Newsletter May 2022

Hi all you wonderful readers – I usually only send out one newsletter a month but as there is an international book summit in early June you may be interested in, I will send some info on that shortly. There may be aspiring authors reading this who want to enter the self-publishing milieu or seasoned authors who’d like some tips from experts in the field. I’m privileged to be one of the many contributors with a session on writing memoirs.

White Woman Black Heart: Journey Home to Old Mapoon, a Memoir

Kindle Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating read.
Reviewed in Australia on March 18, 2022
Verified Purchase
Just finished reading this book. Couldn’t put it down. To see people’s names in it that I know was amazing.
So glad it had a happy ending & people came home. The community is going from strength to strength now. A new church opened recently. The Rugapayn store is being run by locals and is due to be upgraded. I miss being there.Find the book HERE
Secrets and Lies: The Shocking Truth of Recent Australian Aboriginal History, A Memoir
Amazon Customer
 
5.0 out of 5 stars Important History lesson!!
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2022
Verified Purchase

As an American, I learned something new from this book. Either Voice Treaty Truth in Australia or Black Lives Matter in America, this book brings out many eye-opening critical social issues and an opportunity to adapt and change for a better world.

Check it out HERE 

If I Survive: Nazi Germany and the Jews: 100-Year Old Lena Goldstein’s Miracle Story
Review from Amazon
Meera
4.0 out of 5 stars Not a memoir!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 4, 2022
Verified Purchase

This is a hard read, mainly due to the fact that only 1/3 of this book is actually about Lena Goldstein and the rest is a timeline of the atrocities done to the polish Jewish community and what they faced. Hard to read and even harder to stomach. Saddening to see the difficulties and hatred brought on by so many. I applaud this woman for sharing her story and what I did learn of her survival was a large mixture of determination as well as good deeds returning the favour. I hope some people can learn from this.

Find it HERE

The Dying Days of Segregation in Australia: Case Study Yarrabah


Monica Rubombora
VINE VOICE
5.0 out of 5 stars Riveting!
Reviewed in the United States 
Verified Purchase

This book resonated a lot with me. As someone that has lived on the African continent all my life (and in South Africa the last 27 years), I could see the parallels with the apartheid regime & the current unresolved land wrangles & struggles of indigenous people on the continent. I kept saying OMG! OMG! this is where these guys here got these crazy ideas of separation from! Gosh! The experiment worked! And now we are still feeling the impact.

I like the way the author, Barbara Miller, has documented the historical progress of the indigenous people in this book. It is definitely a well-researched book and I hope it can be used as a history book in schools around the world. It has certainly given me hope in humanity once again.

Check it out HERE

Left – Barbara delivering her books to a bookshop in Port Douglas

Right – Munganbana Norman Miller presenting a canvas painting to Aviva Wolff of the Sydney Jewish Museum at the earlier launch of Barbara’s White Australia Has A Black History book. The canvas is a replica of the cover of Barbara’s first book William Cooper Gentle Warrior.

 

White Australia Has A Black History: William Cooper And First Nations Peoples’ Political Activism 
PAR
5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read for All Not Just Australians!
Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2022

First let me begin by saying that I am of Native heritage, so I perhaps took a look at this novel in a different light than others, but perhaps not. As I read this novel, I often felt tears, and silent sobs, I read the struggle and thought there are so many of us around this world who are struggling yet today to be heard. This novel was written with such feeling, and honesty, a living history, not just facts, and liturgy, but her words breathed the life into what was and what is! Barbara Miller is a gifted author who has found her passion and has invited along for the journey, to learn, to grow, and to look at our own selves, and our countries history, what have we done? What have we left undone? What is the next step that can be taken? Shortly our world will be recalling International Holocaust Remembrance Day. We have children who have never heard of the Holocaust and there were so many disseminations in so many countries. Thank You Ms Miller for teaching us all a lesson, by reminding us of the history of what was!

Find it HERE

Shattered Lives Broken Dreams: William Cooper and Australian Aborigines Protest Holocaust

Brian Aird
 
5.0 out of 5 stars Actions to Words
Reviewed in the United States on March 25
Verified Purchase

…The response of the indigenous people of Australia to Germany’s injustices and outright attempts of annihilating the Jews in Germany during the Nazi regime is reminiscent of the 1960s in America when the African-Americans were fighting for equality.

Added to the amazing actions of the Aborigines, as wonderfully disclosed to the reader in this book, is that they themselves did not enjoy their own personal freedoms in Australia. However, they were fighting for the rights, indeed the lives of others. Recognition for the native people of Australia wasn’t realized until decades later…

Shattered Lives Broken Dreams: William Cooper and Australian Aborigines Protest Holocaust Number 2 by Barbara Miller is a comprehensive, motivational and inspirational narrative that captures the actions of standing up to the inhuman treatment of others. Added to the education and study of this extensive chronicled period of time is the inclusion of memorable photographs. The combination makes for a remarkable reflection of this dynamic time period.

The author has gifted the reader with an incredible and exhaustive work that captures the spirit of the protest as well as the burning heart of the movement’s leader William Cooper.

Check it out HERE

Question – WhO IS YOUR FAVOURITE AUTHOR AND WHY? Let me know  via email

BOOK OF THE MONTH FEATURE
 
Sister Girl: Reflections on Tiddaism, Identity and Reconciliation (New Edition)
By Jackie Huggins
Book description
“The pieces in this seminal collection represent almost four decades of writing by historian and activist Jackie Huggins. These essays, speeches and interviews combine both the public and the personal in a bold trajectory tracing one Murri woman’s journey towards self-discovery and human understanding. As a widely respected cultural educator and analyst, Huggins offers an Aboriginal view of the history, values and struggles of Indigenous people.
 
Sister Girl reflects on many important and timely topics, including identity, activism, leadership and reconciliation. It challenges accepted notions of the appropriateness of mainstream feminism in Aboriginal society and of white historians writing Indigenous history. Jackie Huggins’ words, then and now, offer wisdom, urgency and hope.”
Check it out HERE

Newsletter March 2022

Hi all you wonderful readers – There has been a lot happening in the world and we trust you are in a good place and can take time out from your busy schedule to read some interesting books. It has been said that “reading is dreaming with open eyes.” What do you dream about when you read?

Author Marji Hill, who facilitates the Fast Self-Publishing Online group, interviewed author Barbara Miller this week.

NEW BOOK COMING UP

A book on the European explorers’ quests to find the unknown great south land in the Pacific.

Summer or winter, autumn or spring, pick up a book

Review of White Australia Has A Black History: William Cooper And First Nations Peoples’ Political Activism

5 Star Review – We’ve learned about the atrocities that were committed against Aboriginal people during white settlement but never before have I read about the attempts by Aboriginals like William Cooper to try and work with the system, to try and succeed as farmers. Barbara tells a heartbreaking story of betrayal and injustice, not against rebels, but against people who made every attempt to work with the Government. We learn how the original owners of the land didn’t ask for anything more than what was given to the white settlers, but they were denied even this. Worse, it was sometimes given and taken away as collective punishment for the failure of a minority of people to fulfil obligations. forced on them.

This book should be mandatory reading in the Australian school curriculum. (Mike007, Amazon reviewer)

Check White Australia Has A Black History out as it is only $2.99 US for the ebook. Click here.

Shattered Lives Broken Dreams: William Cooper and Australian Aborigines Protest Holocaust

5-star review, Amazing Story – Shattered Lives Broken Dreams: William Cooper and Australian Aborigines Protest Holocaust ( William Cooper Gentle Warrior Series Book 2) by Barbara Miller. This is a historic novel about how the Australian Aborigines protested against the Jew Holocaust during the Nazi regimen. The fact that these Australians guided by William Cooper had done a fierce protest against the holocaust is something that took me by surprise, I am very aware of everything that happened during the Holocaust, not just because I read about it but because I had classmates that their parents used to have the concentration camp number in their wrists, like a second-hand history close to me during my high school years but I had never heard this story about William Cooper and their mates. The book is well written, it has a lot of investigative work involved in its development, it has some pictures about the events that are narrated and I think that if you are a history fan or if you want to know things about the Jew Holocaust that you don’t know yet, this is a great book to read.
Review by Quirru, Amazon reviewer
Check the book out here, only $2.99 US.

Right – I am with my William Cooper Gentle Warrior book which is available with free shipping from my website. Click here.

Left – My follow-up memoir, Secrets and Lies (2021) which is doing well on Amazon Aust. 

Review of Secrets and Lies: The Shocking Truth of Recent Aboriginal History, A Memoir” 

5 star review – A Memoir with a Punch – This is a frank and compelling story of a fight that should never have had to happen. Personal anecdotes are interwoven with a very important message for us all and the photographs bring it very close. This author’s writing about the marginalised people in Australia has always resonated with me. I am South African and witnessed the end of apartheid and the inclusion of every citizen as a human being with equal rights. It has, therefore, long angered me that other countries have legislation and social constructs that are just as draconian as those under apartheid yet parade themselves as democracies. I was so glad to read this book, which not only tells Australia’s story of human rights travesties but also demonstrates that there are solutions. It is at once heartbreaking and uplifting and should be required reading for everyone who thinks apartheid is South African only and that there are human beings who are in any way less than other human beings. I recommend this to you as well!
by Joy RS Amazon reviewer
For a closer look, click here

BOOK OF THE MONTH FEATURE

For the Record: 160 years of Aboriginal print journalism by

Michael Rose

From September 1836 to December 1837, young Aboriginal clerks produced the Flinders Island Weekly Chronicle, a remarkable record of life on the island off Tasmania where a number of Aboriginal people had been forced to resettle. Copied by hand, it describes the settlement in often poignant terms ‘I am much afraid none of us will be alive by and by as there is nothing but sickness among us. Why don’t the black fellows pray to the king to get us away from this place?’

Starting with this extraordinary newsletter, Michael Rose has brought together examples of Aboriginal journalism from a wide range of Aboriginal and mainstream publications. He includes articles from early activists and others who used newspaper and magazine journalism in their fight for justice.

For The Record also offers the reader an unusual glimpse, through Aboriginal eyes, of key issues and events in Aboriginal and Australian history. Included in the dozens of articles selected: protests about poor treatment on reserves in the 1930s, an eyewitness account of a Maralinga atomic bomb test in the 1950s, Bill Rosser’s reporting of life on Palm Island, Kevin Gilbert’s passionate call for a formal treaty between Aboriginal people and the Australian government and Poel Pearson’s commentary on the High Court’s Mabo decision.

You can check it out here.
Interestingly, there are some articles by me as both Barbara Russell, my maiden name, and Barbara Miller, my married name as I was the editor and a writer for the “N.Q. Messagestick” an Aboriginal newspaper for the North Queensland Land Council.

Question – What is on your reading list for the new year?
Let me know via email

Newsletter Dec 2021

Hi all you wonderful readers – We have enjoyed the Hanukkah celebrations ending nightfall of 6 Dec and Christmas will soon be upon us. For those who don’t celebrate these seasons, you will no doubt have holidays to look forward to with maybe some indulgent eating and gift-giving nonetheless. Don’t forget to take a book with you on your travels or stay-at-home break. God bless you and your family. I believe God has called me to write and I look forward to the book He has for me next.

Book Launch 7 Dec 12md AEDT Zoom

6 December 8pm New York time

Zoom ID 116 446 220 Passcode: 498888

You are invited to a zoom book launch of my book Secrets and Lies on Tuesday 7 December at 12md AEDT i.e. Sydney time and Monday night 6 December 8pm New York time.

Mayor of Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire, Ross Andrews, the Hon. Bob Katter, Federal MP, Native American podcaster Marina Maria, American Jewish author Irene Shaland, British editor Tony Crofts, Malaysian pastor Joy Tan, Cairns journalist & reviewer Christine Howes, Australian prayer leader Lilian Schmid and videographer David Jack will be sharing live with videos from authors in South Africa & Jordan. We may be joined by author Dr Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King Jnr. So it will be an interesting session. Tell your friends.

Reviews

This memoire, Secrets and Lies, tells the story of important events in the relationship between the Queensland and Commonwealth Governments and Aboriginal people on Aurukun and Mornington Island and their struggle to maintain control of their lives in the face of paternalism and racism. It does so from the perspective of the author, who had a unique opportunity to observe the events in which Aboriginal leaders participated and recount the conversations which occurred at meetings between community members and with politicians who played key roles in these events along with what was played out in the public arena and recorded in the media.

It paints an intimate picture of the individuals involved and brings to life the impact which actions of Government have had upon them at a personal and structural level. It provides a detailed insight into how a grass-roots activist organisation, the North Queensland Land Council, with a charismatic leader, Mick Miller, was able to operate in a regional, State, national and international arena in its advocacy of self-determination for Aboriginal people.

It traces the history of on-going advocacy of the author for Aboriginal people and the challenges they face through various changes of direction in her personal life. It is a unique and valuable record of the observations and participation of the author in activism which has as its unwavering focus a dedication to the cause of social justice for Indigenous people.

Greg McIntyre SC, Barrister, Michael Kirby Chambers Perth, Lawyer for the Mabo Case

Secrets and Lies – A powerful, hard-hitting yarn, from the grassroots of Cape York community-life through to the necessary development of life-changing political activism on Cape York in the 1970s and 80s.

This is a story which needs to be told and has to be taught, with lessons to learn about what should be done, and how it should (and shouldn’t) be done.

These yarns are at the roots of what still happens today, in this day and age, making it an essential read for anyone who has ties or in an interest, not just in the Cape York landscape, but across all of Government/Aboriginal politics.

A well-written and fascinating contextual read for anyone with a passion for justice for Aboriginal people.

Christine Howes, FNQ correspondent for Koori Mail

Special almost finished but it’s an honour to celebrate the anniversary of William Cooper again on 6 Dec. Kristallnacht To Cooper Protest Special 9 Nov – 6 Dec

To commemorate the anniversary of Kristallnacht or the Night of the Broken Glass and the response by Australian Aboriginal William Cooper in leading the Australian Aborigines’ League on one of the few private protests worldwide against Kristallnacht, I have a $10 discount on my William Cooper Gentle Warrior book with free shipping in Australia. 

Shattered Lives Broken Dreams is available from Amazon as well as my website but William Cooper Gentle Warrior is only available from my website and is not available as an ebook.

Question – What is on your reading list for the upcoming holiday? Let me know via email