AustLit

'My encounter with ‘Cat person’ occurred at a crucial moment in its social media circulation; just after the initial distribution began its wane into oversaturation, but before any coherent object of critique had appeared to take place of the text itself. Its mentions on my various timelines were equal parts celebratory and dismissive, each post asking and answering for the story’s expertise, most defensive against an assumed inevitable backlash.' (Introduction)

'As Millicent Weber pointed out a little while back in Overland, ‘literary festivals are complex beasts’. Particularly in recent years, they appear to have become more politicised, more contested spaces – exemplary of the tension that results when a ‘cultural project’, with presumed egalitarian aims, has a light shone on it by the market model it operates on, which doesn’t favour all people equally.' (Introduction)