Herstory

Writing has never been optional for Yvette Henry Holt.  Like breathing and walking,  writing has  been something rather integral to her childhood, livelihood, to her existence.  Yvette grew up the youngest of five children to parents Albert and Marlene Holt (née Henry). In 2012, Yvette sought permission from her parents to include her mother's family name in all future published writings, hence Henry of the Iman | Yiman Nations Upper Dawson River /Taroom/Woorabinda on her paternal grandfather's side, Wakaman Nations of Chillagoe from her maternal grandmother - the Holt family herald from the Bidjara Nations of Carnarvon Gorge Springsure areas respectively. Through Yvette's mother's heritage there is also a shared ancestry of Afghan, French Polynesian, and Chinese. 

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​Yvette grew up in Meanjin (Brisbane) in the well-knitted south-western working class suburb of Inala East. The home that Yvette grew up in where her elderly father continues to live was impressed with Golden Books, second-hand USA encyclopaedias, a single leather bound King James Version, Oxford dictionaries, a faceless thesaurus, Reader's Digest, and the one or two hardback covers of D.H. Lawrence. The respect for storytelling and literature in the Holt household were boundless and Yvette wasted no time in pressing dog-ears to her favourite picture books, marking pages with fire engine red bingo pens when no one was looking and revisiting chapters of world history over and over again. Astronomy, Olympic host cities, and alphabetising countries were amongst Yvette's favourite pastimes of reading and researching - these pastime trinkets were reflected within the conversations and whispers handed down from mother to daughter. To not develop a love for the art of reading, learning, and interpreting one's own thoughts and ideas through language and writing was simply not an option. Yvette grew up in a world full of second-hand books with a first-class introduction to possibilities anchored within boundless wonderous conversations and debates at the dinner table seven nights a week, with dessert on Sundays following  the obligatory sit-down family Sunday roast.

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A graduate of UTS Bachelor of Arts Community Management (Faculty of Business) 2007, Yvette has lectured at the University of Queensland (Aboriginal Women's Studies), Australian Catholic University (Indigenous Protocols and Research, Australian Indigenous Studies), Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (Diploma of Creative Writing), as well as associate lectures held at Deakin University, and the University of Melbourne.