Alice Kearing on Smashing Serendipity, a book from her late ‘superhero’ mum

“If you would like a feminine superhero: that is my mum,” says Alice Kearing of her late mom, Binjarib Noongar writer, musician, artist and elder Louise Okay Hansen, whose memoir, Smashing Serendipity, tells “the story of 1 moorditj yorga” ( robust girl), from her youth in Pinjarra, by way of her experiences as a mom of 4 whose {many professional} accomplishments included changing into the primary Aboriginal individual to be appointed to the Household Regulation Council of Australia. All through, Hansen — who handed away the day after she signed off on her guide — “would at all times search for the constructive”, says Kearing, who answered PLAY’s questions.

Smashing Serendipity is framed as a narrative advised to the narrator’s grandchildren — was your mum’s intention to share her life story along with her household, or with a wider readership, or each?