Listening in Lockdown:
Sleepers and Hibernaculum (2020)

With Banyule Council’s support I wrote and published two online booklets, one for children and one for adults, called Sleepers and Hibernaculum respectively. These books dealt with the uncertainty and difficult emotions that were all encompassing in the early days of social isolation and government mandated reduction of time spent outside or more than 5km from your residence. These short digital story books encouraged readers to inhabit the lives of an imagined underground hibernating ‘people’. The way the wind sounds, the softness of the earth, the particular bird songs mentioned, these things were all included to draw the reader’s attention to the way things might sound in their immediate area out their window, in their backyard, or on their daily walk within the Banyule area.