Tkaronto, Winding Up, Down and Through
I am writing this update from Tkaronto, Turtle Island (Toronto, Canada) and an appearance at the Toronto International Festival of Authors. As part of the Festival of Indigenous Stories I have been lucky enough to travel with an amazing group of First Nations authors including Kirli Saunders, Bebe Oliver, Jasmin McGaughey and Evelyn Araluen and while here have had the privilege of sharing panels and ideas with Canadian First Nations authors Quill Christie-Peters, Alicia Elliot and Jesse Wente. What a way to experience my first international writers’ festival! In other writerly things I will be part of the Deadly Poets Society curated by Kirli Saunders for Bondi Books and Ideas Weekend. You can check out the events page for details. And keep an eye out for the new reboot of Meanjin. I’m so pleased to have an essay titled ‘Growth Without Object’ published and available in it this December.
The year doesn’t slow down either with musical projects ramping up and kicking in. My choral work ‘Stamus in Semper – We Stand on the Always,’ a response to Bruckner’s Locus Iste will be performed as part of the opening of the Parramatta Powerhouse each weekend evening throughout November. Check out program for 'Come Home Again' at the Powerhouse for performance times. Last year I was commissioned by State Opera South Australia to write Australia's first opera for babies. This work, now finalised and called ‘Piccolini-gu- for the little ones’ is being launched this month ready for performances throughout 2027. Based on the Yuwaalaraay story about the friendship between a Bilby and the Wind, the 30-minute work is for soprano, tenor, flute and bassoon and targeted for 2–5-year-olds. I am really excited to see how these little darlens respond to both the music and story and can’t wait to see it take flight in daycares, festivals and venues next year.
And finally, Stiff Gins have hit a purple patch receiving the Folk Federation of Australia’s Lifetime Achievement Award. On top of which will be squeezing in the recording of our next album just before heading up to Jinibara for the 2026/27 Woodford Folk Festival.
2026 has been epic. I’m wishing everyone a happy, safe and calm ending to your year and look forward to seeing you at an event someplace soon.
NOVELS
the belburd
'Mothers are experts at overflow . . . You may forget the words or kisses or gifts they give but that doesn't mean they didn't happen . . . We don't need to remember all the love poured into us. We need to be thankful that it makes us. When it comes to love, it's all about being. Not remembering so much.'
Ginny Dilboong is a young poet, fierce and deadly. She's making sense of the world and her place in it, grappling with love, family and the spaces in which to create her art. Like powerful women before her, Ginny hugs the edges of waterways, and though she is a daughter of Country, the place that shapes her is not hers. Determined and brave, Ginny seeks to protect the truth of others while learning her own. The question is how?
And, all the while, others are watching. Some old, some new. They are the sound of the belburd as it echoes through the world; the sound of cars and trucks and trains. They are in trees and paper and the shape of ideas. They are the builder and the built. Everything, even Ginny, is because of them.
The Belburd is a powerful story that shows us we are all connected from before we began to long after we begin again.
SONG OF THE CROCODILE
"Darnmoor, The Gateway to Happiness. You feel some sense of achievement; that you have reached a destination in the very least. Yet, as the sign states, Darnmoor is merely the measure, a mark, a point on the road you begin to move closer to where you really want to be. Darnmoor itself is nothing."
Darnmoor is the home of the Billymil family, three generations who have lived in this 'gateway town'. Race relations between Indigenous and settler families are fraught, though the rigid status quo is upheld through threats and soft power rather than the overt violence of yesteryear.
As progress marches forwards, Darnmoor and its surrounds undergo rapid social and environmental changes, but as some things change, some stay exactly the same. The Billymil family are watched (and sometimes visited) by ancestral spirits and spirits of the recently deceased, who look out for their descendants and attempt to help them on the right path.
When the town's secrets start to be uncovered the town will be rocked by a violent act that forever shatters a century of silence. Full of music, Yuwaalaraay language and exquisite description, Song of the Crocodile is a lament to choice and change, and the unyielding land that sustains us all, if only we could listen to it.
CONTRIBUTIONS
'Yilaalu' in The Gifts of Reading for the Next Generation available here
'Yilaalu' in Word to Sing the World Alive available here
Artists’ Perspectives Ngarra-burria Indigenous Composers and Their Interventions in Art Music Practice, cowritten with Dr Chris Sainsbury available here
"Yilaalu, Bigan and Warran," Co written with Tracey Cameron and Priscilla Strasek in Another Australia available here
'Gifts Across Space and Time; Journeying in a Speak/Listen Trade,' in Griffith Review Remaking the Balance available here
BLOG
EVENTS
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BIO
Nardi Simpson is a Yuwaalaraay storyteller and performer living in Sydney. Training as a musician, Nardi began her artistic journey as a songwriter and performer with vocal duo Stiff Gins. This has seen her travel both nationally and internationally for over twenty-five years releasing four albums, two singles, and countless compliations during that time.
Nardi was a winner of the 2018 Black & Write! Fellowship for a manuscript that would eventually becoe her first novel, 'Song of the Crocodile.' Published in 2020 by Hachette Australia, Song of the Crocodile won the 2021 ASAL Gold Medal and was long listed for the 2021 Stella Prize and Miles Franklin Awards. Nardi's second novel 'the belburd' was published by Hachette in October 2024.
Nardi has composed work for Ensemble Offspring, State Opera South Australia, Sydney Chamber Choir and Canberra Symphony Orchestra. Her work -barra was a feature of the 2022 Sydney Festival and has travelled to Darwin Arts Festival, Adelaide Nexus Festival as well as been performed in Berlin and Finland. She was composed for Short Black Opera and Switzerland's Ensemble Contrechamps.
Nardi works with student ensembles and directs cross-cultural choir Barayagal at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Sydney Conservatoriun of Music and remains committed and active in the making and sharing of culture, music and story in both her Sydney and Yuwaalaraay communities.
Photo courtesy of Bec Lewis
IN THE PRESS
the belburd
Written with the same lyrical prowess and evocative tone as her award-winning debut, Song of the Crocodile, Yuwaalaraay storyteller Nardi Simpson's second novel, the belburd, is a powerful ode to the interconnectedness of everything and the creation of life.
With a lyrical mastery only further cultivated since her debut, Song of the Crocodile, Simpson finds the sublime in the quotidian, elevating experiences (as base as being born or dying, as complex as grief or motherhood) to an art form. She shows that life is a series of becomings, experienced by humans and animals and the world alike – we all become together.
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LISA SCHUURMAN
BOOKS + PUBLISHING
TEDDY PEAK
READINGS
Song of the Crocodile
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Rich, complex characters who’ll stay in your thoughts long after you’ve closed the book, a gripping story that moves effortlessly through time and space, and a voice suffused with music and warmth. SONG OF THE CROCODILE is a moving, wise, deeply rewarding novel from an astonishing writer.
Simpson doesn’t shy away from the complexity and nuance of the characters, who are at once survivors, victims and perpetrators of trauma grounded in dispossession and injustice. However, nor does she deny these characters joy and meaning in their lives – bringing their stories to the page with great tenderness and lyricism. This book is necessary reading for all Australians.
It’s hard not to drown Song of the Crocodile in awed praise but this book deserves every skerrick of hype. That it is Simpson’s debut feels like a magnificent question: what else might she bring us? For now, just surrender to her storytelling, rich with Yuwaalaraay language and song.
EMILY MAGUIRE,
AUTHOR OF AN INSOLATED INCIDENT
BEEJAY SILCOX
THE GUARDIAN
STELLA PRIZE JUDGES' REPORT
MUSIC
Musician
As a founding member, vocalist, guitarist and songwriter with Indigenous duo Stiff Gins, Nardi has performed and travelled nationally and internationally for the past 27 years. Meeting in 1997 at the Eora Centre for Aboriginal Studies, Visual and Performing Arts in Redfern, Sydney, Stiff Gins have toured the US, UK, Middle East, Africa and the pacific and have released three albums, 2 singles and an EP. Stiff Gins continue to perform at festivals throughout Australia.Thanks to funding from Sound NSW Stiff Gins are currently recording their fourth studio album. It is due for release in April 2025. You can buy Stiff Gins latest album 'Crossroads' on bandcamp and other band merchandise here.
Composer
Nardi is a graduate of Ngarra Burria First People’s Composers - a partnership with Mooghalin Performing Arts Inc, ANU School of Music, The Australian Music Centre and Ensemble Offspring. Her commissions include works for ABC Music's Fresh Start Program, the Royal Australian Navy Band and Canberra Symphony Orchestra. Nardi has been Composer in Residence at The Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Monash Classical Music Department and Ensemble Offspring and is currently composing work for three new First Nations Operas. Listen to Nardi's work with Ngarra Burria here. You can also watch Nardi's 2022 Sydney Festival show -barra, featuring 70mins of original story and composition here.
Choir Director
Nardi is the current director of Barayagal- a community choir that brings together First Nations and non-Indigenous people to sing and share language, music and culture. Barayagal is a partnership between the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, YARN Australia, Metro Local Aboriginal Land Council and Redfern Community Centre. Stay connected to Barayagal's instagram to learn more out about gigs, rehearsals and tours.
FEATURES
Here you can explore recent podcasts, guest articles, interviews and revies and online content to do with Nardi's writing and musical world.
