UQ English Literature graduate and 2008 Emerging Queensland Author winner Amy Vought Barker knows all too well how it feels to be stereotyped by a postcode, and has used her childhood experiences to pen her first novel Omega Park.
Ms Barker received the honour at the recent Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards held at The State Library.
The $20,000 prize includes a publishing contract with The University of Queensland Press for the novel, which will be launched at the 2009 award’s short-list announcement.
“There’s not really words to describe it, I was speechless, I felt like I was dreaming,” Ms Barker said.
“The hardest thing as an emerging writer is rejection. I think any writer will go through a lot of rejections before they get published…it just takes that one person to ‘get it’.
“When I was in high school I never once thought I could have a career in writing, although I’ve always written.
“But I think, like with this book, it has to be a story you need to tell, you have to feel extremely passionate about it.”
The novel is set in a fictional public housing estate on the Gold Coast and follows the lives of two young men as they struggle to overcome personal and societal obstacles including rioting, discrimination and isolation.
Ms Barker can identify with the novel’s characters, having once lived in public housing herself.
“I felt compelled to write it, drawing on experiences from my own past and also weighing in on the controversies surrounding the riots in suburbs like Macquarie Fields around the time I was writing,” she said.
“I felt if I didn’t write the novel, nobody else would.”
While growing up in the estate, Ms Barker said she felt removed from society and part of an underclass, even though she excelled at school and is now writing her own literary success story.
“You’re in this place and it feels that there is no way out. There is definitely a stigma associated with coming from the area,” she said.
“I remember I only went back there once to visit as an adult and I had this overwhelming feeling to tell the children I saw that you can get out. That they can do anything they want.”
Ms Barker originally enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts/Laws degree at The University of Queensland, quickly realising her passion wasn’t law moots but words.
She was awarded the prestigious TJ Ryan Scholarship and was a member of the UQ-Link program, which assists school-leavers from disadvantaged backgrounds with financial and academic support.
As part of the UQ-Link program, Ms Barker was given a 12-month stay at one of UQ’s residential colleges.
“At the time, it was one of the happiest years of my life,” she said.
“Without UQ-Link and the TJ Ryan Scholarship it would have been much more difficult to attend university and actually graduate.”
Ms Barker is already working on her next novel, inspired by a recent arts residency in Ireland and is also the project manager of Remix My Lit, which see writers “cut and paste” their words with the work of others.
Media: Eliza Plant from UQ Communications on (07 3365 2619)
