Authors with disability release new inspiring short stories

Seven Inspired Tales: A Collection of Short Stories is accompanied by illustrations from the people with disability who created the short stories.

The literacy program from 2018 aims to support people with an intellectual disability to build their knowledge of reading and writing, as well as develop everyday life skills.

Participating people with disability had a corporate volunteer partner from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), who guided them through every process of creating a short story.

Achieve Australia Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Jo-Anne Hewitt, says, “We are thrilled to see the people we support have the opportunity to showcase their individual talents and creativity with the release of Seven Inspired Tales.

“Each story is unique and explores a diverse range of characters and themes, from friendship and what it means to be different to a zombie-inspired tale,”

The PwC volunteers involved in the program were matched with writing participants with similar interests and helped their partner build text, word, grammatic and visual knowledge through eight interactive sessions.

Involved participants were also able to develop their verbal and non-verbal communication skills and make new friends.

The second phase of the program, which started in February this year, focussed on the participants developing creative writing and storytelling skills by creating memorable characters and plots with their partners.

At the end, the final stories were edited by each partnered group and made ready for publication in the eBook.

Program participant and author of The Horror School Girl, Vivian Fung, says, “I enjoyed writing about zombies and working with the friendly people that helped out.”

The volunteers from PwC also enjoyed the experience with Senior Accountant at PwC, Deanna Blanchette, saying, “Every PwC volunteer that has had the opportunity to get involved with the Positive Partners Program has been touched deeply by the experience.

“On behalf of all the PwC volunteers, we are thankful for the opportunity to get to know the inspiring participants as we guided them through this literacy journey. We are so proud of our role in this book and cannot wait to get our hands on a copy!”

The sessions for the program were held at Sydney’s Customs House Library, Achieve Australia’s Araluen site and at PwC’s Barangaroo offices.

Every session has a particular focus, including how literacy can be applied in everyday settings, following a set of instructions and understanding a travel timetable to get from ‘a to b’.

The participants and their partners also studied various media, like newspapers, magazines, poetry, books and more.

Seven Inspired Tales: A Collection of Short Stories is available to the community to download as a free eBook on Achieve Australia’s website.