Susan Hawthorne (born 30 November 1951) is an Australian writer, poet, political commentator and publisher. [1] Together with Renate Klein, she is co-founder and director of Spinifex Press, [2] a leading independent feminist publisher that celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2016 in Melbourne with a festival of radical feminism. [3] She and Klein were named winners of the George Robertson Award, which recognises publishers with 30 years or more service to publishing. [4]
Hawthorne is an expert in feminist publishing as well as independent publishing generally. She is the English language co-ordinator of The International Alliance of Independent Publishers (based in Paris). [5] Hawthorne has a doctorate in Women's Studies and Political Science from the University of Melbourne, [6] as well as post graduate qualifications in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit and a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Philosophy from La Trobe University. She is an adjunct professor in the Writing Program at James Cook University. [7]
Hawthorne is also an aerialist and circus performer. She has performed solo and in the Performing Older Women's Circus as well as in the Melbourne's Women's Circus. [8]
Hawthorne's writing includes poetry, fiction and non-fiction books. [9]
Her poetry collection Cow was shortlisted for the 2012 Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards and the Audre Lorde Lesbian Poetry Prize (USA). Her poetry collection Earth'sBreath was shortlisted for the 2010 Judith Wright Poetry Prize. [10]
Her novel The Falling Woman was selected as one of The Australian 's Year's Best Books (1992) and a Top Twenty Title in the Listener Women's Book Festival (NZ). [11]
The Spinifex Quiz Book was a finalist in The Australian Educational Publishing Awards (1993) [12] and Wild Politics: Feminism, Globalisation and Biodiversity was included in Australian Book Review's list of Best Books for 2002. [13]
Hawthorne has been the recipient of two international residencies: in 2013 from the Australia Council for the Arts for six months to write Lupa and Lamb in Rome and in 2009 a four-month residency for Arts Queensland and the Australia Council to Chennai, India to write Cow. [14]
Hawthorne's work has been published in Australia and internationally in anthologies and literary magazines, in the annual Best Australian Poems (three times) and broadcast on Radio National's Poetica. [14]
D. A. Clarke is an American radical feminist essayist and activist, notable for her development of feminist theory, and for the anonymous poem privilege.
Cyberfeminism is a feminist approach which foregrounds the relationship between cyberspace, the Internet, and technology. It can be used to refer to a philosophy, art practices, methodologies or community. The term was coined in the early 1990s to describe the work of feminists interested in theorizing, critiquing, exploring and re-making the Internet, cyberspace and new-media technologies in general.
Sheila Jeffreys is a former professor of political science at the University of Melbourne, born in England. A lesbian feminist scholar, she analyses the history and politics of human sexuality.
Jocelynne Annette Scutt AO is an Australian feminist lawyer, writer and commentator. She is one of Australia's leading human rights barristers, was instrumental in reform of the laws on rape and domestic violence, and has served as Anti-Discrimination Commissioner of Tasmania and as a judge on the High Court of Fiji.
Suniti Namjoshi is a poet and a fabulist. She grew up in India, worked in Canada and at present lives in the southwest of England with English writer Gillian Hanscombe. Her work is playful, inventive and often challenges prejudices such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. She has written many collections of fables and poetry, several novels, and more than a dozen children's books. Her work has been translated into several languages, including Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Chinese, Korean, Hindi and Turkish.
Louise Crisp is a contemporary Australian poet, deckhand, and fire tower watcher.
The Mary Gilmore Award is currently an annual Australian literary award for poetry, awarded by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Since being established in 1956 as the ACTU Dame Mary Gilmore Award, it has been awarded in several other categories, but has been confined to poetry since 1985. It was named in honour of writer and journalist Mary Gilmore (1865–1962).
Merlinda Bobis is a contemporary Filipina-Australian writer and academic.
Susanne Kappeler was a lecturer in English at the University of East Anglia and an associate professor at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Al Akhawayn University, and now works as a freelance writer and teacher in England and Germany. Kappeler also taught 'The literary representation of women' in the Faculty of English at Cambridge while a research fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge and was a part-time tutor for the Open University Course, 'The Changing Experience of Women', and is part of a collective setting up the Cambridge Women's Resources Centre.
Beryl Joan Fletcher was a New Zealand feminist novelist. Her first novel, The Word Burners won the 1992 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best First Book, Asia/Pacific region.
Feminist views on BDSM vary widely from acceptance to rejection. BDSM refers to bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and Sado-Masochism. In order to evaluate its perception, two polarizing frameworks are compared. Some feminists, such as Gayle Rubin and Patrick Califia, perceive BDSM as a valid form of expression of female sexuality, while other feminists, such as Andrea Dworkin and Susan Griffin, have stated that they regard BDSM as a form of woman-hating violence. Some lesbian feminists practice BDSM and regard it as part of their sexual identity.
Eva Knowles Johnson is an Aboriginal Australian poet, actor, director and playwright.
Julianne Pierce is an Australian new media artist, curator, art critic, writer, and arts administrator. She was a member of the groundbreaking group VNS Matrix. She went on to become a founding member of the Old Boys Network, another important cyberfeminist organisation. She has served as executive director of the Australian Dance Theatre and is Chair of the Emerging and Experimental Arts Strategy Panel for the Australia Council. Pierce was executive director of the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) from 2000 to 2005, based in Adelaide, and was Executive Producer of Blast Theory from 2007 to 2012, based in Brighton in the UK.
Patricia Lynn Easteal,, is an Australian academic, author, activist and advocate. She is best known for her research, publications and teaching in the area of women and the law. In 2010 she was made a Member of the Order of Australia 'For service to the community, education and the law through promoting awareness and understanding of violence against women, discrimination and access to justice for minority groups'.
Zelda Fay D'Aprano was an Australian feminist activist living in Melbourne, Victoria. In 2023, a statue of her was unveiled outside Trades Hall in Melbourne.
Renate Klein is an Australian academic, writer, publisher, and feminist health activist. Klein was an associate professor in women's studies at Deakin University until her retirement in 2006, and with Dr Susan Hawthorne, she co-founded the independent feminist publishing company, Spinifex Press in 1991. She is herself the author and editor of 14 books, many of which explore reproductive technologies and the medicalisation of women.
Spinifex Press is an independent feminist book publisher based in Australia. It was established in March 1991 by Renate Klein and Susan Hawthorne. It has over 200 titles in print and publishes both fiction and non-fiction that is innovative and controversial. It specialises in subjects of feminist interest including lesbian literature, women's health, writing by indigenous, Asian and African women and books discussing ecology, globalisation, violence against women, prostitution and pornography. Spinifex was one of the earliest Australian publishers to adapt to new technologies by offering a web-based catalogue and enabling on-line purchase of all titles. It has been publishing ebooks since 2006.
Janet Susan McCalman, is an Australian social historian, population researcher and author at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. McCalman won the Ernest Scott Prize in 1985 and 2022 (shared); the second woman to have won and one of eight historians to have won the prize twice.
Cathie Koa Dunsford is a New Zealand novelist, poet, anthologist, lecturer and publishing consultant. She has edited several anthologies of feminist, lesbian and Māori/Pasifika writing, including in 1986 the first anthology of new women's writing in New Zealand. She is also known for her novel Cowrie (1994) and later novels in the same series. Her work is influenced by her identity as a lesbian woman with Māori and Hawaiian heritage.