I’m glad you’re here! Here are some questions you might be asking :
Who are you?
I’m Ella, a photographer, storyteller, writer and artist.
Over the last ten years I’ve worked for humanitarian organisations and not-for-profits serving vulnerable children, displaced families and marginalised people groups.
I currently work manage a team of local photojournalists who live and work in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia and work for a global child development organisation.
I’m a Brit by birth but live with my husband, Jeremy, and our Siberian husky, Mizu, in Perth, Western Australia.
Why should I subscribe?
Subscribe to receive a short essay or reflection once every couple of months.
I write about the seen: the world around me, photography, visual media, art and literature. I write to remember the vastness of the world and both the limits and power of my perspective.
I also write about the unseen: my processes of storytelling, writing and creating and what inspires my Christian faith and creative humanitarian work.
I write to remember that there is always more than meets the eye.
Why ‘The Honeyeater Press’?
In the first month after hatching, Australian regent honeyeater birds will learn the song they will sing for the rest of their lives. But, with a dwindling population, and only 300 left in the wild, and few elders, they have learnt to mimic the voices around them.
Under threat, these birds have come to lose their voices, echoing the simpler notes of wattlebirds, or friarbirds. Some birds can mimic without losing their original song, but the regent honeyeater’s song becomes another’s entirely.
Without a common chorus to bring them together - without a song, a language, an identity - their species slowly dies.
Hard-pressed, we can forget to listen to the voices that matter the most, merging with the loudest, the most influential noises around us. We clutch at short-term fixes and trite words. It can seem like less work to mimic platitudes or compromise our convictions. We can forget to listen to the words that mean the most. Our heart-song, the song we were made to sing, fades.
Writing is a way that I tune my ears to the voices that matter - including my own. Writing is a way for me to keep noticing colour and surprise in unexpected places. Someday, somewhere, I hope to hear a regent honeyeater in the wild. It could mean we have both learnt how to listen to the voices that matter.
My writing blends together inspiration from the natural world our global humanity, with poetry, theology and science.
Some housekeeping...
If you can’t find the newsletter after you subscribe, check your spam folder. And please mark this address as ‘not spam.’
You can always log in to the website to read the full archives and other posts as they are published.
Make sure you add my email address to your "trusted" list - otherwise this email may end up in your spam folder every time it goes out.
I'm over on Instagram, too, so hope to see you there!
Stay up-to-date
You won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every new edition of the newsletter goes directly to your inbox.
