AustLit

'Written from a place of deep understanding and love, this beautiful book explores and explains for young children what it means to be gender diverse.

'There are so many ways to be a girl, a boy, both - or neither.

'Created by writer Romy Ash and illustrator Blue Jaryn, this beautiful picture book shows us that there is no right way to be any gender.

'You can just be yourself.

'Perfect for young children, As Bright As a Rainbow explores gender identity in a warm-hearted and gentle way.'  (Publication summary)

'Especially since the arrival of the global pandemic, we have had to reconsider what it means to be present for – and to – one another as writerly peers. For mid-career novelists with complex lives like us, this has meant rethinking what a ‘group’ is and what being part of one might mean: must we be physically present? Could we develop asynchronous practices that retained the intimacy of face-to-face interaction? This essay shares our collective experience, from articulating what we wanted from a writing group, to experimenting with different approaches to being together, and finally to adopting audio recordings – a specific type of ‘talk’ giving voice to our novels in progress – as our preferred method and reflecting on possible reasons for that. We developed this way of being together at a moment, post lockdowns, when it was again legal to meet in person. With more than one person. Many writer-reader groups pivoted online during the pandemic; our experience is part of that story, a reaction to it. Talking online using video chat platforms took energy; it was exhausting. The audio recording as ‘talk’ was surprisingly intimate and allowed us to connect collectively as our worlds opened back up. As creatives working on long-form sole-authored books, we are committed to the possibilities of the collective. No solitary geniuses here! We all need someone – or some ones – to wash the sheets, shop for coffee, make the soup, feed the birds. ' (Introduction)

'A visit to the home of author, actor and founder of transgender support network Transcend, Rebekah Robertson.' 

'Housebound with an infant, the author watches the street life unfold. '