This is a review of a session held at the 2016 Sydney Writers’ Festival. * When I first entered the room and upon seeing so many older women, I was unsure if I would feel comfortable as a member of the new generation of feminism. I wondered whether Gloria Steinem, a prominent 82-year-old American…
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Burnt Rotis, With Love is a bold collection of 54 poems by Prerna Bakshi. The collection deals with powerful themes of poverty, patriarchy, and oppression. Many of the poems focus on issues particular to India—Partition, the caste system, and the specific environment of Indian domestic life—but even these poems have roots in universally recognisable struggles…
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What is the role of a mother? And how does the relationship between a mother and her child shape that child’s life and actions? What makes some children grow up to be like their mothers, while others are motivated to turn away and do something completely different? The new book Things My Mother Taught Me…
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In 2000, Helen Garner was working on the story of Joe Cinque, a young civil engineer who was murdered by his girlfriend. She felt stuck—she had compiled long interviews with Cinque’s parents but had been refused any access to the two women charged with his murder. ‘I had no idea how to write the book,’…
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As a lifelong book nerd, I like to think I consume a balanced diet of fiction novels. I grew up reading books by Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl. I went through periods of reading books set in India (Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy), America as seen by immigrants (Amy Lee) and the American south (Harper Lee,…
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I called myself a feminist out loud for the first time only last year. Mostly I felt proud, but lurking underneath this pride was an undeniable layer of guilt. I Call Myself a Feminist—an anthology compiled by Victoria Pepe, Rachel Holmes, Amy Annette, Alice Stride and Martha Mosse—helped me answer two questions at the heart…
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Since its first incarnation at Melbourne’s Trades Hall in 2010, Women of Letters has toured the world to sold-out audiences. Curated by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire, its original purpose was to encourage women to read aloud letters set to a specific theme, directed at a live audience. It has evolved to include a Men of Letters variant and has several accompanying book anthologies, but the underlying principle remains the same: allowing a gathering of people to speak intimately without reservation. In From the Heart, the latest Women of Letters,…
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Sometimes, as a reader you’re lucky enough to chance upon a book that draws you in until you are so fully immersed in its world that it haunts you for days. Anna North’s The Life and Death of Sophie Stark is one such book. Indeed, the word ‘haunt’ is apt, as Sophie herself haunts the…
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There are two types of people in the world, according to Nicole Trilivas’s protagonist Kika Shores: those who travel, and those who don’t. Kika belongs to the former category: she enjoys the thrill of walking through a city whose name she can’t pronounce, and finding herself an alien culture with nothing but a well-worn backpack….
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Geraldine Brooks is a genius. Historical biographical fiction is difficult to write at the best of times because of issues with source evidence and conflicting views; Brooks does a superlative job in her latest novel, The Secret Chord, taking inspiration from a historical figure from three thousand years ago. King David’s story of rags to…
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At the heart of any great book, whether fiction or non-fiction, sci-fi or drama, lies a character arc that we can personally relate to on some level. The core of all good books often pulls at our heartstrings at a moment’s notice, leaving us breathless and wanting more. With Robyn Hennessy’s memoir, Worthless, the average…
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Elizabeth Harrower’s ‘new’ collection of short stories, A Few Days in the Country: And Other Stories, is enchanting. By which I do not mean that it contains magic, or the promises of happy endings. No; Harrower’s writing is pure, unadulterated realism. Her stories occupy the real world, and make an effort to reveal the lives…
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Writing a memoir is a monumental task. And I write that as someone who has never attempted to do so. Consolidating decades of one’s life into a work small enough to be held in one hand seems titanic, especially given the complexity of its primary source: memory. The subtle art of memoir has been beautifully…
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Sophie Hardcastle is an inspiring young author who has written a memoir called Running Like China about her struggles with mental health. Lip’s Bridget Conway had a chat with Sophie and found out about how she chose to push through the stigma to write the book in the hopes that it would inspire others to…
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