Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze was published in 1725. Its author, Eliza Haywood had an indisputably impressive writing career; she authored numerous works within a diverse range of genres. Although her writing was experimental in both form and content, she has, until recently, been curiously absent from the literary canon and is scarcely known beyond academic…
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Unlike ABC’s Q&A, the panel for the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction is chockers with excellent women. Over the last few weeks, Lip has been getting to know our judges so you can meet the writers who will be reading your work. For our last instalment we are featuring Lorelei Vashti, author of Dress, Memory. What are you working on in…
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WOMADelaide is not your usual music festival. Sure, there are the teens strutting in groups, with festival-appropriate attire and the right-shaped sunglasses, but there are also toddlers running around the thick grass and, later, small children asleep on their parents’ ponchos spread across the ground. There are picnics and tents for napping and a sense…
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Unlike ABC’s Q&A, the panel for the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction is chockers with excellent women. Over the next few weeks, Lip will be getting to know our judges, so you can meet the writers who will be reading your work. This week we are featuring Maxine Beneba Clarke, author of Foreign Soil. What are you working on in 2015?…
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Unlike ABC’s Q&A, the panel for the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction is chockers with excellent women. Over the next few weeks, Lip will be getting to know our judges, so you can meet the writers who will be reading your work. This week we are featuring Melissa Lucashenko, author of Mullimbimby. What have you got planned for…
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Every now and then, a Twitter hashtag gets real. It exposes injustice. It strips back a culture to bare experience. On the feminist scene we’ve heard stories from thousands of women through #everydaysexism and #yesallwomen – the newest hashtag to make waves is #writingwhilefemale. It’s the brainchild of Foreign Soil author, Maxine Beneba Clarke. ‘Despite…
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Detective-Inspector Debra Hawkins is a steely, no-nonsense cop in Gabrielle Lord’s sixteenth crime novel. Debra is the head of new taskforce, RED-V, which targets domestic violence in middle-eastern communities. ‘Over the last few years,’ she informs her team, ‘We’ve discovered around one thousand incidents of forced marriages and attempted forced marriages here in Australia.’ As well…
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The Bookshelf Diaries takes a peek into the reading life of writers, readers and book lovers. Today, Alice Pung talks books old and new, and where to read about race and class. What are you reading right now? I just finished reading Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris. I read it in one sitting. It is a…
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The Bookshelf Diaries takes a peek into the reading life of writers, readers and book lovers. Today, Lee Kofman talks naked Egyptians and tragicomedy. What are you reading right now? Perhaps I’m obsessive, and definitely greedy, but at any given time I read in three different genres: fiction, nonfiction and creative nonfiction. My current fiction…
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The Bookshelf Diaries takes a peek into the reading life of writers, readers and book lovers. Today, Allison Tait talks, multi-reading, inspiration, and reading while writing. What are you reading right now? I am a serial multi-reader (if that’s a thing). I am currently reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (which is taking me far…
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Political journo and TV presenter Annabel Crabb’s has investigated women, men and domestic expectations in her new book, The Wife Drought. In an Adelaide event earlier this week, Crabb discussed the themes in her book in her characteristically witty manner. Here’s what I learnt. The reason why there aren’t many women in parliament is because…
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The Bookshelf Diaries takes a peek into the reading life of writers, readers and book lovers. Today, Carissa Lee Godwin lets us in what inspires her and what makes her mad. What book changed you? The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I first read it when I was 16, and loved it on a morbidly…
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The week before Christmas, worshipers arrived in Sydney’s Shirelive Church carrying gifts. They were for children in Villawood detention centre. Churchgoers sat in pews, wrapped presents between their feet; amongst them was Scott Morrison, ‘looking like any modern Dad in shorts and loafers’. Yes, the very same Immigration Minister responsible for imprisoning children is…
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For you. You’ll soon. You’ll give her name. In the stitches of her skin she’ll wear your say. Mammy me? Yes you. Bounce the bed, I’d say. I’d say that’s what you did. Then lay you down. They cut you round. Wait an hour and a day. It’s clear from these opening lines that Eimear…
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