Reading fiction has unique benefits for language and empathy

Reading fiction doesn't just take you into another world, it also benefits your connection to the real world. ( Getty Images: Westend61 )

Link copied Share Share article For author Melanie Saward, stories are so much more than words.

"I think it's a safe way of confronting the parts of ourselves that we don't often like and that we need to sit with in order to grow," she says.

Dr Saward is a Bigambul and Wakka Wakka woman, academic and publishing all-rounder, who writes across multiple genres including Aboriginal romance novels.

She recognises the power of fiction to unpack biases.

"We all have these biases — I have things that I have to unpack that make me really, really uncomfortable — it's just because of society and how you're raised, your standpoint, and all those things that make you, you.