Scribble... scribble... scribble... I gathered up a host of paper napkins, brown bags and other deadwood paraphernalia on which I had scribbled the stories that people gave me. Scribbled sitting in the back of buses, inside grungy restaurants and in the audiences of large gatherings. Typed out the scribbles between the demands of young children and worked them up for publication until finally they made their way to the printer.

On all these scraps are written the stories of people of my passion. In the early years of my political activism the passion expressed itself as a virulent hatred for the system which destroyed our lives, our families; today, the passion expresses itself as deep caring. I resisted publishing for a long time, not because I lacked confidence in the words scribbled on my scraps of paper — the voices of the unheard cannot help but be of value — but how can one squeeze one's loved ones small, onto the pages of a three-dimensional rectangle, empty of their form, minus their favourite colours and the rhythm of the music that moves them?

From I Am Woman by Lee Maracle ©1988. Published by Press Gang.