Running Water Community Press

13/06/2025

It has been a huge year for the press so far and we're only in June! This is a flashback to March when press directors Val Byrne and Tisha Carter attended The Co-operative Assembly in Sydney - a national gathering to mark 2025 as the United Nations International Year of Co-operatives.

Organised by it brought together over 120 people to build and strengthen the co-operative movement. If you didn't know, the press is the FIRST author run co-operative in Australia. It was special for us to attend and connect with some of the oldest and newest Aboriginal co-operatives like and more!

The same week as this assembly we were honoured that published a long form essay by about the formation of our co-op and the importance of co-operative publishing models for First Nations authors and authors across the board! Please have a read at link in bio, and support our work through our EOFY crowdfund also linked in bio.

Thank you to the philanthropists in the co-operative movement who made our participation possible and thank you to for funding our community book drive model so we could distribute our community books at this landmark event.

All photos are credited to , final photo

10/06/2025

Kwatye Urrewe is screening in Naarm Melbourne this Friday - check out the program here!

The third session of our celebration of high-risk filmmaking features some of the most daring shorts in the entire program!

28/03/2025

We have a fundraiser going! Please share far and wide and support our work. All contributions are tax deductible.

Running Water Community Press Donate Today : Make a donation today to support Running Water Community Press Donate Today

28/03/2025

Arrernte Elder and cherished Running Water member, Mr. Anyume John Kemarre Cavanagh has had an extract of his forthcoming book published in this edition of Meanjin Quarterly as well! Co-written with Gabriel Curtin, this work is a stunning invitation to listen into the profound ways of Country.

"On the way to my homeland there’s a riverbed.

And above it there’s a big rock face

where these stripy lines are,

all those lines, that’s intelhentye.

Intelhentye mean painting,

like on my shirt you got all these intelhentye,

all these white man painting, lines.

That painting out there is natural,

it come with the earth,

that’s natural painting.

Aboriginal people didn’t do that.

No. It come naturally.

All those different colours

in the rock, intelhentye."

On the way to my homeland there’s a riverbed. And above it there’s a big rock face where these stripy lines are, all those lines, that’s intelhentye.

28/03/2025

Must read essay by the wonderful Jennifer Mills published in the latest edition of Meanjin Quarterly exploring the stories within the stories woven into Running Water and how we formed the first author owned publisher in the world! Perfect timing for this essay after press directors Tisha and Val joined the The Co-op Federation last week for their national assembly to mark 2025 as the International Year of Co-operatives! Share far and wide.

"‘Running Waters is represented by Anmatjere, Warlpiri, Kaytetye, Central Arrernte, Western Arrernte, to say a few,’ Tisha Perrurle Carter tells audiences at the Blak & Bright festival in Naarm (Melbourne) in March 2024. Carter, an Anmatjere woman from Ti Tree community, 200km north of Mparntwe (Alice Springs), claims to be a nervous public speaker; this is her first writers’ festival. But her pride is infectious.

‘The announcement that I want to make is we have been voluntary for about six years, and we are building an author-owned and -run cooperative. We have just formed the first-ever cooperative publisher in Australia.’ The news is met with loud cheers from the largely First Nations crowd...

‘The cooperative idea really came out of the cultural and political need for community control,’ Olivia Nigro tells me. ‘To have the authors be in positions of ownership and power and control over the publisher. And so that was a yarn that was going on all the time in cultural and political terms. . . the cooperative structure was an option to actually translate that into the infrastructure of the press.’

A cooperative is an autonomous association of people with a common purpose, an enterprise that is jointly owned and democratically controlled. Cooperatives are sometimes formed simply to pool resources, but they also formalise democratic control. The most famous contemporary example of large-scale success is a corporation of 81 autonomous co-ops in the region of Mondragón in Basque country (Spain) that was started in 1956. Mondragon is owned by its workers, more than 70,000 of them. Its origins in the Catholic socialist tradition dovetail neatly with the Basque passion for autonomy. Culture matters to Mondragon’s worker-owners; among its many social projects, Mondragon supports Basque language programs.

The cooperative movement has seen a resurgence of interest in recent years. Frustrated with inequality and the structures that underpin the climate crisis, some are turning to models that offer a better return for workers, members and constituents. Worker-owned cooperatives are a way for workers to gain control over not just the processes but also the outcomes of their labour."

The formation of Australia’s first author-owned publishing cooperative   ‘Running Waters is represented by Anmatjere, Warlpiri, Kaytetye, Central Arrernte, Western Arrernte, to say a few,’ Tis…

14/02/2025

As part of our commitment to community healing through storytelling and to the accessibility of our books for mob, we regularly do community book drives where we seek the sponsorship of books for free distribution to families and community.

In the past few months, we have distributed over 200 copies of Living In Hope by Frank Byrne and the Arrernte women's poetry collection, Arelhekenhe Angkentye Women's Talk, to community across Mparntwe Alice Springs including through local Aboriginal organisations, town camps, schools and archives to ensure that community books live in the community!

As a local publisher it is powerful to uplift local stories by local storytellers. These book drives raise awareness about the truth-telling and advocacy work of the press and are a vital income stream for our operational costs as well as royalties for authors and their families.

Thank you to the individuals who donated books through our Christmas Book Drive and to . This project was made possible by the Australian Government Regional Arts Fund, which supports the arts in regional and remote Australia.

It is an ongoing commitment of the press to ensure free access to our books for mob so if you would like to make a tax deductible donation towards this work, see link in bio and share the love. Books change lives!

Photo credit: Valencia Byrne.

13/02/2025

On the 17th anniversary of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations, Running Water Community Press would like to pay our heartfelt respects to the survivors and descendants of those mob who were, and continue to be, taken away from their families, communities, cultures and Country.

Many of our directors, members and families are directly touched by the injustices of the Stolen Generations of the past and the present. We are committed to healing and justice for First Nations peoples across the continent and the world who are courageously sharing their stories and truth-telling about these unforgivable colonial crimes. In this spirit and to mark this anniversary, we would like to announce a very special project that we have been working on for the past year.

In 2017 and 2022, we published the extract and then the full-length book, Living In Hope, by Gooniyandi author Frank Byrne with Frances Coughlan and Gerard Waterford. This award-winning Stolen Generations memoir shares Mr. Byrne’s life-long search for his mother after being taken away. It was written as part of the truth-telling movement seeking justice for families impacted by forced child removal policies.

With the support of The Healing Foundation and The Community Broadcasting Foundation, we have been working with the family of Mr. Byrne, his grandchildren and great grandchildren on an intergenerational healing project to collectively read and record these memoirs into an audio book as well as to share them on community radio. Working with the anangkere (traditional healers) of Running Water Community Press, this project has been a powerful tribute to the legacy of Mr. Byrne and the stories that his descendants now carry and caretake.

From the bottom of our hearts, we would like to thank everyone involved in supporting the Byrne family, the press and this powerful healing process. We offer some windows into it through the videos and photos posted here. Please see image descriptions and credits in comments below.

Sending our love and respect to mob across the continent today, remembering all those who have passed and uplifting the powerful generations that are rising.

Image credits.

Slide one: Grandsons of Frank Byrne, Stanley and Desmond Byrne, reading an excerpt from Living In Hope from their homelands on Arrernte Country, Twetye community. This video was taken during the film shoot of 'kwatye urrewe', a short film made with press members and GARUWA's and . See link in bio for more details about 'kwatye urrewe'. Film credit: GARUWA.

Slide two: Grandsons of Frank Byrne, Stanley and Desmond Byrne, sharing what their grandfathers book means to them as his descendants. Film credit: GARUWA.

Slide three: Running Water Community Press directors host Royden Fagan from The Healing Foundation in Mparntwe Alice Springs and have a great yarn about all things healing, 20 March 2024. Pictured left to right. Bottom: Theresa Penangke Alice, Tisha Perrurle Carter, Amelia Kngwarraye Turner, Maureen Nampijinpa O'Keefe. Top: Olivia Nigro, Royden Fagan, Shirley Kngwarraye Turner, Valencia Byrne. Photo credit: Donovan Carter.

Slide four: Byrne grandchildren and great grandchildren begin their media training with local spoken word artist Laurie May. Here they are reading their grandfather's book together. Left to right: Delphene Byrne, Beau Lord, Laurie May, Renee Kenny and Nia Maree Kenny. 27 July 2024. Photo credit. Valencia Byrne.

Slide five: Another media training session at the press. Pictured left to right: Stanley Byrne, Renee Kenny, Laurie May, Valencia Byrne and Delphene Byrne. 5 October 2024. Photo credit: Olivia Nigro.

Slide six and seven: Stanley Byrne hits the recording studio, co-located at Running Water Community Press, to record chapter one of Living In Hope. He is supported by his mother, Valencia Byrne and offered in-studio media training from Laurie May. Audio team Carmen Escobar Robinson and Edi Donald do the tech magic. 27 October 2024. Photo credit: Olivia Nigro.

Slide eight and nine: Delphene Byrne records chapter two with the support of her mother Valencia Byrne, local anangkere Bubalo Stuart, media support from Olivia Nigro and recording by Carmen Robinson. 31 October 2024. Photo credit: Olivia Nigro.

Slide ten: Frank Byrne visits Beagle Bay Mission 69 years after being taken there with other stolen children. He describes on page 27: "One day, without any warning, Alf George got us all together and picked all of these kids out from the mob. Like he was culling cattle. He just rounded up a few of us half-caste boys and girls, got us on the truck and away we went. It was 2 September 1946. I was nine years old. We just left Moola Bulla this day. I did not say goodbye to anyone, not any of the old people who had cared for me for the last three years, nobody. None of us said goodbye". 24 August 2015. Photo Credit: Chris Hallett.

12/02/2025

Running Water Community Press stand wholeheartedly with the Arid Lands Environment Centre in condemning this decision by the CLP government to defund essential frontline organisations working to protect Country and sacred sites across the Northern Territory. The protection of Country is the highest priority for Running Water Community Press and we pledge to continue to work alongside ALEC in partnership to keep the fire burning and ensure First Nations community leadership in the fight for land and water justice.

12/02/2025

Did you know that Running Water Community Press received a write up in the last edition of the PEN International Magazine published out of Warrang Sydney? You can read the mag online at this link:

https://pen.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/ONLINE-VERSION-Design-PEN-November-2024-1.pdf

What an honour to work with the PEN team to share the story of the press alongside other stories of resistance writers around the world. All our struggles for freedom and justice are connected.

This article features the incredible poetry of Arrernte Elder and press director Amelia Kngwarraye Turner, stories about The Water Justice Project (a collaboration with Arid Lands Environment Centre), truth-telling about Stolen Generations through Living In Hope and an announcement about our forthcoming audio book project (stay tuned for more tomorrow!)

NT Writers' Centre