative non-fiction, I also read a lot of other genres as well. So for me, I guess, as a writer, I think that reading is very important as well. So reading, you know, different styles is very important to me personally. So while they are very much inspirational in terms of the style of writing that I do, I think that I also find a lot of inspiration in other genres as, as well.

Kyra Rose

Absolutely.

So as an emerging writer, Lillian, what advice do you have for writers who are developing their own skills?

Lillian O'Neill

I think experimentation is a big thing for me. So, I guess not feeling like you have to be confined to what is expected of the genre that you're writing within. In saying that, students, learn the tropes of that genre. But then, once you learn them, go outside of those boundaries and experiment. Know the rules. But then once you know the rules, you know, don't be afraid to break those rules, and try something different. And I also would really suggest, I guess, as an emerging writer, something that's really helped me is having a community of writers around me, and having people to bounce ideas off and not being afraid to share the idea that came to my head and I wrote down at 2:00 AM in the morning, even if I don't think it's that great. Um, getting somebody else's perspective on it and, you know, having that support around you as a writer from other writers I think is very important.

Kyra Rose

Yeah, build, build a community. Yeah, and that power of feedback is really like you, you might see something that you don't think is valuable, but there's a seed or something there that somebody else is like, no, you've got something here and you should maybe work on making this happen.

Lillian O'Neill

And I think also just keep writing. Sometimes you might not want to feel like writing, but you do have to push yourself. I know from personal experience, some days I really do not want to pick up a pen to paper, but if you force yourself, you never know what will happen.

Kyra Rose

What's, what's one of the things that you do when, when you are just in that space where you're like, I've just got to make myself write? Like, do you set yourself little writing activity or do you go, just write 10 minutes, see what happens? See where I go?

Lillian O'Neill

I think I'm very much, in the sense that like I'll set myself a five minute timer and I will have no boundaries on what I have to write, but I'll just be like, okay, this is your time to get something onto the paper and then you can go and do what you need to do in terms of what pieces I'm working on. But, I guess, I'm a procrastinator at heart. So once I get the pen, then I can go on after the five minutes, even if I don't write anything of use. It's just getting the, the motion going and then you can go into it. For me personally, that's what I like to do anyway.

Kyra Rose

So Lillian, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you join us today. Thank you so much for sharing your insights into 'The tent village at Musgrave Park' and into your own writing processes.

'The tent village at Musgrave Park' is an incredibly powerful and provocative piece of writing and I'm so glad that you've put it out there. And that we, we have the ability to, to read and respond to that and think about our own world.

To our listeners, thank you for tuning in. If you like today's episode, please subscribe to In Conversation with Writers, leave us a review and share with your friends.

You can also follow us on social media for updates and upcoming episodes. Until next time, keep exploring the world of words and ideas. This is your host signing off. We look forward to you joining us in our next episode.

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