Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Maren Wiederhold
Categories
Memoirs

LONG YARN SHORT

Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts

The blockbuster memoir from one of the most powerful voices of a generation. From surviving out-of-home care to becoming a human rights lawyer, Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts shares her incredible story in a bid to drive positive change for First Nations youth.

At just ten years old, Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts was forcibly removed stolen from her family, community and kinship systems. After eight years in various out-of-home care placements, Vanessa fled the system, reconnected with kin and returned to country for the very first time. Only then did she begin to heal. In this book, Vanessa embarks on an extraordinary work of truth-telling, exposing the ongoing violence visited on Black children, their families and their communities by the systems that claim to protect them. As a survivor of out-of-home care, a practising lawyer fighting for the freedom of others and now also a mother herself, she takes an unflinching look at the heartache and trauma caused by racist family policing, the shameful rates of child removals and the steady pipeline of First Nations children into the criminal justice system. Long Yarn Short is a story of struggle, grief and love; a call to action from one of the most powerful voices of her generation. As a leading expert in children's and young people's rights, Vanessa invites readers to imagine solutions for a better world a world of support and empowerment, not punishment and demands that they listen when she says, 'We are still here.' VANESSA TURNBULL-ROBERTS is a proud Bundjalung Widubul-Wiabul woman, who has degrees in both law and social work, and was recognised with an Australian Human Rights Medal in 2019. She is a human rights lawyer and Fulbright scholar whose current research is focused on unveiling the intersections of human rights, child removal and the implications of forcible removal, ensuring that First Nations child survivors and those impacted are heard, while providing solutions towards ending child removal. In 2024, Vanessa was appointed the inaugural Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People Commissioner for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

Available products
Book Published 2024-10-01 by UQP University of Queensland Press - St Lucia (AUS)

Comments

Brilliant expose of the toxic debacle that is family policing. Essential reading. If you think the state can be a safe parent, read this book.

Long Yarn Short is a must-read, powerful, first-hand account of survival in the out-of-home care system. Turnbull-Roberts is fierce and unflinching as she seeks to hold the system to account but never loses her warmth, heart and strong senses of self and community. This book is a must-read for anyone wanting to better understand why the numbers of First Nations children in out-of-home care continue to rise and what needs to be done to change it by someone who has been through it and continues to fight for reform.

Long Yarn Short needs to be on the shelf of every Australian living on unceded land and beyond. With precision and courage, Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts lacerates the colonialist institutions that white Australia still hides behind to degrade and harm First Nations people. A testimony of survival and the indefatigable pride of Aboriginal communities, Long Yarn Short is an essential text from an unstoppable force.

Vanessa has written a profound and compelling tale of surviving the family policing system. Long Yarn Short is an honest, searing account of being removed from one's family, and the system's impact on a child and the community around them. Vanessa speaks directly to readers with a firm power and clear-eyed hope, calling for the abolition of the family policing system and the complete reimagination of how we support the most vulnerable in society, guided by the millennia of First Nations folks who have come before. This book is a true gift

A deeply moving first-hand account by a survivor of child removal. Defying great odds, Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts overcame the insurmountable obstacles put in her way, and her strength and tenacity proved to be her saving grace. We have heard the stories from the Stolen Generations, but this book is quite unique in its particular narrative of presence and place. One can acknowledge the history of forced removals, but we can never identify with the lived experience of those who tell it and write it from their own perspectives. For this is her personal story, one which will add to the ever-growing truth-telling accounts by First Nations peoples that are so needed in these times.

With the passion and insight of a survivor, Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts unmasks the Australian family policing system's pretence of saving children to expose its colonial design and portray its harm to Aboriginal families. Long Yarn Short is not only a compelling yarn of state-inflicted trauma but also a powerful call for abolition and community-based, restorative support. Recommended reading for anyone working toward a safer and more caring world.

Vanessa speaks to the child in us all: vulnerable, loving and in need of being loved. Read this and remember that a better tomorrow starts with our children.

This is a song of defiance and fierce hope that demands to be heard. You will not forget the unconquerable spirit that animates this story. Out of injustice and loss, Vanessa crafts a vision of a better future based on connection to culture and community. In this extraordinary book, she weaves her life into the broader fabric of Australia's genocidal history and challenges the reader to join her in the uplift of First Nations children and families.

ANZ audio rights sold to Audible (five-figure deal)