Emily Paull

This speech was presented at the City of Vincent Library for International Women's Day 2021 lucia on Unsplash Until about a week ago, this was going to be a very different sort of talk.  As women—and I have particularly experienced this as a young woman— we are expected to be many things. Neat, tidy, presentable. Cheerful, friendly. Inoffensive. Quiet. Humble.  Little girls should be seen and not heard. Isn’t that the expression? There’s another expression I’ve heard a lot lately too. Boys will be boys. These seemingly harmless platitudes are actually doing real damage, managing our expectations of how people are supposed to behave. They are the reason that women who speak out get labelled as troublemakers, and the reason that no one says anything when someone makes a sexist joke. I’m sure every woman in this room can think of an occasion where they’ve been in a situation where someone has said something either about them, or about another woman, that they’ve found inappropri...

I've been thinking a lot about how short fiction writers learn their craft lately. As much as we can, we learn the building blocks like plot, character, etc., but there's something intangible about short fiction that can only be learned by reading widely. This is a list of short story collections that I would recommend to anyone wanting to improve their craft. Well-Behaved Women by Emily Paull You think it, I’ll say it by Curtis Sittenfeld Salt Slow by Julia Armfield You know you want this / Cat Person and other stories by Kristen Roupenian Animal Wife by Lara Erlich Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado Ordinary Matter by Laura Elvery Australia Day by Melanie Cheng Pulse Points by Jennifer Down A Constant Hum by Alice Bishop Bird Country by Claire Aman The Weight of a Human Heart by Ryan O’Neill This Taste for Silence by Amanda O’Callaghan Fabulous Lives by Bindy Prichard Skyglow by Leslie Thiele Smart Ovens for Lonely People by Elizabeth Tan Fabulous Lives by Bin...

  Eye of A Rook Josephine Taylor Fremantle Press, 2021 (This review was originally published by the AU review on February 11, 2021) Josephine Taylor ‘s debut novel is something a little bit different for Fremantle Press. Mixing historical fiction with contemporary,  Eye of a Rook  takes a look at women’s health throughout recent centuries, shining a light particularly on attitudes to chronic illnesses and women’s pain. Based on the author’s own experiences with vulvodynia, Taylor hopes that this book will spark a conversation about invisible illnesses, and about believing that those who suffer are not simply malingerers and attention seekers. Eye of a Rook  begins with its contemporary storyline. Alice and her partner Duncan are driving to see a new physiotherapist recommended by another member of Alice’s support group for vulvodynia sufferers. Vulvodynia – chronic, debilitating and unexplained nerve pain in the vulva which cannot be linked to a specific cause – has ...