AustLit

'BlakWork by Alison Whittaker is a unique hybrid of poetry, memoir, reportage, legal documentation, fiction, non-fiction, satire, and social commentary. But to label it – to assign it a genre among the vast array of western categories that exist, would I think, risk oversimplification. It is a work that defies both genre and gender categorisations and the restrictions imposed by colonialism to situate itself at the centre of many intersections; and it both embraces and interrogates these spaces from within. At the core of all these intersections is Whittaker’s Aboriginality – her Gomeroi Country and culture.' (Introduction)

'Dozens of literary journals adorn the bookshelves of my Alice Springs office. Whether I have read them from cover to cover is another matter. Usually I scan each volume like a kitehawk scavenging for prey, dive for a morsel or two, move on. Trouble is, for a writer such journals are widely considered a pathway to publication. The loosely-stacked volumes are mostly trial subscriptions, a single year of editions purchased at a discount that couldn’t be missed. Next year I ‘traded up’ to a different journal, hoping for something better, Griffith Review, The Lifted Brow, right-leaning Quadrant, left-leaning Overland, and somewhere in between, Granta.' (Introduction)

'You have to remember things were different back then. In 1989, when Working Hot was published, homosexual acts in NSW had been decriminalised for only five years; in Tasmania they would remain illegal for another eighteen. Teachers, public servants, most particularly employees of the Catholic Church, were often sacked if their homosexuality was disclosed. The films In the Realm of the Senses and John Waters’ uncut Pink Flamingos were banned.' (Introduction)