ONE OF THE best day jobs I ever had was working as a tour guide at Jenolan Caves, the renowned limestone formation in the World Heritage-listed Greater Blue Mountains region of New South Wales, Australia.
Sixteen years since I earned my guiding boots, I’ve landed an international book deal for a novel that emerged from the thousands of steps I took through the tunnels and chambers of the oldest-known open cave system in the world.
Titled The Watchnight, this historical crime novel is inspired by real people and events and cuts through 150 years of tourist tales to recreate a time when the caves sat on the colonial frontier, a place settlers viewed with suspicion, not wonder.
Extrapolating a story from this intriguing place has been a long-term challenge. When I trained as a guide in late 2008, there was little written material on hand for new recruits. I was left, like many before me, to glean the stories of the caves from my more experienced peers in the guides’ office.
CAVE FRONTIER Devil’s Coach-house, Fish River Caves, by Lucien Henry, 1883 (Art Gallery of NSW)
What drove me were the stories few wanted to talk about, particularly the lives of Jenolan Caves’ traditional owners, the Burra Burra clan group of the Gundungurra people; the cattle farmers who gradually occupied the same countryside; the Wesleyan Methodist community of the nearby region once known as Fish River Creek, now Oberon, and the role of women in early cave exploration.
Crime was never far from the colonial experience of this region. The massacres and random killings of Aboriginal people and reprisals against settlers, now referred to as Australia’s Frontier Wars, included widespread violence against women, both Indigenous and settlers. The occupation of the land was not possible without the importation of convicts to build roads and towns, a mounted police force to impose British law, and Christian missionaries to impose ethical standards.
It’s from within this volatile battleground that The Watchnight emerged.
Cave Girls
I undertook years of research as The Watchnight came together, and wrote a few articles along the way about my explorations into Jenolan’s past. The first saw me capture the many tales about a young cave explorer called Katie Webb (and her gang of ‘Cave Girls’), whose discovery of a chamber in the Chifley Cave in the 1880s has long been a source of speculation.
A never-before-published collection of letters by English crime writer Agatha Christie was a source of great delight when it appeared in 2013, since it detailed her visit to Jenolan in the 1920s. I published an article about the links between her world tour with husband Archie, their slightly fraught jaunt to Jenolan Caves, and her notorious 11-day disappearance in 1926 back in England.
My guiding days ended in 2012 when I moved interstate, but I was lucky enough to return in 2017 for a private tour of the Arch Cave with a former colleague, in search of historical signatures, including one of early female cave explorer Jane Falls.
The Watchnight’s heroine Oona Farry is inspired by Jane’s explorations, and those of other real-life figures in Jenolan’s history.
This story is unique because it explores crime, punishment and forgiveness in the context of charismatic faith; tackles stories of the Frontier Wars that don’t often get aired in fiction, particularly toxic masculinity, and emphasises female, LGBTIQ+ and Indigenous empowerment at a time when they were not afforded much agency.
TWENTY YEARS AGO today, not long after six o’clock in the evening, my partner Jonathan Rosten needed to take a seat during a rehearsal at a Sydney dance studio, complaining of a racing heart.
Very shortly afterwards, he collapsed. First-aid could not revive him, nor could paramedics. By the time I got to his side they’d been attempting CPR for almost thirty minutes.
He was bundled into an ambulance that rushed him away into a busy city evening at the end of a stunning autumn day, yet by the time I arrived at the hospital, he was lost to us all at the age of just 44.
Considering the fallout after one gay man’s untimely death, I’m compelled to look at what has changed since that last day of autumn in 2004.
Interrogation of a Nation
“What did they do to you?” Madeline asked me, sitting on the back deck of the house my husband Richard and I shared in Queensland.
That was the winter of 2013. By then, I was living a completely different life in a new relationship, a new state and a new profession.
I’d long tried to articulate the experience of being disenfranchised from my relationship with Jono by the very people who should have cared the most – his blood relatives – but had usually given up when people failed to understand why anyone would do such a thing.
Madeline didn’t demand an answer, she just listened.
The passage of time had ignited something in me, because hours later I still couldn’t let things go in my mind. Revisiting the worst period of my life was still a shock, and over the following weeks and months I started to piece together the awful truth.
Writing had always been my strongest suit, and for almost a year I recorded not just my experience of loss, but also the mutual gains that Jono and I had manifested in our relationship.
My memoir, Questionable Deeds: Making a stand for equal love (High Country Books, 2015 and 2021) was the long-form answer to Madeline’s question. It was an interrogation of a nation that was not acting in the best interests of same-sex attracted people, in fact it was making our lives worse; and it threw up just as many questions as it answered.
Piece of Paper
Marriage equality seemed so far off in 2004 that even significant sections of the LGBTIQA+ community didn’t get behind it. A Newspoll taken the month after Jono’s death showed support languishing at just 38 percent against 44pc opposed. The 18pc of undecideds were, ironically, deciding the status quo.
In my shock and grief that winter, it was a depressing show from my country. Even so, I became a marriage equality advocate overnight when I realised what a critical cultural statement it would make for same sex-attracted relationships to be upheld by law, whether we were married or not.
RELATIONSHIP RIGHTS: Michael Burge and Jonathan Rosten
But for years I was forced to listen to those who reckoned de-facto relationship rights were enough, that the New South Wales legislative change in 1999 was all the cultural statement required. But my experience – five years after those laws included same-sex couples – showed that anyone, from disgruntled family members, funeral directors and public servants could easily rearrange the pieces of my late partner’s life to make it appear as though he’d never been in a relationship with me, stamping all over my rights in the process.
Same-sex equality campaigning eventually became a hallmark of my new relationship, and Richard and I marched the streets, knocked on doors, collared politicians and signed petitions because we understood that this country needed marriage equality at the earliest opportunity.
It was eye-opening to hear from those who wanted to uphold ‘the good old days’ when same-sex partners hid in plain sight for all kinds of reasons. Many feminists understandably upheld their anti-marriage stance, although this was a pro-equality issue.
Across those years, it was painful to witness similar situations to mine still happening while the nation prevaricated under conservative leadership; but since December 2017, when Australia’s Marriage Act was finally altered to include same-sex couples, I haven’t heard of another case.
That’s not to say that blood relatives won’t try. I’ve heard of a few attempts to push a same-sex surviving spouse out of their senior next-of-kin status, but the “piece of paper from the city hall” that Joni Mitchell sang about not needing has held the line again anti-queer prejudice.
Ripple Effect
In a 2022 survey by YouthSense, 1367 Australian Gen Zs aged 15-24 were canvassed about their sexual orientation, and 32 per cent responded that they identified as LGBTIQA+.
YouthSense attributed this confidence in our queer youth in part to a ripple effect, after the majority of the Australian community got behind marriage equality.
This gives me a sense of pride, but I sometimes wonder what Jono would have thought of the person I’ve become. We often chatted about gay rights. Being a decade older, he reached his adulthood before homosexuality was legalised in NSW in 1984, and survived the frightening early years of the AIDS epidemic, but he usually took a lighter approach than I did.
After his death, I recognised his attitude in many queer campaigners who’d endured so much upheaval by the year 2000 that the idea of fighting on for marriage equality fatigued them. Jono turned forty in that year and was looking forward to a bit of peace and time to pursue his love of choreography, which is, ironically, what he was doing right up to his death.
Our case was heard by the Human Rights Commission in 2006. I spoke in front of the gathering and the media with a very wobbly voice that morning, due to lingering grief and shock, anxious because I was presenting my grief as a case study of the unnecessary extra angst that LGBTIQA+ were being put through when our loved ones died.
Subsequently, the commission produced its Same Sex, Same Entitlements report, which led to almost 100 pieces of discriminatory financial laws changing in 2010, another step in the long journey to alter the Marriage Act in 2017.
I’d made a stand, something I had never done before on such a scale and may never do again, and that was certainly worth writing about.
Creative Allies
Questionable Deeds still serves an important purpose for me. It’s re-traumatising to rake over the coals when someone asks about my experience. Being able to point them to a book means I can get on with my life while the reader’s awareness is raised through words on a page.
I’ve written since I was a teenager, although by the time I realised I was gay and entered a long period of closeting, it felt impossible to express myself in that way due to the fear of my secret being discovered.
By the late 1990s, all that changed, and I tentatively started writing more than scripts and marketing materials in my day jobs. The day that Jono died I was sitting at my computer working on a full-length play. In the fallout, it was a full year before I was able to find the peace and security to get back to work on it, but when I did, I noticed more significant changes.
No longer was I prepared to leave LGBTIQA+ at the sidelines of my subject matter. Long before the cultural shifts of marriage equality, I embarked on a journey to bringing cultural change to literature.
But literature took even longer to budge than legislation. In a skittish cultural landscape, my queer-themed play never found a producer, and Questionable Deeds did not land a book deal, although after I published it it was selected for the first LGBTIQA+ panel at the Brisbane Writers Festival in 2016 and became an Amazon bestseller.
It took many years to land my first book deal for my debut novel Tank Water(2021, MidnightSun Publishing). Because it deals with rural homophobia, I’ve been invited to literary events across the country to contribute to conversations around crime, justice and the change in LGBTIQA+ lives outside of cities.
After decades of being granted relatively easy access to jobs in rural-based media in the UK and Australia, by virtue of being born and raised in the bush, I was gobsmacked when, in 2021, the new Guardian Australia Rural Network approached me as a rural-based journalist to write and edit. The first subject matter they wanted me to generate coverage of was rural gay-hate crime.
Now, at long last, this thing called a writing career no longer feels like a solo journey, and with plenty of new projects in the pipeline I’m collaborating with more people than ever.
One of the most special aspects of my relationship with Jono was our discovery in one another of an ally for our creative endeavours. We had hours of discussion and planning for our projects, and I loved seeing the glow of inspiration rise in him.
I carry a bit of it still, because I know how such reciprocal validation feeds equality within a marriage. Perhaps that’s the ultimate lesson in marriage equality for everyone, not just LGBTIQA+.
I WAS STILL packing for my long weekend away at the Bellingen Readers & Writers Festival, where I was to present my debut novel Tank Water (MidnightSun Publishing), when I got a slightly desperate call from one of the organisers, asking whether I had any short stories to my name.
I did, so the next question was whether I’d be up for a round of Literary Death Match. I’d never encountered this movement before, which has been entertaining readers and writing fans globally since 2006. A big-name author had to drop out for urgent dental work, meaning one place in the Bellingen LDM was available. So I said yes before I really understood what the whole thing was.
For an un-agented author who started out independently published and operates as my own publicist, even having a traditional book deal under my belt doesn’t stop me agreeing to everything a literary event asks of me. Such offers are so rare you’ve got to take what you get, and make the most of it.
I needed a short piece of fiction that I’d be prepared to read aloud in front of a crowd on Sunday evening. The right one popped into my mind immediately, so I grabbed my copy of my short story collection Closet His, Closet Hers and shoved it into my luggage.
Bellingen’s annual literary event is a gem of a way to spend the June long weekend. Situated in the coastal hinterland of the Mid North Coast, the community turns out in force for a huge number of visiting authors and wordsmiths.
Over the first two days of the festival, a few authors told me with great relief that they’d turned down the spare spot in the LDM on the final evening. I didn’t reveal I was the mug who’d said yes when everyone else was either too nervous or not prepared to stick around. Anyone who’d ever competed in a LDM, or who’d seen one take place, was effusive about it being “just a bit of fun”.
I sensed that was true, but my inner boy scout said: Be prepared!
So I honed the delivery of my short story ‘A Quick Fix’, which I wrote in the form of an email from a schoolgirl to her father, traversing some bitter family dynamics about an estranged gay uncle. Partly based on experience, I imbued this work with all the teenage brevity I recall from my own school years.
Bellingen’s glorious riverside parkland was the perfect place to sit in the winter sun and practice. Acting and broadcasting training goes a long way in such situations, and I needed to make a few cuts to deliver in the seven-minute time allocation, plus annotations to emphasise certain characteristics of this clarity-filled teen who delivers a dose of equality into a terrible situation.
LITERARY CHAMPS: (L-R) Sofie Laguna, Sophie Overett, Michael Burge, Thomas Keneally, Adrian Todd Zuniga, Alison Gibbs, Robbie Arnott and and Costa Goergiadis at Bellingen Reader & Writers Festival Literary Death Match, June 2022.
When I met the competition – my fellow LDM authors Sophie Overett, Robbie Arnott and Alison Gibbs – in the green room, we were a herd of nervous deer about to meet a very large headlight.
I’d already been on a panel in the huge marquee we were suddenly being led to, lit up in the darkness with a capacity crowd expecting to have a blast, so I knew this was big.
Judges Sofie Laguna, Thomas Keneally and Costa Goergiadis walked up to the stage at the invitation of LDM host and creator Adrian Todd Zuniga, leaving we writers crouched down the back in the shadows. By the looks on our faces, we’d have preferred to stay there.
DEATH WATCH: The crowd at LDM
Yet we managed to go two rounds, reading to the crowd and getting bombed by literary questions. I barely remember any of it, just the glare of the spotlight and the silence as I started to read, my voice pitched slightly higher and rather quietly, to ensure I got their attention.
Paragraph by paragraph, every middle-aged one of my six feet very publicly embodied that teenage girl on the brink of discovering what equality means in this world.
And with my final line, I brought the house down, a tsunami of laughter and applause washing every bit of shame away about self publishing a collection of short fiction that no editor, agent or publisher in the country had ever thought enough of to get behind.
In the aftermath, my copy of Closet His, Closet Hers was torn from my hand so that a reader could look up where to buy it. A big name author asked me in the green room who published it. I pointed to myself, which is what I did once at another event, when a bestselling author asked me who my publicist was.
Eyebrows go up in such moments, mine more than anyone’s, because for a short time it’s not about the luck, the opportunity, the contacts, the networking, the five-year plan or the affirmations… it’s simply about the writing.
That’s the beauty of Literary Death Match, writing really is the winner.
Here’s my top tips for anyone recruited into LDM: – It is fun, and the rules are there to be massaged, purely for entertainment value. When Adrian called time on me, three times, I waved him off and kept reading – Be bold and read with all the characterisation you can muster – The crowd is pumped and on your side, they know writers are very often shy and retiring and LDM is a raucous big deal – It’s fast, and will flash by in a heartbeat! – You can read self-published, emerging work, so give the crowd an early literary experiment!
Michael Burge Media 