When the name of my hometown slips off someone’s tongue in a benign conversation about rural life, I think of a single word. Isolation. It’s a place rusted by time and distance, where summers feel stronger, more palatable. Old marinas with rotten docks play home to buoyant clusters of retirement investments. A historical war memorial sits at the peak of the peninsula, perhaps the nicest spot in town. There’s little that’s locally sourced, for little can be grown in hard-packed soil with minimal nutrients.  I don’t think of myself as some special flower that grew from between cracks in the asphalt road. I did grow up a little different though, I think. My sister and I both grew up with a seed planted in our hearts. A longing to have a clear idea of our identity as mixed race kids growing up in white suburbia with little direct connection to our culture. Our creativity and curiosity kindled amid the heavy browns and black spotted greens of the Australian bush in our old backyard. Amid the cackling laughter of Kookaburras, and Magpies in their nests wedged in the forks of the gumtrees, I let myself get swept away by pages of Deltora Quest and the Charlie Bone series. I never really saw myself in these pages, except for the more ‘tomboyish' character types that spurned men and lived for fighting and adventuring. I didn’t find myself in the thin, pale, and girlish quirks of Ariel the mermaid. I remember brushing fingers down the bridge of my large nose, wondering why it was shaped so differently from hers. No Disney princesses had thick body hair and curls that fought against even the tightest of ponytails.  Image Credit: Image by Chesna from Pixabay  My reflection on the bus ride home in primary school said: You’re lazy. You didn’t brush your hair enough, that’s why it frays and sticks out. I used shampoos and conditioners not made for curly, brown hair like mine. The kind that only dehydrated my curls I tried too hard to contain. I fought against it for so long because I didn’t understand one simple fact. I was growing up in a world shaped for others. I had to learn to teach myself how to make little changes to fit in. Adjustments. These remnants of the seed in my chest always found their way into my writing. The first little short story I was told to bring to my Principal for a big gold star was the story of a tiger on the loose, trying to evade a tiger catcher that every zoo employs. I was seven years old when I was summoned to the Principal's office. My teacher was a kind, gentle woman and she enthusiastically informed me that I was being sent to the Principal’s office to receive a gold star for my tiger short story. Being a nervous, incredibly shy kid I took my tall, brown-haired and fair skinned friend with me. Even at a young age, I felt she had a graceful presence that teachers liked over my own awkward self. On our way to the office we desperately tried to tidy our junior uniforms, Kookaburras calling to us from the gum trees that dotted the open space of the rural school. My friend was extroverted and sweet while I preferred to say little. So, keeping the paper clutched to my chest I didn’t speak up for myself when the Principal gave my friend a gold star, maybe thinking she looked the part more than I did. My friend was quick to point out that I was the writer, pointing to the paper I was clutching . After an awkward apology and with a star stamped on my uniform's collar, we left. As we made our way back to the classroom, I wondered what it meant to ‘look like a writer.’  **** Growing up, the best representation of Asian characters on tele was Nickelodeon’s Avatar: the Last Airbender. I was filled with an odd sort of pride watching a show where two of the lead protagonists had brown skin like mine. It was comforting in a way I didn’t fully understand yet. Looking back , I think it was just nice to see any characters that resembled me.  Another seed was sown from this. A wish to see more representation in the creative world, be it books, movies, or TV shows. In those first stories I conjured as a kid in late-night word documents, most of these characters were not brown and followed Euro-centric fantasy magic systems and tropes. They were reflections of what I saw around me, for the most part. But there were slivers of vibrance, the influence of my culture seeping through. Bright, bold colours and strips of gold that can be found in classic Bollywood music videos and the silken table runner we used for nights of homemade Fijian Indian curry and roti. As a kid, nights like those were something to look forward to without a second thought. As a teenager, I still loved them, but I couldn’t ignore the itch in the back of my head (to fit in?). The missing pieces, always at arms-length. Like most kids that age, I felt the call of rebellion. Drugs and alcohol didn’t help settle the itch, but writing did. Sleep evaded me most of the time, so I dove deep into fantastical worlds. My rebellion took the form of the many LGBTQ characters and characters of colour I wrote in secret. I held them close to my chest, as, in those moments, they were just for me; not the other kids in my class who mocked anyone who wasn’t completely white and completely straight. These characters and these worlds were for a teenage girl who barely understood herself, let alone why she was ostracised.  Now that I’m older, free, and making it on my own, I have enough distance to see why it’s so important to have a diverse cast in entertainment. Perhaps most of us won’t ever truly recognise how much books, TV shows, and movies affected us growing up. But in many ways, they’re our first teachers and our first view of the world and what society expects from us. In all those hours I spent in the cement fortress of my school, dotted with only a handful of selectively placed pale gum trees and bottlebrush, I think a little assurance and diverse comics/ books with diverse characters would’ve taken me a long way.  By the age of twenty, wise and ancient as I was, I began reading Australian literary magazines. I clearly remember being curled up on the sun-soaked patio of my boyfriend's home while his two goofy dogs also curled up next to me to enjoy the summer sun. I cracked open my first issue of Voiceworks magazine and felt a surge of familiarity in those pages as I finally began to read the stories of those with stories similar to my own. Fictional characters that had melanin and storied cultures. My morning ritual now included joining the dogs as they dozed, reading through all the rich talent of young writers of colour contributing to magazines including Kindling and Sage and anthologies like Western Sydney's Sweatshop Women Volume 2.  Inspired by the power of the words and the writers, I began getting some of my own work published. It began small, with a short non-fiction piece called ‘Mango Girl,’ published with Every Minority, a online project for sharing the stories of people of colour. In between working around the pandemic lockdowns and trying to finish my University assignments in a timely manner for once, I garnered a few more publications. Some were about gender identity, some about love, and others about life as a person of colour.  Part of me mourns that I grew up in a rural area, so set apart from the world, from half of my own culture. I resented my ignorance of the celebrations we missed, the deities my sister and I were named after, the history I craved to know every detail of. Yet, I cherish the person I’m becoming. A sponge, to put it simply. Now, free to make my own choices, I choose to learn. Be it the language that half of my family knows how to speak on a native speaker’s level, the long history of India, and as many stories as I can read.  Now, I live amongst the busy lights and sounds of the city. There’s still plenty of gum trees here, plenty of flowers for me to stop and gawk at, and a wide windowsill to fill with plants to admire during the day. But the favourite feature in my new home is the library that sits directly across from the kitchen window. I can’t wait to read as much as I can. All the history, the stories, the life to be found amid the countless pages. I hope to learn a little more every day, and in turn, give a little more to the world. With whatever I write next, I hope it helps provide a little reassurance to whoever reads it. Header image Image by Erin from Pixabay    Isabelle Quilty (she/they) is a non-binary writer and poet from regional NSW, Australia. Some of their work is published under Beau Quilty. Most of their work is based around LGBTQ+ topics, working towards a greener future and works inspired by their South Asian heritage.