AustLit

'Woman is a debate, a discussion about what makes woman a person. Woman can only ever be what men have made her. She cannot make herself, learn by herself, create herself. She is object not subject. She is categorised, labelled and cut away into smaller and smaller margins. This is woman. That is not. Woman is flat, one-dimensional and always too large. Woman is defined. Men just are, as they have always been.' (Introduction)

Two years ago I wrote an essay for Meanjin titled 'A View from a Treehouse' (no. 3, 2016). It was the story of my brush with homelessness. Divorce, debt and redundancy had crashed me out of my comfortable existence and into a chilling moment where I lost my job and was within days of losing my home and my children as well. At the last minute serendipity gave me a sublet on a tiny flat with a jury-rigged enclosed wooden patio on the second floor, sitting just under a huge old tree. I called it my treehouse and it became my workplace and my refuge.' (Introduction)