BODY OF WORK
All day, all night the body intervenes - Virginia Woolf
Saturday 6 November 2021
10:00 am - 11:00 am
This panel seeks to explore the challenges in writing about the body, understanding the body narrative and the Curse of the Ambassador. What happens when the body becomes a mental narrative phenomenon and do we fear exposure to the part that we’re most conscious about? What bodies are currently included in current literature and what bodies need greater representation?
Moderator - Ally Garrett has been writing and speaking on body politics and fat activism for the past decade, with her writing featured on platforms including The Guardian, Daily Life and ABC Life. Ally is a regular storyteller across Sydney, often appearing at events like Queerstories and Generation Women. Her activism comes in many forms; most notably posting horny selfies on the internet.
Jennifer Mills is an author, editor and critic living on Kaurna Yerta. Mills’ novel Dyschronia was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin, Aurealis, and Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature in 2019. Mills’ latest novel is The Airways, a queer ghost story set in Sydney and Beijing, published August 2021 by Picador.
Kaya Wilson (he/they) is a writer and tsunami scientist based in Australia. His non-fiction writing blends essay and memoir to explore universal themes of identity, gender and origin. Kaya's work has been published widely including by Pan Macmillan, Brow Books, The Guardian and Griffith Review. He was the winner of the 2019 Writing NSW Varuna Fellowship, a runner-up in the 2019 Kill Your Darlings New Critic Award, longlisted for the Kill Your Darlings unpublished manuscript award, and was shortlisted for Penguin Australia's Write It Fellowship. As Beautiful As Any Other is his first book.
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Emma Barnes (Pākehā, they/them) lives in Aro Valley in Pōneke | Wellington. Their poetry has been widely published for more than a decade in journals including Landfall, Turbine | Kapohau, Cordite and Best New Zealand Poems. They are the author of the poetry collection I Am in Bed with You (2021) and the co-editor of Out Here: An anthology of Takatāpui and LGBTQIA+ writers from Aotearoa (2021).
Charlotte Charleston is a genderfluid writer born to migrant parents. Their current writing is soft and tender, focussing on transformation, rebirth, quiet contentment, and inner healing. Their work has featured in the Cordite Poetry Review, SBS Voices, Archer Magazine and they have performed at the Melbourne Writers Festival, Digital Writers Festival, Emerging Writers Festival, and a part of Quippings Disability Unleashed 2019 and .CHURCH. at Melbourne Fringe 2020. They were the 2019 recipient of the Melbourne Fringe Innovation in Culturally Diverse Practice Award.