Keeping on keeping on
With work, writing, pitching, Substack, finding your voice, life.
I’m reading a post out for the first time ever, and it’s as daunting as hell for me knowing that my voice is out there for any one to access. You’ll hear why in a minute. I may starting reading all my posts out from now on, though. In celebration of my voice.
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” is what someone (John Lennon?) supposedly said. And doing work, while looking for more (aka a fulltime job/aka being self-employed) is a slog. This explains my absence from here for over a month.
Earlier this year, I had big plans for Substack. I wanted to start a separate one looking at comedy, why we find things funny and tips for putting humor into our writing. I’m still planning on doing this, but paid work got in the way. I might just call it a series at this point instead, though.
Also, my absence relates to the fact that I got an essay that I first started writing on here last year, finally across the line and published in newspapers in Australia about a year after I started pitching it to editors. This was after I went to see Wuthering Heights recently, came home, and then went down a Margot Robbie rabbit hole. I knew that she was from near my part of the world (but across the border in Queensland, I’m from New South Wales), that we both liked the same Ink gin that comes from there (although she now has her own). And a family friend drove her around in a limo when she was out in Australia a few years back. But I had thought that was where the similarities ended. I didn’t know that we were both once made to go to elocution lessons.
I didn’t expect this to be published, let alone for The Age to mention it on their masthead. It’s probably the highlight of my year so far. The ABC also got in touch with me about going on the radio to speak about this at some stage.
Tip for any one looking to get their op-eds and personal essays published: sometimes you just have to write it, and write it to the exact word length. I know that doesn’t always work for some publications. But thank you to the person who told me to do this in this instance. Oh, and you definitely need a news hook in this crazy news cycle. This piece had been passed over and over by editors. In fact it had even been passed over by one editor at one publication about five minutes after I sent it.
Okay here goes.
I was standing outside the Australian High Commission in London last May, volunteering during the federal election, when the question came, as I knew it would, from a fellow expatriate. “What part of Australia are you from? You have a broad accent.” Then, a weird look.
Recently, actor Margot Robbie, who was born in Dalby, Queensland – and stars in a screen adaptation of the English classic Wuthering Heights, currently playing in cinemas – revealed to The Graham Norton Show she had needed a dialect coach back when she appeared on Neighbours, as her accent was so strong. “They [the producers] were like, ‘You’re just awful to listen to,’” she recalled.
For nearly three decades, I’ve endured questions and taunts about my voice. I date this back to the emergence of a certain flame-haired fish-and-chip shop proprietor turned MP from Queensland. It was after Pauline Hanson came on the political scene that I began being singled out for my ocker twang, firstly by a boy in year 11. Ever since, many have asked me to “please explain” why I sound like I do. Not that I think I owe them an explanation.
I’m from northern NSW. My mother is Canadian, but to this day, after living in Australia for about 40 years, she is asked: “What part of America are you from?” My father is from Sydney, and I suppose you’d say he has a more normal, professional-sounding voice.
When I moved from the country to Sydney in the late ’90s, comments about my tone became more common, particularly during my first few years there. I started doing community television. But I was later told that the main presenter, an elderly Australian woman, couldn’t stand the sound of me and I’d have to go for elocution lessons before I was allowed on air again. I gave up after a few lessons. Why did it matter if I didn’t sound like I came from Sydney or Melbourne? Were these the only places that existed in our country?
It got worse when I started working. As soon as I opened my mouth one day, a colleague asked, ever-so tactfully: “Have you just come down from Queensland?” A male sports reporter told me in front of the male sports editor that I spoke like a certain sitting MP. Later, we all heard her, when she made history as our first female prime minister. She sounded just like me, while speaking on the world stage.
Repeatedly, by friends as well as strangers, I was asked to say “look at moi”, as did TV “bogans” Kath and Kim. Looking back, I wish I’d told them what my famous namesake Aimee Lou Wood, star of the White Lotus series – who was once mocked for something else personal, her teeth – said to an interviewer last year: “Cool, and now I want to stop f---ing talking about it.” Instead, I always went along with it, even though I wondered why how I sounded mattered so much. Australia was supposed to be a diverse, classless society. And wasn’t what I was saying more important?
When I moved to the UK in 2007, though, I soon realised my accent was my best weapon. It came in handy as a doorstopping reporter in London. It opened doors for me. Sounding like the Australian version of a “chav” was disarming. When I met people, they not only leant in, some told me they liked the sound of me. While working on one newspaper, I took a call from its proprietor, the Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch. He didn’t mention my accent, but it seemed it was doing me no harm.
After living in Africa for several years and brief stints in Asia and Canada, my accent has softened. But I’m glad I haven’t lost all trace of it, especially since taking up comedy last year. With One Nation on the rise, I suppose my accent might be mistaken for parody. But I’ve decided, after all the years of being laughed at, I’ll be the one making the joke. I’ve used it in stand-up sets. I’ve finally found my voice.
Since I’ve written this, I’ve gone down a rabbit hole with accents also, putting a Google Alert on for “accents” and I did not realise how polarising our voice can be, but also what a source of fascination it is. There are news stories published all around the world every day about how we sound. (Do you have Google Alerts on anything btw? If so please let me know, but it’s also okay if you don’t want to. Some of mine are quite weird. One is probably too bizarre to mention. But I do find them handy).
Also - and more on this later especially in relation to comedy - I can’t help but wonder if we (especially as women, especially as Australian women) are conditioned to be self-deprecating. Later on, reading this, I wondered should I have really described myself as not sounding normal? What is normal?
A guy wrote to me about this with the following after my story was published:
Hello Amy.
I read your article in the age and I know where you are coming from.
As I grew up in norther Victoria and my dialect is quite different to any other city. I had access to radio but TV had not reached the country so I was not influenced by it.To make matters worse I learned many new words from books and not from hearing them. When I first read war stories I encountered the word “Nazi”. A naive country lad I assumed it would be “Nazzie” and I was immediately corrected to say “Nartsee”.
Many other words were also open to be misinterpreted.In high school I joined the junior army cadet corps and went to Puckapunyal for a training camp. There we mixed with boys from all over Victoria and and learned many new words and phrases.
Years later I went to Sydney for work and was immediately singled out as a “mexican” or a “wetback” by my accent and phrases. We wore swimming togs and they wore a cossie. We drank pots of beer and they drank middies. The people on the north shore looked down on those from the western suburbs, south of the harbour bridge and anybody from Queensland and Victoria.
Much later I was back in Melbourne and I found a similar thing with private school educated people and others like me who went to a government school in the country. I was not discriminated for it but it was obvious to all that I was not one of them.
Even now I despair for journalists who have been influenced by television which mostly comes from USA and Britain
Sadly most of our local dialects will be replaced by TV English.
There was also this that I reader sent to the SMH:
I don’t know what way to take this, it reads a bit passive aggressive to me.
On socials, I had some nice feedback about it. One guy said:
I laughed at how classist Australians can be. I am occasionally asked if I’m English: from Melbourne, living in Brisbane.
After I had this piece published, it spurred me on a bit more with my journalism and I decided I wanted to get back to pitching more to editors the way I used to, hence why I also haven’t been on here. I’ve just had a news story commissioned, again more than a year after I started pitching it, in case anyone else needs inspiration to keep on keeping on.
What else has been happening?
I’m so excited that in two weeks, I will be going to Women Deliver, one of the world’s biggest gender equality conferences, in Melbourne. I’ll be reporting on it for at least one outlet and also meeting up with one new colleague from Kenya who I haven’t met yet and there’s lots of other people who I’ve been in touch with for years who I haven’t met IRL. In addition, there will be people there like our former prime minister Julia Gillard (who I mentioned in my piece), former Kiwi prime ministers Jacinda Ardern and Helen Clark and more. I can’t wait.
Like many others (only about say 52 million people or so) I’ve been watching Love Story, on the romance between JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette and feel very conflicted about this. There may be a post coming on that soon.
Finally, what about LinkedIn?! Yes, it’s been a good week for my (also irregular) Everything I’ve Seen on LinkedIn column. I’ve seen a very raunchy post which I probably won’t mention here or now. I might do a separate post on it later. And earlier today I saw someone else in a video calling someone a See You Next Tuesday.
Okay, if you managed to listen this far, thanks so much and see you later. I made it. Happy Weekend.
Very interesting, Amy. Well done with your writing pieces! I like your voice, it’s lovely and clear.