Two years ago, looking up/looking down presented a series on Western Australian women writers to watch out for. As I wrote then:

There’s so much creative energy among writers on the western edge—some of it being nurtured in university writing programs, some finding inspiration and support through writers centres, some brewing entirely independently. This four-part series features eight WA women who are part of that creative flurry. All of them have a manuscript ready, or nearly ready, to submit to agents and publishers, and I hope we’ll be hearing a lot more from them in the future.

It’s a true pleasure to observe the evolution of a creative life, and I’m delighted to present an update on what some of them have been doing. Here’s how Michelle Michau-Crawford and Emily Paull responded to an invitation to review their last two years of writing…

Michelle Michau-Crawford

When I was invited in…

Re:  SURROGACY AND THE IDENTITYRITES SUBMISSION

It has been brought to my attention that a position we took in our paper may be used to increase adoptions through surrogacy, and that was not our intention.  I would like to add further information.

This is in regards to the answer we gave under the point of same sex and single sex parents.   We included a paragraph about surrogacy, which we now believe should be treated separately to the Adoption Act.  What we said about same sex and single sex relations in paragraphs 1 and 2 remain our position.

In paragraph 3 we said ‘We assume ‘adoption’ laws will be needed to give these children some identifying information, even if it is false’ (pg.9 of our original submission). I now believe this assumption is wrong and shortsighted.

We do not support adoptions. Nor do we support surrogacy.

• There is enough evidence of…

We are a group of adults who are adopted. We wish to have input for consideration in reviewing the Adoption Act.  We believe some comments are also relevant to the Child Protection Systems Royal Commission and ask that you forward our submission to Commissioner Nyland.

As adoptees, the adoption process is supposed to act in our best interests, and for our welfare.  Yet as adult adoptees, we have found it very difficult to be fairly represented in the debates about adoption.   We believe the adoption industry has hijacked the debate to provide children for adults who find they cannot live their lives without children.  We question which children need to go into any care arrangements outside their extended families?  We also question the suitability and imagination of adults to take an authoritarian charge of another woman’s child simply because they find their lives are ‘incomplete’ without children.

We note ‘In…

This is the third of a four-part series featuring Western Australian women writers who have a manuscript either ready, or almost ready, to submit. I’m sure you’re going to be hearing more from them in the future.

In this post, I welcome Karen Overman and Kim Coull.

Karen Overman

Karen has published a collection of short stories, Night Flight from Marabar (1999), and her 2009 novel, The Avenue of Eternal Tranquillity (a favourite of mine), won a Nautilus Award for Visionary Fiction, announced at the New York Book Fair in 2010. As a short story writer, she has won the Irish Famine Literary Award and the Australian-Irish Heritage Association Award, and as a playwright, the SWY Theatre Company Young Playwrights Award. Her plays have been performed at the Festival of Perth and the Octagon Theatre.

Karen’s manuscript—working title The Blue Moment—is a work of literary fiction in the…

The next wave is a four-part series featuring exciting Western Australian women writers with manuscripts ready for submission or nearly there. I hope you’ll remember their names and watch out for their published work.

My final two guests are Michelle Michau-Crawford and Louise Allan.

Michelle Michau-Crawford

Michelle and I share a love of short stories—and Paris. Michelle recently spent a month there, collects French literature and is currently attempting to learn French so she can read her collection. ‘Despite it being the so-called City of Love,’ she says, ‘it is my favourite place to visit alone.’ Her love affair with the city began by accident on a trip in 2008. Having been a huge Leonard Cohen fan all her life, she discovered he was performing in Lyon two weeks after a conference she was attending in Dublin. ‘I extended my trip, bought a scalped ticket and went to Lyon…

Welcome to part 2 of this four-part series featuring emerging Western Australian women writers with manuscripts ready—or almost ready—to submit to agents and publishers. In this post my guests are Amanda Gardiner and Emily Paull.

Amanda Gardiner

If a wide range of life experiences gives a writer great source material, Amanda already has a store that should last her forever. ‘I have been an au pair, a FIFO at a gold mine, a shelf stacker, and a lecturer, tutor and researcher at university.  I have worn tiny shorts and a too-small t-shirt and served food and drinks to rich people on a luxury yacht. I have been an apprentice painter and decorator and an actor. I have edited a journal and a book. I house-sat for three and a half years and moved over 30 times. I have sold antique jewellery, presented my research at conferences, organised symposia, and…

Western Australian women writers have produced some exciting and successful novels in 2014. New releases have included Annabel Smith’s much-anticipated interactive novel, The Ark; Deb Fitzpatrick’s first novel for adults (after three highly successful junior and young adult books), The Break; Dawn Barker’s second novel, Let Her Go; Felicity Young’s third in the Dr Dody McCleland series, The Scent of Murder; Kate McCaffrey’s new young adult novel, Crashing Down; and superlative new novels from two of my long-time favourites, Simone Lazaroo with Lost River and Joan London with The Golden Age. And if we ‘own’ Brooke Davis as Western Australian, as we tend to do, then there’s also the publishing phenomenon that is Lost & Found.

I’m looking forward to what 2015 will bring—and beyond that. There’s so much creative energy among writers on the western edge—some of it being nurtured in university…