Dispatch from the void - the progression of the book continues... and continues... and ...

It’s been a while since I last posted here — let alone written something directly for this blog — but there’s been a bit going on lately. The monthly site analytics suggest more and more people are dropping by, wondering if I’ve got something to say in regards to any of it, or if I’ve stayed disappeared. The gone fishin’ note still hangs on my Insta account and will stay pinned there, on the underside of that hatch door, for the foreseeable future.

My marrow-deep contempt for the whole performative algorithm-hitched social media jobbie-wank grows stronger with every passing increment of time, but maybe that’s another blog post for another day. 

Yes, there will be more of these dispatches to come, though how often is hard to say.

First, thanks to everyone who’s been in touch about the release date for the book. It’s good to know there’s an appetite for it — and a reminder I can’t live in the abyss forever. I’ll get to that update, but I want to acknowledge the Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund (in partnership with the Myer Foundation) and the Michael Gordon Journalism Fellowship. Without their support, the travel required for this project wouldn’t have been possible. Remote NT trips aren’t cheap — even the rescheduling and rebooking fees for QANTAS over the past six months topped $800.

But the top line for this post is the book’s release has been pushed back to next year. 

Numerous reasons why. 

For anyone expecting it this April — that was never gonna happen. I don’t know why that date was ever floated. My aim was to finish writing this month (August), but it’s not ready. Naturally, it’ll be ready when it’s ready.

Those following the Kumanjayi Walker coronial inquest will know Coroner Armitage’s findings were pushed back several times earlier this year, before being handed down in July.  First it was for seasonal customary law ceremony time. Then in late May, a young Yapa man — Kumanjayi White — was killed outside Coles in Alice Springs while being forcibly restrained by NT police. That investigation is still underway.

You probably already know it was Jampijimpa’s grandson. I won’t go deeper into that matter here right at the present, except to note the obvious: a disabled Aboriginal youth was killed by police for trying to steal a few items of food. 

Hearing of the circumstances of the young fellas death— just as I was preparing to fly to Mparntwe for the handing down of the Walker findings — I was staggered. Left pacing in loose circles. Numb. A peculiar outrage. Dark and fixed. Ask my wife and kids — I’ve not been fun to be around while working on this book.

I’ve been putting words down since last October — ten, eleven months now — and still have several sections to write even before the rewrites and polish phases to come.

Initially, the book was going to be a straight true-crime account of the inquest: evidence, exhibits, central players framed by the unresolved business at the dark, gurgling heart of the Australian nation in the wake of the 2023 Voice referendum result. Seen through that lens, the Walker–Rolfe tragedy mirrors the national temperament and disposition towards reconciliation and recognition.

An orthodox turn-and-burn airport number. Crash it out, roll it in 12 to 15 months. It's all gone in a different direction though, doing weird-strange hybrid-genre things. Readers who remember some of my old Guardian Australia columns will know the drift: associative, tangential, with the odd caustic jab and teeth marks.

Also, around the time my publisher announced the book, I learned two others were already in production. Both have been years in the making. 

Kate Wild’s The Red House is out later this month; Steven Schubert’s Death in Yuendumu is slated for October, though an early-September release wouldn’t surprise me. Both are former ABC journalists formerly based in the NT. Their work will be thorough.

The three of us have crossed paths over the past 18 months, sometimes in the same places at the same time, though little has been shared on specific content, episodes or tone. I’m looking forward to reading them. Both books are available for pre-order now. My pre-orders are in.

There’s also a four-part documentary, 2.6 Seconds in production from Blackfulla Films and executive producer and lawyer Andrew Boe and  — known for instigating and guiding Chloe Hooper’s The Tall Man. Boe represented the Palm Island Aboriginal Council and the Doomadgee family at the inquest into Mulrunji Doomadgee’s 2004 death in police custody. After Walker’s death, he was engaged by community members to represent some of the family groups for Rolfe’s trial and the subsequent coronial inquest. 

My understanding is the documentary will also land in the first half of next year.

Meanwhile, the NT Country Liberal government has spent the past year rolling out a relentless legislative assault on Aboriginal lives and communities. July–August 2025 has been especially heavy. I’ll post here soon with a rundown of what that “tough on crime” agenda has actually entailed. Much of it is still unfolding. All of it sits squarely on the pylons of dispossession and racial discrimination that undergird the Australia project.

Until my next post here - Gapu.