Wiradjuri language children’s book the start of something new for Orange publisher

Orange-based children’s book publisher Dirt Lane Press have launched a Wiradjuri language children’s book in what could be the beginning of a valuable partnership with local Indigenous people.

Where Happiness Hides — written by Anthony Bettini and illustrated by Orange local Jennifer Goldsmith — is a story about being in the moment and find joy in small things.

It was planned to be published next year, but with the world in the grip of a global pandemic, Dirt Lane Press decided to release it free online to the world, translating it into 30 languages.

“Who knew it was going to be so hard just to do 30 languages,” said Margrete Lamond, founder and publisher of Dirt Lane Press.

“But many of them were extremely difficult, they had difficult scripts like Arabic, Farsi, Amharic — which is Ethiopian — and the five or six Indian languages which all have similar scripts, but also very discrete differences. We ended up having to approach a typesetter in Mumbai to do the Indian Scripts because Western keyboards would not accept it.”

While reaching as many language groups as possible worldwide was the project’s goal, Margrete said local languages were also a priority.

 “First and foremost we decided we had to do Wiradjuri, because that is where we live and work... and it is also a very big area of country,” said Margrete.

“So it was to honour the land where we are working and also to include an Australian First Nations language in our range of languages.”

 The online versions of the book have had over 300,000 views, but October 25 saw the official launch of the printed books in both English and Wiradjuri.

“It was very, very positive. Michael Newman gave a Welcome to Country in the Wiradjuri language. We had Aunty Elaine Lomas, who is of the Grant family, and she came up from Canberra and did a reading of her translation into the Wiradjuri language… we has the book printed locally and the Illustrator is local, the translator is a Wiradjuri person and we are pretty proud to have this Wiradjuri version for the region.”

Margrete said they have had so much interest in the project that she believes it could be the beginning of exciting new area of publishing for Dirt Lane Press.

“I feel like it is the start of something interesting and new,” said Margret. “Auntie Elaine has got another book that she is interested in doing. We have a local author who met Elaine and they talked about doing a bilingual version of her book, so English and Wiradjuri on each page…

“And we are looking at ways we can partner and do more moving forward to promote the Wiradjuri version further into schools, so maybe a particular sort of branch of Dirt Lane Press doing very localised projects.”