New feather for Carl’s cap

An award-winning Halls Creek author has gained further recognition with a writing fellowship to develop a series celebrating indigenous children and community spirit in the Kimberley. Carl Merrison won a $10,000 prize, a manuscript development with black&write! and a publication opportunity with Hachette Australia for his new Backyard Sports series. Set in the Kimberley, Backyard Sports celebrates the diversity of indigenous kids and captures the region’s community spirit. The stories follow young people as they play backyard basketball, footy and tee-ball. When the ball goes over the fence into another yard, the adventures begin. Mr Merrison said he hoped the books inspired kids to learn to read. “The recognition and the chance to have my story published is incredible,” he said. “The story will be around longer than me, I hope. I want to change the life of young people in the Kimberley. “If they are interested in a book they will be inspired to learn to read. “I write stories with their faces, their experiences, their interests. I want them to learn from my characters and books.” Merrison’s first co-authored book, Black Cockatoo, was published by Magabala Books in 2018 and won honours in the Children’s Book Council of Australia young reader category. It was selected as a feature text for the 2018 Queensland State Library Summer Reading Challenge and included in the NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge 2019. Black Cockatoo was also shortlisted for Readings children’s book of the year, the Australian Book Industry Awards small publisher’s children’s book, and in the Speech Pathology Book Awards, as well as the Queensland Literary Awards. In 2016, Merrison, right, was WA runner-up Australian of the year in the local hero category. He has worked for more than 10 years as a mentor-coach with Aboriginal youth. Each year, black&write! offers two fellowships for unpublished manuscripts by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers.