When I was 23, I was elated to land my first corporate job. But I also felt out of place in the busy office complex, where everyone was older than me and wore a lot of black. I applied myRead more…
Fiction: Epistles – A Power Family
Dear Mum, Another horrible date last night. I know I’ve talked about trying to be more receptive to different views and personalities but sometimes it’s not possible. She wasn’t funny. She was trying to be funny but she wasn’t. YouRead more…
2017 reading wrap-up: incredible books from Australian female authors
Australian female authors face a double whammy in getting work read: the apparent cultural cringe that can afflict Australian readers and the fact that work from male authors is still more likely to get reviewed. In the spirit of doingRead more…
Profile: Sarah Mackenzie, vegan blogger/traveller extraordinaire
Tell us a bit about yourself in a nutshell. I’m an animal loving, vegan travel blogger with 39 countries under my belt. At 28, I quit my job of seven years to go travelling (terrified that society was insisting thatRead more…
Safety in numbers – why I was inspired by the #MeToo movement
I’ve been a victim of sexual assault and emotional abuse since my teenage years. I can’t remember what age my first experience with sexual assault occurred, but I know it was too young for me to realise that it wasRead more…
The problem with #metoo in a society that normalises sexual violence
My newsfeed is flooded with confessions. The words are laced with a bittersweet sense of relief and defiance. The neon screen of the technological world that we have created feels like it is growing a deep, meandering fault line. WeRead more…
A Review of One’s Own: Bonfire by Krysten Ritter
If Bonfire has already sparked your interest, it’s no doubt because you’ve heard this debut author’s name before. Krysten Ritter – who is best-known as the “hard-drinking, short-fused mess of a woman” in Marvel’s Jessica Jones, as well as her workRead more…
Depression: what is it good for?
**Trigger warning: depression, suicide** * Conventional wisdom/lived experience would suggest nothing. But acknowledging this, for me at least, only doubles down on the shittiness you feel when you’re deep in it. Emotions of hopelessness, anxiety, despair, melancholia etc. are common,Read more…
Not just a joke: the insidiousness of racism
Recently the inevitable happened. After 11 years of living out of home, I was finally forced to assume possession of my many, many boxes of childhood memories. Going through them has been sometimes hilarious, sometimes sweet and sometimes poignant. I’veRead more…
Diary of a traveling ghost
Transylvania, Romania, May 2017 Something must happen to me in the plane. I cannot emerge from long-haul travel unchanged. I disappear into myself, in that darkness, through those lost days and nights and emerge quieter, simpler and more watchful. MyRead more…