AustLit

'How do you best tell the story of Australia's most enigmatic bushranger - Captain Moonlite? The stories he told of his life conflict with the stories told by others, which conflict with the records. A well-educated man, in and out of asylums and prison, who finally found his purpose and his love leading a small gang of young men. Until they followed him into violent chaos.

'This book is a creative retelling of history, using many perspectives of fact and time - both yesteryear and today - to try and capture something of Moonlite the man, and the society that made him.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Sitting down in a series of interviews with 27 men aged between 74 and 95, David Gould discovered lives - now rapidly being lost to history - that were lived under the shadow of homophobic prejudice. Their stories reveal how men tried to make sense of their same-sex attraction in an era when homosexuality was defined as a mental illness and criminal. Their narratives reveal how these men made sense of their lives and desires, how they responded to social expectations about family and marriage and found sex at a time when it was proscribed by law, condemned by society, and luridly sensationalised by the media. Many of them suffered terribly, but what also emerge are stories of resilience and, sometimes, joy.' (Publication summary)

'A study of 20th century female friendship played out in Australia and England. Ms Martin concentrates on two important friendships in the life of writer and political activist, Mary Fullerton. Mabel Singleton, Mary's companion of more than 30 years, and the parenting of Mabel's only child inform research into the erotic elements of their writings. While Miles Franklin and Mary were colleagues, all three were devoted friends.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Here are stories that challenge the conventional views of working class women and their struggles. Strikes and demonstrations throughout the 20th century shatter traditional images of women as passive victims. From the women of Broken Hill, who fought strike-breakers with axes and broom handles in the early part of the century through the 1930s Depression and World War II through to the postwar period, women played an important role in strikes and unemployed movements.

'Rebel Women also challenges those accounts which see the enemy as 'patriarchy' rather than capitalism, or which deny the relevance of the class altogether. These women fought their oppression alongside working men, as participants in - and leaders of - the class struggle. Frequently they had to confront opposition from middle class or upper class women. Many were sustained by a socialist vision.

'First published in 1999, this new enhanced edition makes these inspiring stories available to new generations.'(Publication summary)

'For the first time, this unique collection of essays brings the stories of New Theatre branches together from around the country, filling a vital space in Australian cultural history. Radical left-wing theatre history tales, told by theatre practitioners, historians, academics and political ratbags, reveal a rich vein of Australia's hidden cultural heritage.

'The New Theatre, one of the country's oldest continuously performing theatres, began life inspired by British and American early radical theatre groups. Growing as a series of branches, initially as Workers' Art Clubs in Sydney and Melbourne, they soon adopted the New Theatre League name. Other branches followed, in Brisbane, Perth, Newcastle and Adelaide, with some branches disbanding and then reforming over the decades. The Sydney branch remains active, with an unbroken record of performances from 1932 to today.

'For much of the twentieth century, the branches of Australia's New Theatre created theatre for the people by the people, reclaiming and creating stories of creativity, protest and ingenuity. The theatre's strong tradition of performing socially and politically relevant work attracted a mainly working-class following dedicated to subverting the politics and cultural norms of the day, pushing back hard against exploitation of the working class, sexism, racism, and war. All together they produced over 400 plays, written by Australian and overseas dramatists seeking not only to develop cultural activism locally but also to embody the broader aims and aspirations of an international working-class theatre movement.

'Closely aligned with the Communist Party and the unions, New Theatre had social justice at the heart of everything they did. They advocated for freedom and democracy, aiming to activate their audiences politically, and create authentic, non-commercial Australian drama about real lives and situations their audience could identify with. They wanted to tell the stories nobody else was telling, about the real lives of working-class people - the suffering, the drudgery, the ill-treatment, and danger that were facts of life for their audience.

'The New Theatre was unique in its range of performance sites. Productions were performed in small theatres, on the streets, from the back of a truck, in workplaces, down a mine for striking miners and next to dole queues; whether it was on a street corner in working-class Fitzroy in Melbourne, on the banks of the muddy Brisbane River, or on the Port Kembla wharves, the New Theatre was there. Requests for performances came from factories, rural and regional localities, and country towns. Their presentations on street corners, union and trade halls, large factories and workplaces such as railway yards and wharves were remembered long after the applause died away.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'My grandmother was one of Australia's greatest novelists, my grandfather won the Victoria Cross for gallantry and my father was hounded all his life as a spy.

'This is a three generational story. It's about my life; it's about my father, Ric; it's about my grandparents, the writer Katharine Susannah Prichard and the war hero Hugo Throssell. It's a study of the psychology of spies and those who obsess about them, a narrative of guilt and innocence told through poetry, prose and historical documents. It's a tale from another time - but one with obvious relevance, given how regularly governments rely on fear and scapegoating today.

'Let me tell you what was done to my family.' (Publication summary)