AXSChat Podcast with Tara Moss UNICEF - Australia’s National Ambassador for Child Survival

Tara Moss is a Canadian-Australian author of 13 books of fiction and non-fiction, a documentary maker, and an outspoken advocate for human rights and the rights of women, children and people with disabilities. She is an Edna Ryan Award winner and UNICEF Australia’s National Ambassador for Child Survival, and has visited hospitals, maternity wards, refuges and schools as well as Syrian refugee camps in her UNICEF role. In 2014 she was recognised for Outstanding Advocacy for her blog Manus Island: An insider’s report, which helped to break information to the public about the alleged murder of Reza Barati inside the Manus Island Immigration Detention Centre. 

As a disabled woman and ambulatory wheelchair user diagnosed with CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) after a hip injury in 2016, Tara has used her public profile to help de-stigmatize disability, chronic illness and chronic pain. In 2020 she accepted the honorary role of Pain Champion with Pain Australia. In the media and through her page ‘Tara and Wolfie’ (named for one of her first mobility aids), she brings advocacy and visibility to issues of disability and chronic illness, and the need to normalize mobility aids. 

Her latest book is the internationally best-selling novel The War Widow, featuring feminist 1940s PI Billie Walker and her disabled war vet assistant, Sam Baker.

Transcript

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Neil Milliken: Oh, and welcome to access chat second Chat of the year, and we're delighted to be joined today by our most Tara is multi talented and advocate author model.

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Neil Milliken: We've been waiting some time for this to come around because you got stuck in Australia so

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Neil Milliken: The time zones don't work out terribly well between where we are and where you were. So I'm really glad that you had the patience to wait and we're really glad to have you joined us today. Can you tell us a little bit about

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Neil Milliken: Who you are, well what you're doing now and how you came to be in the Disability Advocacy space because I'm a big fan of some of the stuff that you're putting out on social media and the message that you're you're putting out but be great for our audience to hear in your own words.

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taramoss: Thank you so much for that lovely introduction. And yes, and has been a bit of time in the making the 2020 was such a weird year. So it's a real honor to be on here.

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taramoss: And I am an author. That is my main job so I published that lucky 13 books so far for different jobs as I started out crime fiction.

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taramoss: And then wrote a memoir part memoir called the fictional woman, which was really about social advocacy issues and experiences of women and girls.

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taramoss: And follow that up with speaking out, which is a kind of manual for activists and people wanting to get involved in in public advocacy work.

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taramoss: And wrote a paranormal series and my latest is the war widow, which is a historical fiction book. So most of my days are spent like here at home, writing

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taramoss: I did spend quite a while modeling. I was very fortunate to be able to travel the world and

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taramoss: Do that for a living as strange as that industry is and there's certainly some downsides there. If you read my work. You'll feel no I haven't been shy about the downsides.

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taramoss: Of the modeling industry, but it was a real privilege for me to be able to travel and experience new cultures and people from a young age.

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taramoss: And also a documentary host and some time producer as well. So I have done a production on cyber hate for Australia is ABC. I've just finished a criminal investigation in Australia, which will be coming out.

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taramoss: Later this year. So I'm still very much involved in other types of productions as well. I've done shows for Nat Geo and crime and investigation network.

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taramoss: And I have been very much involved in human rights advocacy and advocacy for women and girls through through UNICEF and through my own independent work for, for many years.

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taramoss: And about five, gosh, I can't believe it five years ago now. I was injured and that led to a disability. So that has given me, I guess.

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taramoss: More perspective on disability than what I had before. And in time, I've tried to use my platforms that I have through the work I've been doing over the last couple of decades to be able to

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taramoss: Bring more visibility to disability and just to speak openly about some of the issues faced by people with disabilities. We are we are many and varied, of course, so everybody's experiences are very different. But what I tried to do

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taramoss: Using the skills I have is to kind of present and be visible as a person who uses mobility aids and particular

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taramoss: And someone who maybe doesn't look like the stereotypical idea of someone who is either disabled or users mobility aids, so trying to break down some barriers and stigma out there has been part of my

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taramoss: My focus the last few years. So I think that's probably how we've connected online, Neil.

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Neil Milliken: Yeah, absolutely. So

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Neil Milliken: I spend an awful lot of time on on social media, particularly Twitter, as do detrimental. Yes.

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Neil Milliken: And yeah, came across your tweets and started engaging. I really liked. And now, of course, you have seen your Instagram to and you're posting stuff.

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Neil Milliken: I really liked the sort of positive vibe. The the

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Neil Milliken: The like you described the wanting to challenge the stereotypical view which is quite plainly wrong of how disabled people look and live and everything else. So I think that

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Neil Milliken: That that for me was something that changed a lot of people have hidden disabilities. A lot of people acquire disabilities, you

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Neil Milliken: You clearly got a very full career and all the rest of it. And I think that that is really important for giving people

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Neil Milliken: Resetting their expectations about us our communities, our abilities. And I think that that was one of the reasons why I wanted to

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Neil Milliken: TO HAVE YOU ON but you also talked a lot about body image and and and the perception of other people's perceptions and I think that those are areas that

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Neil Milliken: The, the constant themes that we talked about over the years on, on our chats and with our community because representation

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Neil Milliken: Of disability tends to be either to negative or inspiration corn, and I think that you hit a sweet spot.

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Neil Milliken: For me in that you're you're living your life you're doing all of your good stuff and you're doing

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Neil Milliken: That and then disability is just part of life and it's a natural part of life is not an addendum and that that is where we would like, I think, to see more of this in the media so

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Neil Milliken: How have you found that you know working in in the public eye, the reaction to you becoming more open about your disability and your use of mobility.

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taramoss: Well, look, I have to say I was very anxious initially about being seen as someone who you know wasn't going to recover. You know that that that sort of narrative about

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taramoss: Regarding was very strong initially it was also the expectation and when the, when it was clear that I had CRP, so I have a pain condition called CPS and

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taramoss: The prognosis was not, you know, it wasn't likely to just kind of go away. I wasn't going to be returning to normal, you know, to my previous normal

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taramoss: I had to really do, bit of a reset and I know that part of that involved being anxious about

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taramoss: You know the how people were going to receive this change, it wasn't so much my being anxious about my reality because it was already my reality, like I was already living it every day. It was more, you know, can I deal with what

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taramoss: I have to adapt to right now because it's new and I have to find new ways to deal with this in my daily life, and also deal with public perception right now. Like, can I take that extra load right now. And so I was anxious about

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taramoss: My experiences that reaching out and being open about my disability has been extremely rewarding and important personally for me.

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taramoss: I understand that's not necessarily the case for everyone. They have to decide for themselves whether they

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taramoss: You know, want to talk openly about their physical condition and their disability but for me it was extremely positive. And I remember

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taramoss: Tara and Wolfie as an Instagram page that I've set up specifically focused on disability and chronic illness and mobility aids and kind of the visibility around that. And when I started, I guess, expressing myself through term Wolfie I was finding

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taramoss: Other people in a similar situation and people I could relate to and

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taramoss: That just, you know, I guess we don't always walk down the street and find other people that we can relate to, in that way, you go online and suddenly there's this incredible community and that was

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taramoss: Something I guess I didn't expect to be as powerful as it's been so so my the lesson for me has really been that the anxiety I felt about being open really

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taramoss: Was bit over overall. And that actually had I reached out earlier to the community. Maybe that would have been a better process for me. And in some ways.

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taramoss: In terms of the media reaction. Yeah, it's, you know, you can't you can't control how people are going to perceive you. So I've had

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taramoss: All the types of reactions that a lot of people with invisible disabilities are familiar with the, you know, the idea that, like, you know, you can't be disabled because

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taramoss: You leaving the house. So you dress well or I saw you walk to your car and then get your wheelchair out like this idea that there aren't ambulatory wheelchair users or that disabilities are static

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taramoss: Or easily seen those types of misconceptions are really still very much in the community and a real problem. So doing that in the public eye just kind of, you know, makes that bigger, I suppose.

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taramoss: So it's been a mixed bag but overall I would say that being really open has been rewarding and important for me and something that I am, I've really valued very much just being able to be myself and not hide.

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Debra Ruh: You know, Terry, I, I'm really looking forward to reading your work. I'm really looking forward to, especially the paranormal one I love

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Debra Ruh: Books that address that and I love historical stuff. So, but I you bring up a really important point because

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Debra Ruh: For example, my daughter was born with Down syndrome and try so me 21 as she or she always tells me, but

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Debra Ruh: There is inside the disability community all this infighting. It's like, well, are you disabled enough. Yeah, but you're not yours is are invisible or and people stopping I have so many of my friends, including mutual friends.

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Debra Ruh: That Caroline Casey, Dr. Caroline Casey's a mutual friend of a Neil Antonio and myself, and she has people come up to her all the time even though she's legally blind and she uses a cane.

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Debra Ruh: And tell her she doesn't look disabled and and it's, it's, and I remember a couple of times, when there were some programs when my daughter when we were was in school that would help enrich her and

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Debra Ruh: She would make the cut it. And so it's like it's, it's a, these are really major social issues, because it's like, well, Tara, you can't be disabled, you're too pretty. You're too. It's, it's, it's a really important thing, and I've had people say, well,

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Debra Ruh: As I first moved into this industry in 2000 well we don't want to hear from the parents. We don't want to hear from the parents. And it's like, but wait a minute I part of the community.

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Debra Ruh: Don't, don't you want to welcome people to the community. And then, of course,

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Debra Ruh: If you were born with a disability like my daughter, which is an obvious disability as opposed to. Sadly, my husband, who has a very much more significant.

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Debra Ruh: Disability now than my daughter. He sadly isn't late stage dementia due to a traumatic brain injury, when he was hit by cars at child.

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Debra Ruh: And there's, it's almost like our dirty little secret in the disability community, how we in fight with each other, you know, know the blind are more important than the death for more important than that. Well, we don't want to be part of your community.

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Debra Ruh: We see that all over the world. And I think that's why it's so important for women like you to step up enjoying the conversations. And I also really, really applaud as a fellow woman that

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Debra Ruh: You're focusing on girls and women and really helping empower that as well because the intersection ality of disabilities. We often also are not talking to

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Debra Ruh: Talking about and the body image issues I on my other show which I'm hoping you all come on human potential at work, but I was discussing with another woman, we were really talking about body images and

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Debra Ruh: It throwing around a word that I have come to dislike an inward called normal

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Debra Ruh: Because I just don't know what that means. And I feel pretty confident. I'm not normal. I mean, who has purple hair. Well, I do, too bad.

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Debra Ruh: I like it. I'm 60. Why can't I have whatever color hair. I want to. So it's like, and that's such a little nuanced thing but it's

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Debra Ruh: How do we allow people to be truly who they are and applaud every bit of who they are. My husband is not less of a human, because he now has

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Debra Ruh: Very serious dementia. He's not and it's it's interesting watching how people treat him and don't think he didn't notice it. So I just want to applaud so much your work and I know it's not always easy. It's not easy. You've talked about that but

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Debra Ruh: Why did you decide it was important to step up and really own who you are because not everybody's doing that now. Everybody knows to do that.

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taramoss: WELL, THANK YOU, DEBORAH look I touched on this before. I know that it is a privilege to be in a position where you can

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taramoss: You can say you're disabled and still feel that you can put food on the table. You know, like I like I do know that that's an issue and

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taramoss: I won't mince words here. I've lost a lot of income and work. You know, so that's that's real. Okay.

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taramoss: But I feel like I'm in a fortunate enough position that I can be myself. I can present myself an honest and forthright way.

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taramoss: And can continue to do the work that I love being an author, I can you know right from home do this work. I'm my own boss, in many ways, right. So I know that that's a privilege, but

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taramoss: It became important to me, especially as someone who has a history in the Human Rights sphere being an advocate in that way. What kind of advocate, would I be if I thought, well, this is, you know, this is something I need to cover up, it sort of puts shame.

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taramoss: Shame around this aspect of my life. Right. And I know that we interact with kind of internalize that and feel this kind of

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taramoss: Sense of shame. Like, this is the part of me. I don't want to share because it's bad, or it's

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taramoss: It indicates failure or it's a shameful or embarrassing in some way. So again, having given that caveat that I understand that it's a privilege to be in the position to

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taramoss: To be open about this. I will say that being able to be open has been empowering for me and it has helped me to connect with other people who have

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taramoss: Chronic pain, who have disability and who can actually guide me when I have questions. Who can help to make my life more

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taramoss: Functional and positive in really concrete and real ways and I wouldn't have that if I had remained kind of

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taramoss: You know hype hiding the mobility aids behind people's backs. When the camera came out because I, that's what I did the first time and I realized I'd done that and thought, I'm not gonna, I'm not going to do that again I you know I was using a cane initially and

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taramoss: I was doing an event and the event was about my writing and so on. And when we did photos at the end up with the came behind someone it so it wasn't in photos.

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taramoss: Part of my mindset at that time was that this is temporary. I don't want the media to make a big deal of it. I'm not willing to take questions about this right now and be have it be a focus. So I just wanted to kind of have it being visible.

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taramoss: But then I also realized that there was something else going on there, which was maybe a little bit of internalized able ism. So I work through that and fought it

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taramoss: Yeah, I guess it's a process for everyone to decide how they how they need to live, but

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taramoss: And they need to make those decisions for themselves but for me.

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taramoss: Really, if I had continued to kind of hide. I think that I just would not have anywhere near the same support that I have now and I probably would be

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taramoss: I wouldn't be as far along the track in terms of providing myself with the things I need to have less pain to be more mobile and independent I'd probably be still spending a lot of time in bed.

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taramoss: On bad pain days, rather than getting in my wheelchair. I wouldn't have one you know i'd feel like I don't you know

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taramoss: I'm not disabled enough or I don't qualify are, you know, I just wouldn't understand that that's what they're for. You know, that's why people you know that's why they were made his way.

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taramoss: Yeah.

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taramoss: You know they're they're a they are aids for living in for independence, they are you know this is an object of freedom that I'm sitting in right now. It's for freedom. It is not a sign of failure or

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Debra Ruh: You're not broken.

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taramoss: Up for, you know,

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Neil Milliken: You don't combine to it it's it's a need to go places, you know, to not be confined to bed to being, you know, on a band paint day. So yeah, exactly. It's a, it's a positive thing rather than what is perceived to be by many people as being pretty negative. So I think Antonia, you had a question.

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Antonio Santos: My question goes

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Antonio Santos: On that direction. So, Tara. Where do you want to go now.

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taramoss: Where do I want to go now.

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taramoss: I don't think any of us can do that right now but I

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taramoss: I, I just want to keep learning and growing. I'm on my own, you know, journey, if you will, regarding, you know, managing my pain and my Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. And that's an ongoing daily

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taramoss: Process in terms of advocacy. You know, I just want to be able to be myself and be out there and I am you know

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taramoss: I guess in some ways, really well. Very much heartened by the messages. I've been getting mostly privately from people saying, you know, my daughter or myself.

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taramoss: I i'm using mobility aid now because I could see you using one in a room just the the obstacles, the mental obstacles they had around it.

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taramoss: They felt that it was too taboo or embarrassing and the stigma was holding them back and we do know that from studies that that is really common. You know, a huge number of people.

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taramoss: Would benefit from mobility aids for various reasons, because of pain, dizziness, you know, all of these different issues that might be

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taramoss: Dealing with in their day to day life and stigma is holding them back or stopping their health professionals from even suggesting these options to them. So, making it visible is really helpful and I want to continue to do that.

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taramoss: And just to just to learn and to grow and do what I can. And I guess shine a light on other people's work in the disability sphere, because there's so many important advocates and so many different areas to discuss

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taramoss: And yeah, I guess just continuing to be out there and and be myself, which is yeah joy and a privilege to be able to do

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taramoss: Lots of books right lots

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Antonio Santos: We from time to time we receive messages from people who say, oh, I really like to know I follow the conversations that you're having, but I never shared

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Antonio Santos: Any of your tweets. I never share any of your content. I never liked it because I'm afraid that if I do that, it will point out that

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Antonio Santos: I'm I have something I might have a disability, and I don't want my employer or someone to know so that sigma is still very

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Antonio Santos: Present and i think it's it's important for us to to highlight it and so I think your, your words were particularly important on that.

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Antonio Santos: Because people shouldn't be holding them. So we need to understand where they are. Okay, we need to, to, to understand that.

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Antonio Santos: That people might be afraid. And they don't feel that confident is not and it's not up to us to tell them what they should do or not. But I think it's important for us to change society to make sure to make their life easier in the long term.

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taramoss: And that's absolutely true. And it's, you know, now that I am using a wheelchair on and off because it's been a process over the last five years.

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taramoss: You know, I was aware of accessibility problems before I think I even in my human rights work have focused on it from time to time. Now that I'm experiencing it myself, you know, wow, it's

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taramoss: There are a lot of obstacles out there and things that should be changed.

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taramoss: And having voices out there normalizing mobility aids normalizing the, you know, I think it's about a quarter of the people in the world who have a form of ability, you know,

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taramoss: Just being open and acknowledging that this is a this is a normal part of human experience. It always has been. It's not something to be others or shamed is it's it's life and you know we we are, we're all here together with our different bodies and experiences and our different

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taramoss: You know, ways of being and and that needs to be accepted and acknowledged.

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taramoss: And I think that there's a long way to go in that regard.

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Neil Milliken: Yeah, I would definitely agree, we still have a road to travel.

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Neil Milliken: You talked about chronic Regional Pain Syndrome and and one of the taboos around pain is around medication and particularly opiates and opioids and pain relief and over the last

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Neil Milliken: Number of years has been almost like a crusade against opioid medicine and we had Kate Nicholson on who is a

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Neil Milliken: lawyer and a pain advocate and Kate was a very

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Neil Milliken: Clear advocate for the reasons why actually medication enabled her to live, you know, because so

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Neil Milliken: Have you, have you found that that that experience to do you know the people take a dim view of the thing that actually enables you to live a more quote unquote normal life and and how do you then sort of

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Neil Milliken: Deal with sort of going against the sort of flow of public opinion on this because because people had suddenly gone who pay really bad payments and bad actually abuse of pain meds and bad pain medication itself a good thing. Generally,

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taramoss: Yes. What I think that it's, there's a lot of stigma around it. There's so much able isn't out there and that manifests in many ways. And one of the ways that manifests is this idea that you can't somehow on think your pain like

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taramoss: You know, I've got a pain condition that's considered to be, you know, one of the

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taramoss: very severe ones. You know, it can be very severely painful. The idea that I'm supposed to just kind of on think that and not need any medical support for it, no medication is ludicrous.

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taramoss: So I am quite open about the fact that I take medication to help with my functioning and my quality of life and

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taramoss: You know I love my life. I love my life. I love my body. I don't want to be in horrific pain.

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taramoss: Nobody does or should be, and we should use the tools that are available to us.

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taramoss: And I was also very open about, for example, ketamine infusions, which in my particular case with CRP S has proven to be one of the more effective methods for pain management.

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taramoss: But it's really invasive. I have to spend a whole week and hospital on a sub anesthetic infusion in a room with tubes out of my arm, do I want to do that. Would I rather just eat kale and take my vitamins and have that, you know, work.

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taramoss: Of course, you know, but yoga is not going to do that. It's not going to do what this particular treatment, which is designed to, you know, suppresses

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taramoss: Pain response. So if I do, what kind of mean can do, particularly for my condition.

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taramoss: And it's not going to be appropriate for everyone, but the fact that there's this taboo around even having a procedure which reduces pain.

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taramoss: Is I think really appalling. It's again a kind of, you know, don't cry. Don't show emotion, don't, don't show that you feel pain. Don't show that you are disabled or there's something you can't do. It's like a

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taramoss: Some kind of a sign of vulnerability. Well guess what, I'm bloody strong I wanted the strongest people I know and so are the other people in the disability and chronic illness communities.

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taramoss: They're absolute rock stars as far as I'm concerned, and the fact that they are managing this stuff only bring some higher in my eyes. So yeah, reducing this idea that somehow

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taramoss: Everything can be managed with just positive thinking, you know, Justice movie. I'm not saying positive thing doesn't help it does it's

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Debra Ruh: Great, but

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taramoss: This stretching and yoga or marvelous exercise is important, all those things. But, you know,

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taramoss: There are medical conditions out there. There are pain conditions and actually leaving them without treatment is very detrimental to that person and their body. So this is not something we should encourage people just, you know, dump things that are going to help them but not

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Neil Milliken: That opinion on pain relief and sort of crusade against opioids has actually had a really detrimental effect on on the community because it made it much harder for

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Neil Milliken: People, particularly in North America to then be able to get access to the medication that they rightfully need to be able to live, you know, the fulfilling life that you're describing

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taramoss: Right. And in Australia as well. Well, I was over there. Last year, you know, I'm this is a lot of the conversation that was happening was that the crackdown on opioid prescriptions meant that a lot of people

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taramoss: You know, particularly people who have invisible conditions like pain conditions.

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taramoss: You could just have a doctor says, Well, you know, you're just going to have to not have this medication anymore. Why don't you try positive thinking and send you home or

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taramoss: Why don't you try some over the counter Advil or something. And it's like, it's not going to work. You're leaving that person with

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taramoss: Pain, they should at a level that they shouldn't have to try to manage and it actually is very negative on the body and the central nervous system, so it's

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taramoss: Causes the problems to get worse. So this. Yeah, we want to make sure people are taking medicine as safely as possible. You know, I'm not going to

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taramoss: ignore the fact that there are people out there who are around who are suffering as a result of

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taramoss: Over medication or over prescription or not being given other tools, but taking the medication away from them is not the answer that people need support.

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taramoss: They need pain relief and they need that on so many different levels, including just if you if you want to make the argument, just about the health of their body. Yeah, they need pain.

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taramoss: It's really important for them physically, as well as mentally and emotionally

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taramoss: And to have them be believed, as well.

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taramoss: Person comes right you know a person comes and says, I'm in pain. I can't cope. This is I've got 10 out of 10 pain. You know, you need to be listening to that that person and recognizing, you can't see it.

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taramoss: You know, it's

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taramoss: Nice visible thing.

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Debra Ruh: And assuming that you're lying about it. It just is it just, there's so many things wrong with that. Why, and we have medical science medical science.

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Debra Ruh: That, that, you know, human beings have come up with. Why don't we use the medical science and the tools and stop assuming that people are broken it were

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Debra Ruh: People are broken because society breaks us but putting all these ridiculous conditions on us. And I remember when my daughter was born with Down syndrome.

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Debra Ruh: She got a low. I think it's called app GAR score where they decide and she got a six, which is sort of unusual and but she wasn't diagnosed for four months. And when they diagnosed her with down syndrome. I

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Debra Ruh: I i'm not accepting it. I'm not telling anybody I'm not it and because society keeps telling us. Oh.

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Debra Ruh: Your daughter's broken and then even when people would learn about it, instead of being excited that I had this precious amazing baby girl.

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Debra Ruh: They didn't want to talk to me because they didn't know what to say. So in we're seeing a lot of that right now. I think with coven 19 you know people

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Debra Ruh: Those the sheer losses. I mean certainly here in the States. I mean, and

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Debra Ruh: I just, I think that we have to stop defining what it means to be human. And that's why I think people like you, Tara, that the work that you know that we're all doing

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Debra Ruh: It is critical that we continue to say stop it medical science has a lot to offer us and yoga in spiritual thinking like I do all that stuff.

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taramoss: But I actually

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Debra Ruh: During these dark times of code that is, you know, not just covered the pandemic all the political horror that's happening in the United States, the violence.

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Debra Ruh: I'm actually struggling as an optimist trying to not be so optimistic and light. It's fascinating because there's a balance with all that as well. But, as you noted

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Debra Ruh: A quarter of human beings have disabilities because we're in these beautiful precious biological bodies so it's it's just

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taramoss: You know bodies are not static disabilities are not static.

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taramoss: Those are the things that I've found so so fascinating that there's a misconception around, you know how you're disabled one day and then the next day somehow you're not because they saw you walk to your car or I don't know you you you switch the side you're using your cane on so

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taramoss: Let's cuz I had a handbag, and I need like what do you even

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taramoss: Get that yeah

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Debra Ruh: You're still

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Debra Ruh: things wrong with that.

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taramoss: Yeah, the

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taramoss: Thing.

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Antonio Santos: Is almost like know you're trying to have a life. Oh, I'm sure you can't be disabled, you're trying to everlasting can't be no

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taramoss: That's right, or I think someone else mentioned here, they took away some disability parking. I think because they were using

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taramoss: You know, expanding the cafes out because of code, right. So the disability parking was taken away, and some people argued. Well, they don't need that because they've got to stay at home because of covenants like

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taramoss: Wow. But actually, disabled people have lives and, you know, they, you know, it's just, it's just extraordinary to me or this idea like, well, you can't use the disabled, they don't really need disabled parking like I just

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taramoss: I just want to understand how they can people can go through life, not realizing that like a quarter of the people they see have a disability of some sort. Like, how can you think it's so

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taramoss: Such a separate universe. It's really, you know, I know that. Popular Culture and Media have not helped with this in many respects, as a storyteller.

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taramoss: That is an area that I focus on of course because I see it all the time and film and just go like, wow, the messages we put out there have been really

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taramoss: Confusing and inaccurate and have created myths.

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taramoss: And that's another reason why I'm so passionate about making sure people with disabilities are able to tell their stories be visible and be heard, because you know it's really enough other people telling our stories and getting it terribly wrong so

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Neil Milliken: So, so, so how do you integrate that into your into your storytelling it. Do you have any sort of sort of

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Neil Milliken: favorite character or and how one of the other things that we were talking with

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Neil Milliken: Charcoal Kirk Diego is an actor. And he was like, Well, I don't want to be the disabled actor. I don't invade the disabled roles. I want to be doing the normal roles, how do you

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Neil Milliken: Sort of weave the disability because as you say it's part of normal life into the character creation as you write your fiction.

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taramoss: So the question and in the world widow its historical fiction, as I mentioned, and it said in 1946 you know immediately post war. Of course there's arising in disability because of

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taramoss: The conflict that have taken place for years and years. So it is natural to not only include disability but to kind of describe the changes in communities and

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taramoss: It said in Sydney. And at that time, there were a lot of people nurses as well who returned from

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taramoss: From their work, but a lot of return soldiers who had visible disabilities or scarring from injuries and, you know, there was this phenomenon where a lot of these men went off into the Australian Bush to live in solitude, because of the

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taramoss: The shame they felt or made to feel with people pointing at them in the street and not accepting the the visible changes that were there. So I think just mentioning some of that history weaving

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taramoss: The history in. It's a way of representing real life and fiction more fully and i cant pretend to do it perfectly, but that is my aim. If I don't actually need to make stuff.

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taramoss: Up and a lot of cases do is included.

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taramoss: To actually acknowledge you know the there's a lift operator. For example, in the war widow, who's a return that and

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taramoss: You know, he's an amputee. And he was working the the lifts the elevators and that was something that was very common. At that time, it was a role for a lot of the return soldiers.

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taramoss: And Billy Walker has a secretary or assistant who is a returned war vet and he has missing fingers on one hand, and has been booted by the army because he's no longer you know able bodied

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taramoss: And that was a common experience, it's, it's not even necessary for me to kind of stretch myself to think, you know, how do I include this, it's just

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taramoss: actually seeing it and going, Yeah, this is part of the story. This is part of life at that time. And it makes the the work more authentic.

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taramoss: And much more interesting as far as I'm concerned. So there's yeah there's wonderful characters in the war widow that that have disabilities or just star and it just visible and and and part of that history that real history.

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Neil Milliken: Thank you. And that's exactly what we need more of which is that that sort of

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Neil Milliken: representation of reality because we're there already. And what happens in the media is that we disappear. So it's been a real pleasure.

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Neil Milliken: Talking with you we increase the end of our time. We need to thank the people that keep us on air and supporters Barclays access micro link and my clear text for making sure that we're captioned. And we really look forward to you joining us on twitter next week.

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Thank you.

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Debra Ruh: Thank you, Tara. Thanks for me. Andrew Santos. Thank you, Neil.