NOW AVAILABLE


Spinifex Press are pleased to announce the Australian release of Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution by Rachel Moran, which has just been released in Rachel's home country of Ireland.

When you are fifteen years old and destitute, too unskilled to work and too young to claim unemployment benefit, your body is all you have left to sell.

Rachel Moran grew up in severe poverty and a painfully troubled family. Taken into state care at fourteen, she became homeless and was in prostitution by the age of fifteen. For the next seven years Rachel lived as a prostituted woman, isolated, drug-addicted, alienated.

At the age of 22 she managed, with remarkable strength, to liberate herself from that life. She went to university, gained a degree and forged a new life, but she always promised that one day she would complete this book.

Rachel speaks internationally on prostitution and sex-trafficking and volunteers to talk to young girls in residential care about the harms and dangers in prostitution.

Paid For is already receiving some great coverage in Ireland, here's some YouTube interviews, Morning Edition, The Late Late Show.  The Irish Times explored the myth of the happy hooker with Rachel and thejournal.ie has published an extract.




Featured in last month's newsletter Town of Love by Anne Ch. Ostby is now available. Town of Love is a work of fiction, which draws on the true life experiences of the women and girls belonging to the Nat, which includes some of India's poorest. For centuries, the Nat men have sent their daughters, sisters and wives into sex trafficking. Town of Love tells the story of one girl who dares to break free.

Having personally met the survivors of trafficking about whom this is written, I know that Anne Ostby's novel deserves world attention. It is the essence of a terrible truth that must be exposed. —Gloria Steinem
Town of Love was launched last week to an appreciative audience in Fiji and Anne was interviewed by the Fiji Times


Fiji launch of Town of Love

LAUNCH

When two women and a dog set off on a holiday they have no inkling of what’s to come.

They wake to find the river has crept up silently during the night. Trapped by floodwater, they devise escape routes only to be faced with more obstacles at every turn.

Only the dog remains calm.

Come and join us for a great night as Susan Hawthorne discusses the holiday that inspired the writing of her novella Limen. Artist Jeanné Browne has produced beautiful artwork as featured on the cover and interwoven with the text throughout.

When: Friday 7th June, 6 for 6.30pm
Where: Collected Works, Level 1/37 Swanston Street, Melbourne
 
MOTHER'S DAY LAUNCH



Come and celebrate our foremothers and the legacy we have all inherited at the launch of the revolutionary Invisible Women of Prehistory: Three Million Years of Peace, Six Thousand Years of War by Judy Foster with Marlene Derlet.

Join us for a fun and stimulating night. Judy will talk about the findings of the Invisible Women of Prehistory and the different ways this might change how we view ourselves in a discussion with Tricia Szirom, Chris Sitka and Alex Nissen.

When: 14th May, 6 for 6.30pm
Where: Readings Hawthorn, 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn, Victoria
RSVP: 6 April. Tel: 03 9329 6088 or women@spinifexpress.com.au
Pleae note that the launch will be filmed.

EVENTS
Dale Spender author of Nattering on the Net: Women, Power and Cyberspace will speak at an event at the Sydney Writer's Festival, I'm a Feminist-Can I Vajazzle?

Francesca Rendle-Short author of Bite Your Tongue will be in conversation with ABC Radio National's Kate Evans, which will be aired later in the month.
When: Friday 10th May, 6-8pm
Where: Avid Reader, 193 Boundary Street, West End, Brisbane
Cost: $7.50

Diane Bell Murray River activist and author of Daughters of the Dreaming, will look back over four decades of anthropology and social justice at an event, 'What's anthropology got to do with it?'
When: Thursday May 16th, 12.30pm
Where: Pilgrim House, 69 Northbourne Avenue, Canberra
Attendance is free but please RSVP to nicole.karman@actlawsociety.asn.au




Cathie Dunsford author of the Cowrie series is reading and performing from several of her books including, Manawa Toa and Ao Toa at the Arts, activism and academia conference
When: Sunday 12th May, 10am
Where: Department of English, University of Auckland, 14A Symonds Street, Level 6

REVIEWS
Check out some great review of Spinifex books.
Far an Beyon' by Unity Dow is reviewed in Me, You, and Books
Seeking Palestine: New Palestinian Writing on Exile and Home edited by Penny Johnson and Raja Shehadeh is reviewed in Memo Middle East Monitor
A Handwritten Modern Classic by Finola Moorhead was reviewed in Cordite
A Bit of Difference by Sefi Atta was reviewed in Book Lugambo

IN THE NEWS
Read a great article in ZCOM by Vandana Shiva author of Making Peace with the Earth, 'We Don't Need Genetically Engineered Bananas for Iron Deficiency.' Vandana also wrote a piece for Global Research, 'The Seeds of Suicide: How Monsanto Destroys Farming'.
Spinifex publisher and author Renate Klein argues in Online Opinion that 'RU 486 comes with potent and unpalatable side effects.' Renate's book RU 486 will be republished later in the year.
Unity Dow author of Far an Beyon' spoke recently at Poptech on Rethinking Africa. It's great viewing, check it out on YouTube.
Gail Dines author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked our Sexuality with Wendy Murphy answers the question, 'How can Steubenville happen?'
Susan Hawthorne contributed some of her poems to the annual campaign against violence against women based in Chenai India, 'Prajnya Campaign Against Gender Violence'
Melinda Tankard Reist talks on The Project about the way the judicial system often lets women down when it comes to cases of domestic violence.
Susan Hawthorne is interviewed for Guys Read Gals, 'Spinifex Press Keeps Rolling Along'

BLOGS
Farida Akhter has writte a very disturbing piece 'Forced to Die: Garment workers in Rana plaza'
Rachel Moran author of Paid For has written an 'An Open Letter to the "Good" Punter' which first appeared on her blog FreeIrishWoman.

HUNGRY FOR MORE?
For more regular Spinifex updates visit our Newspage, join us on Facebook and follow us on twitter @spinifexpress