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Double Book Launch

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Dark Matters - a novel (Susan Hawthorne)

In a dawn raid, Kate is arrested. She is imprisoned, beaten, kept awake and tortured. She has no idea what has happened to her partner, Mercedes. The uncertainty plagues her. It is as if she has no history. Trying to retain her sense of self in a swirling psychic state, she invents stories of her female family - mother, grandmothers and aunts - in the rich mythic traditions of Greece. But what of Mercedes and her family in South America?

Susan Hawthorne’s dark story uncovers the hidden histories of organised violence against lesbians. She traces fear and uncertainty, and finds a narrative of resilience created through the writing of poems.

To be launched by Suzanne Bellamy

 

Surrogacy: A human rights violation (Renate Klein)

Surrogacy is heavily promoted by the stagnating IVF industry which seeks new markets for women over 40, and gay men who believe they have a ‘right’ to their own children and ‘family foundation’. Pro-surrogacy groups in rich countries such as Australia and Western Europe lobby for the shift to commercial surrogacy. Their capitalist neo-liberal argument is that a well-regulated fertility industry would avoid the exploitative practices of poor countries.

Women, without whose bodies this project is not possible are reduced to incubators, to ovens, to suitcases.

In Surrogacy: A Human Rights Violation Renate Klein details her objections to surrogacy by examining the short- and long-term harms done to the so-called surrogate mothers, egg providers and the female partner in a heterosexual commissioning couple.

To be launched by Melinda Tankard Reist

FREE EVENT

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About the Authors

Susan Hawthorne is an award-winning writer of fiction and poetry. She has been the recipient of international residencies in Rome and Chennai, had her work played on ABC’s Poetica and been included in a number of Best of anthologies. She has translated literary works from Sanskrit, Greek and Latin and her books and poems have been translated into Arabic, French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Indonesian. Susan was the winner of the Penguin Random House Best Achievement in Writing, 2017 Inspire Award for her work increasing people’s awareness about epilepsy and the politics of disability.

Dr Renate Klein is a long-term women’s health researcher and has written extensively on reproductive technologies and feminist theory over the last thirty years. A biologist and social scientist, she was Associate Professor in Women’s Studies at Deakin University in Melbourne. She is a co-founder of FINRRAGE (Feminist International Network of Resistance to Reproductive and Genetic Engineering) and an original signatory to Stop Surrogacy Now.

This event is being organised by Spinifex Press

Earlier Event: October 22
FWF - Giving Up the Good Girl
Later Event: October 29
Hugh Riminton - Minefields