Natalie Damjanovich – Napoleon

“Writing is made to be read and shared in the community. Reading aloud is my secret – now not so secret – editing tool.”

Heartlines explores what it means to write – from the heart and soul – and where that writing takes us. Every writer’s journey is different, so we invite you to take a moment to read, pause and reflect on what it means to shape stories for the page.

Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon is a writer and educator currently completing a Creative Writing PhD on erasure poetry and forgotten histories at ECU. Her work has appeared in Cordite, Meanjin, Australian Poetry Journal and Writer’s Digest (US). She has won the Bruce Dawe Poetry Prize (2018) and KSP Poetry Prize (2019). She is the author of two poetry collections, First Blood (2019) and If There Is a Butterfly That Drinks Tears (2023). In 2023, Natalie was a mentor trainee in Centre for Stories’ Writing Change, Writing Inclusion program.

Centre for Stories: What excites you the most other than writing?

Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon: I have many passions outside of writing: photography, art, yoga, gardening, cooking, sci-fi movies and shows. I have an intense love of gardening, which began because I grew up in a market garden – my parents were both immigrants and left school at 14, so this was a decent small business for people without an education. We were always digging and playing in the dirt as kids, and sometimes, we helped my parents weed or pick crops. I find that whenever I am not feeling grounded, getting my hands into the dirt and doing some gardening is a natural anti-depressant of sorts. It’s humbling, physical work that keeps you connected with nature.

CFS: Why do you write?

NDN: I write to stifle the noises of the voices in my head. I write into the silence that exists outside my head. I write to tell the stories of my ancestors that have not been told, were not told and were actively untold and thus erased. I write to say I was here; I existed, and here is my mark upon the world. I write as if everything I write is scratched into sand on the beach and will be washed away with the tide. I write because I am compelled to do so. I write every day because it’s a job and I must. I write for therapy. I write for the community. I write for the workers, fighters, lovers, and those who cannot, or don’t want to, or will not write. I write for all my ancestors who dug fields, sailed boats away from families, fished in the deep ocean, and birthed and raised children. I write to remember. I write to forget.

CFS: When did you decide to pursue writing, and what triggered that decision?

NDN: I can’t recall any clear “trigger” that instigated me wanting to become a writer. Writing has simply been a lifelong passion and a part of my life since I can remember. I can remember writing at ten years of age. I had trouble falling asleep, so I used to scribble the ideas and thoughts swirling in my head in a little notebook on my bedside table.

Being a writer was the first job I ever told anyone I wanted to do when I was a kid! But as a teenager, I fell in love with music and pursued being a singer-songwriter, performing as Natalie D-Napoleon for over 20 years. The impetus for me to start writing stories and poems rather than songs was moving to the US. I was working in a Writing Centre at a community college, and many of my workmates were published novelists and poets, so talking to them inspired me to return to my love of writing on the page. I enrolled in an MA in Writing online when my son was two and a half years old, where I wrote most of my debut poetry collection, First Blood (Ginninderra Press). I won the Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize for my poem “First Blood: A Sestina”, and that set me on the path to wanting to pursue writing more seriously.

Then I applied for a PhD in Creative Writing at ECU and received a scholarship, so we packed up our lives in the US and moved back to Australia so I could become a writer and a teacher. My second poetry collection, If There Is a Butterfly That Drinks Tears, is out now via Gazebo/Life Before Man books and it is a collection of poems about becoming a mother in America in the wake of the Trump Presidency.

CFS: What is your current favourite book?

NDN: I adore the poet Adrienne Rich, whose work I discovered in the States. For the last two years, I’ve been taking my time reading her Selected Poems: 1950-2012. Rich was an intersectional feminist before the term intersectional feminist existed, and she pointed out disparities of race and class that other white feminists were not writing about at the time. Aside from that, I love the way she searches for the “truth” in her writing. She writes narrative poetry that encompasses history, personal stories, women’s experiences of motherhood, queer love, and being a minority as a Jewish person. I quoted her poem “Diving Into the Wreck” in my PhD; her work will always be a touchstone for me. As Rich wrote: “When a woman tells the truth, she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.”

CFS: What are some of the learnings you grasped while training as a mentor?

NDN: One thing I learned from being a tutor and training tutor at a writing centre in the US is that asking questions is essential to working out what a writer needs. I always make sure to ask a mentee what they think requires work or improvement in a piece of writing, as it means the writer is then identifying issues themselves rather than being told what is “wrong” with a piece of writing. This allows for a dialogue to open up between the mentor and mentee, rather than people getting defensive because they feel like they’re being criticised.

I mean, we’re all sensitive about our writing; otherwise, we wouldn’t be writers!

CFS: Based on your experiences in the writing industry, what advice would you give to writers who are beginners or are unsure where to start?

NDN: Start small. Join a writing group that meets once a month or once a week; they will keep you accountable. Go to readings. I can’t emphasise enough the importance of reading your work aloud – be it fiction, non-fiction or poetry. I just went to Clunes Booktown Festival and was part of a poetry panel, and I also got to hear Helen Garner and Jeanine Leane read aloud. I can tell you, their work just leapt off the page!

Writing is made to be read and shared in the community. Reading aloud is my secret – now not so secret – editing tool.

CFS: How has this program enabled you to enhance your writing practice?

NDN: Being a mentor has reminded me that writers need to be good readers. If you get stuck, read other people’s work, analyse it and let this help you learn how other writers “solve” the puzzle that is writing.

CFS: What will you be working on next?

NDN: I recently received a Red Room Poetry Fellowship to continue working on my “Axe Marks in Tree Trunks” poems. This is a series of poems where I am using interviews and nonfiction stories to create structured, formal poems that uplift the lives of Croatian immigrants, uneducated or under-educated women who are English as foreign language speakers.

There’s a real gap in the literary record on CALD, working-class women’s lives, so I hope to fill a little part of this space through this work.

Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon is a writer and educator currently completing a Creative Writing PhD on erasure poetry and forgotten histories at ECU.

Writing Change, Writing Inclusion is Centre for Stories’ signature writing program for 2021 to 2024. Generously funded by The Ian Potter Foundation, Australia Council for the Arts, My Place, and Centre for Stories Founders Circle, this writing program features mentoring, hot desk, and publication opportunities for emerging writers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and/or Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander backgrounds.

These stories have been licensed to the Centre for Stories by the Storyteller. For reproduction and distribution of these stories, please contact the Centre for Stories.

This interview was published in 2024.