AustLit

'Either I am writing my body, or my body is writing me. It’s not always clear which way around it goes. Every day I sit down at my desk, and my fingers move over the keys, and they produce text. They produce a piece of writing that is both memoir and theory, speaking and spoken, signifier and signified. Flesh made of paper–not the neat stacks you buy in blocks, so white it is blue, edges like blades. Flesh made of paper the way it used to be made: it is clear that this page was once wood. There are remnants, splinters that make my pen jump. The colour is a softened yellow, plied through with light brown. There is a pulpy smell; organic and full of mountain air, like I am breathing mist, like the words written here are cooling my lungs, then warming to match the temperature of blood, of me. Its edges invite my touch. Its edges are soft, torn things that flake away as I write. Flesh made of paper, paper made of wood; I am interleaved and dreaming of dirt and green things and blood. ' (Author's introduction)