Writer, surfer, mumma & serious adventure seeker… Madelaine Dickie is not afraid of immersing herself in new cultures & provocative social scapes. Her novels are a powerful voice for underlying & chillingly relevant social, political & cultural issues. Concocted with palm trees, island oasis’s, big barramundi fish & an insatiable appetite to turn the next page… Currently based in Arnhem Land with her hubby & energetic toddler, Maddy is working as a director for a social enterprise that’s creating purposeful futures for young people. Her new book ‘Some People Want to Shoot Me’, co-authored with Nyikina Aboriginal leader Wayne Bergmann is being released next week through Fremantle Press. So let’s dig in & have a yarn ay?!
November last year I bumped into Maddy again in Rote Island. We scored this session at T-Lands. The hoots, hollers & stoke was seriously high. Shot by @dannybphoto
Your new book ‘Some People Want To Shoot Me’, co-written with Wayne Bergmann, is being released early March… can you tell us about the journey & passion behind writing this?
Wayne is a Nyikina Aboriginal leader, firebrand, and trailblazer from the Kimberley region of Western Australia. He chaired the landmark Uluru Statement from the Heart meeting, has been chief executive of the Kimberley Land Council, and for several consecutive years he was named by the Weekend West as the most influential Aboriginal person in the state. He’s got a remarkable story. It’s a story that includes traditional magic love songs, barramundi scales that turn to diamonds, a Swedish skeleton thief, and within this book’s pages is a harrowing tale from when Wayne got lost with his children in the desert. It’s also a political tale, about a proposal to build a giant gas plant north of Broome. Wayne’s a lawyer, and as chief executive of the Kimberley Land Council at the time, he represented Traditional Owners who were in support of this proposal. But this put a target on his back. The gas plant proposal drew national attention, with protestors including John Butler and Missy Higgins. During this time Wayne received death threats. People crossed to the other side of the road so they wouldn’t have to speak with his wife. His children were harassed at school. Some People Want to Shoot Me offers a deep dive into contemporary Indigenous affairs, but in a way that’s easy and enjoyable to read. If you get your hands on a copy, please reach out and let me know what you think!
From living in Arnhem Land for the past year, what have you learnt through observation & time spent with elders & indigenous community? How can we help drive change in these places?
I’ve spent over ten years working mostly for Traditional Owners in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. In the last twelve months, I’ve been based in the community of Maningrida, in Arnhem Land. For me, the key thing I’ve learnt is that any change that relates to Aboriginal people has to be Aboriginal-led. This was why the referendum for a Voice to Parliament was so important. Because solutions that are non-Aboriginal led don’t work. We know this. For non-Aboriginal people working in this space or eager to work in this space, the best thing you can do is listen. Be comfortable with silence. Be respectful. Meaningful change is possible, by working together under the instruction of senior people, elders and Traditional Owners.
Madelaine you’ve immersed yourself in different cultures & places all over the world with a desire to surf, travel & write stories. Can you tell us about your 8-month stint in Mexico?!
In 2022, as soon as Western Australia’s hard border fell, we took off with our fourteen-month-old son for 8 months surfing in Mexico, mostly in Guerrero and Oaxaca. We bought a busted-up Nissan with three functioning cylinders and that car got us into some sticky situations. It broke down just shy of a mountain pass in Guatemala known (by everyone except us) for bandits—the road was so bad, and cars travelled so slowly, it made it easy to rob travellers. We bogged it on a rural dirt road late in the afternoon—the wheels were completely swallowed by mud—and I had to put the baby on my back and start walking for the nearest village, which was about ten kilometres away. Anyone who’s travelled in Mexico knows the golden rule: never drive at night. And finally, it caught fire on the Talisman border crossing between Mexico and Guatemala, a bloody scary place, once again, late in the afternoon. Still, we wouldn’t take a moment of it back. The Mexican people adore little children and those right hand Oaxacan point breaks are the stuff of dreams. For more gritty tales, I wrote a story about my first trip to Oaxaca which was published in Lines to the Horizon: Australian Surf Writing.
‘Troppo’ was your debut novel, and I think a lot of Australians that chase the Indo dream can relate to it in some way, shape or form. What are some of your own experiences in Indonesia that helped inspire this novel?
Troppo’s about Shane, a feral Aussie expat who runs a surf resort in south Sumatra. He’s really disrespectful toward the local people. He cuts the electricity so the local mosque can’t broadcast the morning prayer, he bans the fishermen from launching their boats out the front of his resort, and he’s rumoured to have cut the fingers off one of his staff members for stealing. The locals hate him. Sound familiar? I think there’s a ‘Shane’ in most of the iconic surf regions of Indo! I wanted to write about this, and I also was just desperate to imagine myself back in Indo, away from the freezing cold city where I was at uni.
What does an average day look like for you?
No day is average in Maningrida. Sometimes I’m up from 3.30am with my energetic toddler, who doesn’t seem to need as much sleep as I do. I swim laps. Plan strike missions to Indo. Watch the crocodiles drift past the backyard—we’re in a beautiful mud brick house right on the Arafura Sea. Then I hit the desk for some writing, freelance work and uni—I’ve just started a Master of Philosophy at Curtin. On the weekends we take the boat out and fish for fingermark, barramundi, trevally and jewies. It’s a great spot here, and a welcoming community.
Tips & tricks for upcoming writers? What’s the best way to go about publishing?
Jem, I’m not going to lie to you here, but trying to make a living out of writing is a bloody dispiriting business. I’d say—don’t do it! Study something else! And if you really have to do it, because it burns, because it gives your whole life meaning, then keep your eyes peeled for those great prizes for unpublished manuscripts, like the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award in WA, because these have the power to really shoot your career into the stratosphere.
What’s on the cards for you over the next year? Where can we find ya!
Maningrida, Madagascar, Indonesia, Cuba … Let’s see!
Favourite album currently….
I’ve been listening to this old-fashioned Afro-Cuban singer Fredesvinda ‘Freddy’ García. I love her song El Hombre Que Yo Amé.
FAMILY. Maddy with husband Tom & toddler Skip, somewhere exotic…
BOOK RELEASE DATE // 27th of February
BOOK LAUNCH // April 11th, 5.30pm WA Museum Boola Bardip, Perth
PRE-ORDER // https://fremantlepress.com.au/books/some-people-want-to-shoot-me/