Search results for ""Spinifex Press""

In Francesca Rendle-Short’s family, silence was golden. So to break ranks and tell stories about her peculiar family life and her mother’s moral crusading should send this daughter straight to hell in a ball of smoke and flame along with all those books her mother wanted to burn. Some stories are hard to tell. But like reading, writing stories changes everything. Set in 1970s Queensland and also contemporary times, Bite Your Tongue is an elegant mix of novel and memoir that is in turn harrowing and delightful. It threads together the childhood story of the fictional Glory Solider, with the thoughts and experiences of the adult author, Francesca Rendle-Short, as she looks more deeply into her mother’s activism at the time of facing her mother’s death. Can a daughter forgive her mother for making her a pawn in her conservative moral crusades? Can greater understanding reinstate love? What does a mother owe a daughter and a daughter a mother?

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Pat Rosier’s second book about Poppy sees her confronting two life crises at once: death and love vie for her attention. She travels to Yorkshire where she must take on the role of carer to her dying father. And in Yorkshire, there is also Jane… For all her family it’s a time when difficult and poignant emotions emerge – when old hurts must be put aside and new bonds forged. For Poppy it brings a turning point. An engaging, enjoyable and subtly challenging novel.

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'Life on the Edge' is a whole book of laughter by one of Australia’s most irrepressible cartoonists. Judy Horacek can make you laugh about love and loss, about science and postmodernism, about serious social issues and the light-hearted events of life. They will make you laugh on the way to heaven, or the revolution, or over the edge.

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When a small community agency, the Preston Creative Living Centre embarked upon the risky and exciting venture of engaging local people in artistic programs, it became a thriving centre for performances of theatre, music, circus, dance, visual arts, weaving and the crossover between factory production and artwork. The authors aim to inspire the reader, and give practical support in the development and administration of exciting, viable and fruitful community art. Beginning with a philosophy that informs decision-making and confronting the nitty-gritty of daily practice. A powerful discussion of the value of community arts and guide to creating partnerships between organisations, artists and communities to create community-based art.

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A novel in two voices, 'Parachute Silk' consists of letters between two women friends who discuss in depth their feelings and share their lives by corresponding. They send poems, letters and long explanations and stories of their lives. This is a beautifully written novel with a deft touch. The language sings, even as the women come to grips with issues around sexuality, children and the exigencies of an unplanned life.

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The best-selling book that started the series exploring the significance of animals in women’s lives. Eighty-six women and girls from all across the globe contributed to this beautiful collection of stories, letters, poems and photographs, sharing the funny, sad and amazing tales of their relationships with dogs. Readers will cry and laugh as they enjoy this homage to their best friends: dogs they’ve grown up with; dogs with incredible character; dogs who’ve changed – even saved – women’s lives.

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In the nineteenth century Charles Dickens wrote his novels as serials; in the late twentieth century Merrilee Moss conjures up a new kind of serial fiction: of ghosts, of crime, of satire and of lesbian desire. When the ghostly Fedora interrupts Julie Barnard’s morning coffee in Brunswick Street, Julie’s life is set to change. An out-of-work PI, Julie is seduced by Fedora’s French accent and flamboyant hats, but soon discovers that wearing beautiful hats is a dangerous activity.

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Angelica’s twelve – and no angel, as she says herself. But does she deserve this crazy situation? Why? Why?Why? she punches on the keys of the computer. Why has Dad gone? Why has Mum flipped her lid? And why does that dog howl every night? Doesn’t anyone care? In Thriller and Me, Angelica sets off with Beth and try-hard Max to find out the truth. She learns heaps: about the RSPCA, back lanes, computers, gays, writing. She realises that understanding is about as close to the truth as you can get. And that nobody’s an angel.

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The C-Word is an honest and forthright account of cancer. It deals with the loneliness the partner of a sufferer faces, the gruelling treatments of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and the terror and calm of facing death. A story of a powerful lesbian partnership, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of community.

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Ruby Camp: A Snowy River Series follows the ridges and valleys of an extraordinary wilderness area, its life affected by humans. From the long habitations of Indigenous peoples, to the white settlers and this solitary woman exploring the depths of land and self. Travelling Alone Together: In the footsteps of Edward John Eyre is a meditation on three journeys across the Nullabor. Landscape and time are interwoven as Miriel Lenore explores our myths.

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Marou and Claire met at a bar in Tokyo. Separated by seventeen years in age, by their cultural origins and by the requirements of visas, they have managed to maintain their relationship through these vicissitudes. Autobiography, duography, love story, cross-cultural reflections and lesbian history, Love Upon the Chopping Board explores the personal and political dimension of lesbianism in Japan and Australia.

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A moving and often amusing collection of fiction, poetry and autobiography by top-selling and award-winning authors. Tales of blood and bloodlines – Irish grandmothers, ma’s and da’s, the Famine and the Troubles. Whatever the form, these are the stories, the music, the whispering dreams and the voices that ache to be heard. There is wildness and daring in these voices. They call up legions out of the sea and set fires alight. They hang out over garden fences, move restlessly, are dotey, beaming, weeping, powerful.

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Every retelling of a myth is a reworking of it. Every hearing or reading of a myth is a recreation of it. It is only when we engage with a myth that it resonates, becomes charged and recharged with meaning. And so it is in Building Babel, a book that re-engages with myth through the cyberworld, where worlds intersect and are transformed.

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Two poets known for delving into history and myth turn their attention to inner spaces, to time and the body's arcs. Jordie Albiston voices the unspoken languages of the body unearthing the complexity of memory, of desire and the art of the corporeal. Diane Fahey revisits the travelling body as it inhales memories of architecture and landscape. Scouring the body and the land for mines of trauma and of knowledge hard-won.

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Since the 1960s radical feminists have worked to articulate a vision of the world in which all women are safe and are acknowledged as human beings in their own right. Their projects include Take Back the Night campaigns, establishing women’s refuges, rape crisis centres, health centres, organising against pornography and developing courses in Women’s Studies. The richness of the practice and the theory of radical feminism is often misrepresented or unknown. Radically Speaking tells this important story.

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The first problem is the return of the nightmare. Elena dreams of a white horse lying dead in a river; a mare with a huge pale wound in her side. She lies half out of the water, her wound washed clean and cold by the moving current. Elena attempts to call out the mare’s name but her throat is frozen with grief. Khryse is writing a film script based on The Iliad. As the script unfolds, some of the lives around her also unravel. Khryse notices the refracting Homeric world on the border between the modern city and its seafront. Narratives of death, betrayal and glory are entangled in lives disrupted by violence, love, sex and obsession.

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Cowrie travels to Hawaii and as she circles the island in an old pick-up truck we discover the tokens of her heritage. Sensual and sexual language brings the earth to life, and Cowrie too as she tests the limits of her endurance and explores her erotic connection with the earth. Island life erupts through the descriptions and you can taste the tropical fruit, the fish cooked in banana leaves and coconut, and smell the sweet fresh ginger.

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Other work by the author includes "Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution" and "The Spinster and Her Enemies".

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What happens when an Australian feminist falls in love with an Irish monk? Robyn Rowland travelled to Ireland hoping to delve into her family's history. She circles the country, driving its roads in search of something more. What she finds is risk, uncertainty, clarity and turbulence. Is this love wasted, dry and juiceless? Or is the tearing what love should be all about? In poems that soar and wreck themselves at the base of cliffs, Robyn Rowland takes us into a raw and exultant world.

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Is it true that women use technology, but that men fall in love with it? What are the effects of electronic networks, of cyber-relationships on class, race and gender boundaries? Dale Spender reveals that men are writing the road rules for the superhighway and subjecting women to new forms of harassment, virtual violence and data rape. But she also conveys her sheer delight in these new technologies arguing that it is creating unimaginable opportunities in education and authoring.

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What is it like to be adopted, have your identity changed and never feel quite at home in your new family, despite being loved? What is it like to become a social worker and be faced with the challenges and consequences of other adoptions every day? What is it like to hear the moving National Apology for Forced Adoptions by Prime Minister Julia Gillard in 2013 only to be faced a few months later by a new prime minister intent on forgetting all the lessons learnt and championing a deregulated parent-centred market-driven adoption industry? Penny Mackieson takes us on her journey with the unique perspective of both the adopted person and a professional who worked in intercountry adoption for over a decade. She unravels the complexity, debunks the myths, analyses the policies and raises important questions about the ethical and human rights dilemmas in adoption.Adoption Deception: A personal and professional journey is a passionate, heart-wrenching and unflinchingly honest account of one woman’s life as an adopted person and her campaign for change. The author presents a compelling argument for Permanent Care instead of adoption for vulnerable children unable to be raised by their families.

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How do you pick up the pieces after your life is shattered by war? How do you continue living when your country no longer exists, your language is no longer spoken and your family is divided, not just by distance but by politics too? What happens when your old identity is taken from you and a new one imposed, one that you never asked for? When Olivera Simić was seven years old, President Tito died. Old divisions re-emerged as bitter ethnic conflicts unfolded. War arrived in 1992. People were no longer Yugoslavs but Serbs, Croatians, Bosniaks. Old friends became enemies overnight. In this heartfelt account of life before, during and after the Bosnian War and the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, Simić talks of her transition from peace to war and back again. She shows how she found the determination to build a new life when the old one was irretrievable.

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The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s is remembered as a time of great freedom for women. But did the sexual revolution have the same goals as the Women’s Liberation Movement? Was it truly liberation for women or just another insidious form of oppression? In this provocative book, Sheila Jeffreys argues that sexual freedom sometimes directly opposed actual freedom for women. Anticlimax traces sexual mores and attitudes from the 1950s to the 1990s, exploring the nature of both straight and gay relationships and offering original and compelling commentary on Lolita, Naked Lunch, The Joy of Sex, the Masters/Johnson report, and other representations in the literature on sexuality. At the root of sexual liberation, Sheila Jeffreys finds an increasing eroticisation of power differences within heterosexual, lesbian and gay communities. Her alternative vision of sexual relations based on equality is a major statement in the debates over sex and violence, that remain relevant in discussions over SlutWalk, sexualisation of girls and the pervasiveness of porn culture.

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In the tradition of Gertrude Stein, Finola Moorhead set about writing A Handwritten Modern Classic in 1977. The result is musings and criticisms on protestors clashing with police over freeways, political change, conservatism, Malcolm Fraser, what love can do for you, and whether the old hate the young. With discussions on the politics of suicide and unshaven armpits, one of Australia’s most intriguing experimental writers has set her thoughts to writing.

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If the human being is allowed to be genetically manipulated and made by artificial means in the laboratory in an unstoppable crescendo of experimentation, what will be left to defend? This book is a radical critique of gender ideology and transhuman design. Silvia Guerini shows how the TQ+ rights agenda is being pushed by eugenicist capitalist technocrats at the top of Big Business, Big Philanthropy, Big Tech and Big Pharma companies. She argues that dissociation from our sexed bodies leads to dissociation from reality, with the human body transformed into a permanent construction site besieged by synthetic and artificial interventions. Erasure of the material dimension of bodies and sexual difference is an erasure of women. She explains how fundamental struggles such as the fight against genetic engineering and the fight against artificial reproduction can only advance in conjunction with an opposition to gender ideology. By linking ‘gender identity’ to the genetic modification of bodies, she warns that humanity itself is at risk of becoming a synthetic life form with synthetic emotions within a virtual, fluid, deconstructed metaverse. Today, being revolutionary means preserving everything that makes us human. It means defending the living world and nature as entities to be respected, not as parts that can be broken down and redesigned in a laboratory world. The idea of the ‘neutral’ body and body modification pave the way for the construction of the post-human cyborg and the genetic engineering of bodies. Is the last bioethical barrier about to be breached to give way to transhumanist demands? And at what cost?

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In this blisteringly persuasive and piercingly intelligent book, Sheila Jeffreys argues that women live under penile imperialism, a regime in which men are assumed to have a ‘sex right’ of access to the bodies of women and girls. She reasons that the ‘sexual revolution’ that began in the 1960s unleashed an explicit male sexual liberation and that even now, under current laws and cultural mores, women do not have the right to self-determination in relation to their bodies. Sheila Jeffreys argues that the exercise of the male sex right has mainstreamed misogynist attitudes and so-called sexual freedom has meant the freedom of men to use women and children with impunity. The power dynamics of sex, rather than being eliminated, has been eroticised, supported by state regulations and structures that have further entrenched male domination. And while men’s sexual fetishisms such as BDSM and transvestism have been normalised, women now have to fight as their spaces are being erased and their voices silenced in a faux inclusivity that has ‘naturalised’ sexual harassment. Sheila Jeffreys contends that women’s human rights are profoundly harmed and sexual violence is used more than ever to enforce social control of women. This is a sobering and brilliant analysis of the modern predicament of women that is impossible to ignore.

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A new definition of woman has taken hold in Western societies. Instead of a matter of biology and material reality, we are told it is an identity. Anyone who declares herself to be a woman is a woman; the body has henceforth become irrelevant. Gender, we are told, is a spectrum, and it resides in the mind. In countries such as Norway, Canada, Argentina, and Australia, laws have been enacted that give anyone the right to change his or her legal sex, irrespective of whether the person has had a medical procedure. At the same time, the industry for gender reassignment surgery is growing at an unprecedented pace. Seven out of 10 teenagers who seek treatment are now girls. The new definition of sex has been hailed as progressive. But is it really? And is it new? In this groundbreaking book, Swedish feminist and Marxist author Kajsa Ekis Ekman traces the ideological roots of this new definition.

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An oriole sings to a dying father. A bleeding-heart dove saves the day. A crow wakes a woman’s resolve. Owls help a boy endure isolation. Cockatoos attend the laying of the dead. Always there are birds in these linked stories that pay homage to kindness amidst loss, grief, discord and displacement, from Australia to the Philippines, across cultures and species. When we encounter that snag in the breath, that shadow of a wing, we hope to remember kindness. Kindness cannot self-isolate. It moves both ways and all ways, like breath.

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When the Ngarrindjeri women of South Australia asked Diane Bell if she would work with them in the running of some workshops to develop a booklet about culture and governance, none of them realised quite where it would take them. This book is the result. It has developed from a booklet to a book that outlines their visions for the future. A future in which their culture is respected, their stories heard, their laws carried out.

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Around the world, people looked to the skies to tell them when to sow and harvest their crops, and when the rains would come. The ‘sailing stars’ have guided explorers and endless migrations of people. In Old Europe, among the Ainu of Japan and in Indigenous Australia the Pleiades were associated with water and birds. They become Oceanids, Ice Maidens, Water Girls and the Subaru. The Parthenon in Athens, the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt and the Mayan Temple of the Sun in Cuzco, are all said to be aligned with the Pleiades. The Seven Sisters of the Pleiades will amaze and awe you, and above all will remind you that all of humanity shares the night skies.

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In this ground-breaking book, Judy Atkinson skilfully and sensitively takes readers into the depths of sadness and despair and, at the same time, raises us to the heights of celebration and hope. She presents a disturbing account of the trauma suffered by Australia's Indigenous people and the resultant geographic and generational 'trauma trails' spread throughout the Country. Then, through the use of a culturally appropriate research approach called Dadirri: Listening to one another, Judy presents and analyses the stories of a number of Indigenous people. From her analysis of these 'stories of pain, stories of healing', she is able to point both Indigenous and Non-Indigenous readers in the direction of change and healing.

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Our house was a single-fronted cottage in the slum area of Carlton. There were no distinctive features to differentiate it from most of the small cottages ... Zelda D'Aprano, a working-class woman at the forefront of the Women's Liberation Movement in Australia, shows in her autobiography the same raw spirit she evidenced when chaining herself to the Commonwealth Building in Melbourne to protest unequal pay on 21 October 1969. The life of a remarkable woman who often battled alone for what women today take for granted. Zelda is a moving, down-to-earth recounting of the past, an insightful criticism of how society is structured and reminds us of the exuberance of the Women's Liberation Movement.

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The eyes catch a black bird close to an eerie sun. Instantly, a poem: an accident of composition. Or a tree, rock, light from a story heard, dreamt, read or remembered returns as if it were the only tree, rock, light in the planet. The poet is caught, returned to her first heart: poetry. After four novels, Merlinda offers seventy-six poems from the stillness of contemplation to the spinning of tales, then to passage across different histories. Glass becomes eternal greens underwater, fish gossip about colonisation, a gumnut turns dissident, and the dreams of Captain Cook and Pigafetta circumnavigate the globe leaving a trail of blood, beads, and the scent of cloves. But in between, the poet hopes: ‘there could be accidents / of kindness here.’

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In Defence of Separatism is a timely book. When it was first written in 1976, although it was an important subject of conversation among many feminists it was not welcomed by academics or publishers. When a political group wants to strategise so that its members can arrive at agreed-on political tactics and ideas, they call for, and create, separate spaces. These might be in coffee shops, in community centres, in one another's homes or in semi-public spaces such as workers clubs, even cinemas. When the proletariat was rebelling, they did not ask the capitalists and aristocracy to join them (even if a few did); when the civil rights movement started it was not thanks to the ideas and politics of white people (even though some whites joined to support the cause); when the women's liberation movement sprang into life, it was women joining together to fight against their oppression. The difference is that women are supposed to love men. Through careful argument, Susan Hawthorne takes us through the ideas which are central to her argument. She analyses the nature of power, oppression, domination and institutions and applies these to heterosexuality, rape and romantic love. She concludes with a call for women, all women no matter their sexuality, to have separate spaces so they can work together to change the world and end patriarchy. This 2019 edition includes a Preface, Afterword and additional commentary in italicised footnotes that bring the reader up to date on changes, developments and controversies in feminist theory.

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We are looking for a man with a hard heart; a heart of stone; a heart of a real man.One afternoon, a twelve-year-old girl goes missing near her village. The local police tell her mother and the villagers she has been taken by a wild animal. Five years later, a young government employee Amantle Bokaa finds a box bearing the label ‘Neo Kakang; CRB 45/94’. It contains evidence of human involvement in the affair. So begins an illegal and undercover struggle for justice and retribution. A powerful story of corruption, The Screaming of the Innocent challenges the romantic representations of Africa. Botswana High Court judge Unity Dow continues the fight she began with Far and Beyon’, to give her country a strong voice in the bookshelves of the world.

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This international anthology brings together research, heartbreaking personal stories from survivors of the sex industry, and theory from over thirty women and men – activists, survivors, academics and journalists. Not For Sale is groundbreaking in its breadth, analysis and honesty.

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Lé vi-Strauss tried to convince women that we are spoken, exchanged like words; Lacan tried to teach women we can’ t speak, because the phallus is the original signifier; and then Derrida says that it doesn’ t matter, it’ s just talk.Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Nietzsche: the chant resonates through universities around the world. Have you ever tried to untangle the words of postmodernist theorists? How to find your way through the labyrinth to sense and clarity? If so, this is the book for you.

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Offering an exciting ride into how the world could be, this book is the one we have been waiting for. Feminists have long been saying we could do life differently, here is the local and global exploration of what needs to change, what must go and how together we can make a new reality. A visionary book with a focus on local and global politics and social movements, Wild Politics presents a powerful critique of global western culture. Susan Hawthorne unpicks the structures of power and knowledge, law and international trade rules, as well as probing issues that intimately affect our daily lives. Wild Politics concludes with a compelling vision for a world inspired by biodiversity

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Shattering the popular myth that porn is harmless, the personal accounts of 25 brave women in He Chose Porn over Me reveal the real-life trauma experienced by women at the hands of their porn-consuming partners – men who were supposed to care for them. This confronting but necessary book dares to tell the truth about pornography’s destructive impact – about the men who habitually use it and the women and children who are mistreated and discarded as a result. The women in this book were collateral damage in their partner’s insatiable greed for porn. Their stories tell of the crushing of intimacy, respect, connection, love. Porn colonised their families, leaving women rejected and scarred. They were subjected to sexual terrorism in their own homes. The men, turbo-charged by pornography, were intoxicated by sexualised power. They didn’t care if they lost everything including their partners. In this haunting expose, pornography is rightfully situated as an insidious tool of violence against women. The contributors, now working to re-build their lives, found a confidante in Melinda Tankard Reist who supported them in the sharing of their experiences in these pages, and to warn other women – don’t date men who use porn …

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Do we want to live in a world without birdsong? The pesticides, the coal mines, the clear-felling forestry industry, the industrial farmers are destroying the earth with their insistence on profit. But what point is profit on a dead and silent planet? In this enlightening yet devastating book, Susan Hawthorne writes with clarity and incisiveness on how patriarchy is wreaking destruction on the planet and on communities. The twin mantras of globalisation and growth expounded by the neoliberalism that has hijacked the planet are revealed in all their shabby deception. Backed by meticulous research, the author shows how so-called advances in technology are, like a Trojan horse, used to mask sinister political agendas that sacrifice the common good for the shallow profiteering of corporations and mega-rich individuals. The biotechnologists see the lure of cure, rising share prices and profits. She details how women, lesbians, people with disabilities, Indigenous peoples, the poor, refugees and the very earth itself are being damaged by the crisis of patriarchy that is sucking everyone into its vortex. Importantly, this precise and insightful volume also shows what is needed to get ourselves out of this spiral of destruction: a radical feminist approach with compassion and empathy at its core. Shame is an emotion of the powerless because they cannot change the rules. The book shows a way out of the vortex: it is now up to the collective imagination and action of people everywhere to take up the challenges Susan Hawthorne shows are needed. This is a vital book for a world in crisis and should be read by everyone who cares about our future.

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Nicole Brossard is known internationally for her writings on writing, on feminism and on lesbian existence. This edition released for a new wave of feminist outrage is a book full of spirit, energy, insight and chutzpah (or maybe cheek). She is a major voice in contemporary literature with incisive and hard-hitting essays about feminist imagination and culture. I believe there's only one explanation for all of these texts: my desire and my will to understand patriarchal reality and how it works, not for its own sake but for its tragic consequences in the lives of women, in the life of the spirit. Years of anger, revolt, certitude and conviction are in The Aerial Letter, years of fighting against the screen which stands in the way of women's energy, identity and creativity. —Nicole Brossard

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1999. Winter. Bondi. Harry’s been on the streets so long he could easily forget what time is. So Harry keeps an eye on it. Every morning. Then he heads to the beach to chat with the gulls. Or he wanders through the streets in search of food, clothes, Jules. When the girl on the bus sees him, lonely and cold in the bus shelter that he calls home, she thinks about how she can help. She decides to write a symphony for him. So begins a poignant and gritty tale of homelessness and shelter, of the realities of loneliness and hunger, and of the hopes and dreams of those who often go unnoticed on our streets. This is the story of two outcasts – one a young woman struggling to find her place in an alien world, one an older man seeking refuge and solace from a life in tatters. It is also about the transformative power of care and friendship, and the promise of escape that music holds. An uplifting and heartbreaking story that demands empathy. Amid the struggles to belong and fit in, we are reminded that small acts of kindness matter. And big dreams are possible.

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One day there will be peace in Vietnam. But not before more war. Touched by the Lady of the Realm, Liên dreams of bones and bodies under the sea. The prescient warnings from the Lady weigh heavily on Liên, who is burdened by her inability to save everyone. But she knows too that the Lady speaks most to those who listen. Set against the background of the Vietnam/American War, we follow Liên’s path across five decades that are punctuated by endless war and suffering. Yet even in the most desperate of times, Liên refuses to be ruled by fear and anger and persists in her hope for a peaceful future. But will hope be enough?

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