‘A decade since the launch of the vaccine a book questions the claim it prevents cancer,’ wrote Carolyn Moynihan as she began her review of my book Gardasil: Fast-Tracked and Flawed published in August in MercatorNet. Her review was fair with her concluding paragraph: Lobato concludes her book with an appeal to the media to do their job and give the public the fuller story about the HPV vaccine. You […]
A terrific new novella by Hoa Pham Wave explores the alienation of being an international student in Australia with great pathos and depth, told with Hoa Pham’s characteristic compassion and lyricism.—Alice Pung
In Haifa Fragments khulud khamis unpacks the multiple layers of culture, religion, sexuality, politics, feminism and nationalism in the hope of gathering the fragmented pieces of the past and reclaiming the lost contiguity of being Palestinian. – Samah Sabawi, Palestinian playwright and commentator Maisoon is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, raised as a Christian and in a relationship with a Muslim. Her boyfriend Ziyad wants the tradition-defying Maisoon to commit […]
What happened to the opinion page? Remember The Age when it was a broadsheet and there were three or more opinion pieces in the middle pages that bordered the letters to the editor. These were lengthy pieces of analysis on topics relating to current public debate. Usually 800-1000 words of worthy content engaging the reader and leading to enjoyable swapping of ideas and information among family and friends later in the day. Of course […]
P.D. James on writing: “Write what you need to write, not what is currently popular or what you think will sell.”
Last Woman Hanged written by journalist and author Caroline Overington is the story of Louisa Collins. Twice married, Collins endured not just one, but four trials for the murder of her second husband and was finally convicted of his murder and hanged. It’s also story of how the courageous women of New South Wales and beyond rallied to fight for the life of this unfortunate woman and in the process women’s rights and suffrage […]
On ABC TV’s ‘Foreign Correspondent’ program July 8, reporter Jane Cowan took a critical look at commercial surrogacy. The Last Resort was filmed in Cancun, Mexico where poor women, often from rural villages come to the popular tourist city hoping to become surrogate mothers. In Mexico successful surrogates are paid up to $13,000 for the delivery of a child to desperate infertile western couples. The business of surrogacy takes place at Planet Hospital, […]
Surviving Peace: A Political Memoir is described by author and feminist Kathleen Barry as a deeply human narrative set within the growing body of feminist writings on war. Olivera Simić tells the story of her life which changed irrevocably after the death of the former Yugoslavian President, Josip Tito when she was just seven years old. ‘I was proud to be a Yugoslavian girl and belonged to what I regarded as a heterogeneous […]
Common sense should dictate that the issue of abortion be left to pregnant women to decide. But when the history of women’s fight for the right to abortion is considered, it’s no wonder it’s still firmly in the hands of wheeling and dealing politicians. In the state of Victoria, abortion has made the headlines for the last two weeks with the Independent and balance-of-power MP Geoff Shaw plotting the […]
This post is timely for it is now 159 years since the famous uprising known as the Eureka Stockade. The story of the massacre in Ballarat on December 3, 1854 after police and soldiers broke the miner’s stronghold is one of Australia’s great stories, but according to Claire Wright, author of The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, the story we learned as children neglected half of the participants-the women.
helenlobato.com 