Cirrus@Austlit

'THE FIRST TIME I tried to cry on cue, in a workshop intended for aspiring young actors, it did not work. It was 2006; I was eighteen years old and performing a rather ambitiousmonologue from Andrew Bovell’s After Dinner,in which forty-something Monika describes finding her husband dead in the living room. Naturally, dead husbands require real tears, and I assumed unashamed effort was the key to achieving them. I listened to sad music before I performed. I laboured every word. I chased – begged – the emotion like a hysterical teenage girl running after an ex-­lover at midnight. JUST COME HERE. PLEASE. By the end of the monologue, I was so frustrated I couldn’t make myself cry that I began to cry. When I finished, the teacher said, ‘I think that play is supposed to be a comedy.’'  (Introduction)

'All Frances wants is a cure for her daughter, but that would take a miracle, and miracles aren't something Frances believes in anymore.

'Newly divorced from her pastor ex-husband and excommunicated from the church community she once worked within, she wrestles alone with the prognosis of her terminally ill child. Any suggestion of 'divine intervention' is salt in the wound of her grief. So when Frances is forced to take in a homeless and pregnant teenage girl who claims to have had an immaculate conception, she's deeply challenged.

'But sixteen-year-old Mary is not who she seems, and soon opens the door to perspectives that profoundly shift Frances's sense of reality, triggering a chain of astonishing events. It seems that where there is the greatest suffering lies an unexpected magic. Frances begins to hold hope for her family's future, but the miracle prayed for is not always the one received.

'Immaculate is a provocative and tender exploration of loss, identity and healing, and the secret worlds we hide within in order to survive.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A companion on the pilgrimage of matrescence, Skin is a beautifully crafted book of poetry intended for the woman journeying in fertility, pregnancy, birth and early motherhood.

'Containing a blessing for every week of pregnancy, for birth in all its stages and types, and the fourth trimester, it is complemented by beautiful illustrations and photographs.

'A rich, gentle and humorous voice in the midst of the sacred transition from maiden to mother.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Perhaps we have done to our bodies what we have so long done to God? 

'We have let vessels of peace be used as rubbish bins, weapons and punching bags. 

'We have asked them to conform to our image. The image we find the most desirable. 

'We have vanquished their significance, until finally, they have no power at all.  

'By the age of 23, Anna McGahan was wrestling with the rest of the world for ownership of her femininity, sexuality and physicality.  

'As a young actor suddenly thrust into the spotlight as a poster girl for sexual liberation – intent on exploring New Age spirituality, the next relationship and the wildest high – her path continuously pointed her to chaos, consumption and isolation. 

'Until she met God. 

'In this memoir, Anna shares the story of reconciling with her body, mapping its journey from a cheapened product in a marketplace to a vessel of astonishing worth.  

'This is a deeply personal and radical story, of a body rescued, redeemed and set free. Of holy pain and undeserved healing. Of a life completely and irrevocably changed.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.