Over 300 days, Emie Roy curated and 50 writers collaborated to bring pandemic stories to life.
A record that captures 50 real life pandemic time stories from across Great Sydney and Blue Mountains to save those for the years to come. As a book that signifies hope, the compilation has a broad range of stories portraying emotions ranging from fear, despair and anxiety to kindness and fun during the time of pandemic. These stories will tell you one thing – instead of waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel to flash upon us, we learnt to seek that from within.
An initiative by The Stories Untold in association with Blacktown City Council, Community Migrant Resource Centre and Westpoint.
On 4th of May at Bowman Hall, Blacktown, writers and photographers who contributed to the book came together for the gala launch. It was nothing short of a celebration – of how we coped and survived all that we have been through in this once-in-a-100-years pandemic. It mainly captures the resilience of our Australian multicultural society. Today, Sydney suburbs of Blacktown, Liverpool and Parramatta are home to over 80 different nationalities. And they all survived pandemic days which signifies hope for a brighter future.
The book itself is a work of art and is dedicated to the essential workers who worked hard to keep the community safe.
Stories include The ‘ New’ Virus, Beating The Isolation Blues, Upside of Lock Down: Researchers Sharpen Their Axes and My Lockdown Life and contributors include Dr G K Harinath Oam( Chair of Multicultural NSW), Doug Golding , Jasmine Lee and Saswati Banerjee.
One of contributing author Jill Edmondson, correctly said , “ I learnt that sometimes, you have got to do what makes you happy to weather any calamity.” While Shatha Viswanathan said ,” Why Covid is not war, and why we should be grateful.”
According to Dept of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australian Government booklet, Australia’s Indian Diaspora: A National Asset, Indian diaspora is part of progressive Australian society and Emie Roy’s curated project proves it right once again.
Lookout for Light At the End of the Tunnel !
