Kath Kenny 6/4/24 Kath Kenny 6/4/24

Sex, zips and feminism: Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying after 50 years

While its racism is the great flaw of Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, it still has much to say to today’s reader.

Kath Kenny 19/1/23 Kath Kenny 19/1/23

Betty Can Jump at the Pram Factory: the radical 1970s play that built a scene – and changed Australia

In this piece for The Guardian, I describe finding myself on federal election day in 2022 handing out how-to-vote flyers with the film and TV actor Bruce Spence, and I look at how federal arts policy has nurtured the arts since the 1970s.

Kath Kenny 1/12/22 Kath Kenny 1/12/22

Betty Jumps High

This essay for Openbook magazine is about how the women behind Betty Can Jump first had the idea for their radical play.

Kath Kenny 8/10/22 Kath Kenny 8/10/22

Friday essay: ‘with men I feel like a very sharp, glittering blade’ – when 5 liberated women spoke the truth

This article for The Conversation contains edited extracts from Staging a Revolution: When Betty Rocked the Pram

Donné Restom 6/10/21 Donné Restom 6/10/21

Broken: Children, parents and family courts

Read my review for the Australian Book Review of Broken: Children, parents and family courts by Camilla Nelson and Catharine Lumby.

Donné Restom 16/9/21 Donné Restom 16/9/21

Apocalypse Baby

An essay I wrote for Meanjin about television’s lost and found children, childless and desperate mothers, and callous and caring states.

Kath Kenny 2/6/21 Kath Kenny 2/6/21

East of Western Decline: “Mare of Easttown”

Read my review for The Monthly of the devastating portrait of a decaying America in the series Mare of Easttown.

Kath Kenny 5/11/20 Kath Kenny 5/11/20

Brazen Hussies review

In this review for The Guardian of Brazen Hussies, Catherine Dwyer's documentary about the Australian women's liberation movement, I thought about the many ways the movement was a punk movement.

Kath Kenny 27/7/19 Kath Kenny 27/7/19

The Handmaid's Tailspin

See my review of Season Three of The Handmaid's Tale for The Saturday Paper.

Kath Kenny 28/5/19 Kath Kenny 28/5/19

A Change in the Weather

A story I wrote for Meanjin on life, death, memory, weather, feminism … and Nick Cave's mum.

Donné Restom 11/5/19 Donné Restom 11/5/19

#MeToo Stories from the Australian Movement

In the opening essay of the Picador anthology #MeToo: Stories from the Australian movement, I revisit the 70s, make peace with a 90s Helen Garner, ponder if I have any Louis C.K.s in my life and talk about the work labour movement women are doing to address sexual harassment at work.

Kath Kenny 23/3/19 Kath Kenny 23/3/19

Making the private public: ‘The Seventies’ by Michelle Arrow

Michelle Arrow’s new history of the 1970s traces how the decade redefined politics and shaped modern Australia. Read my review for The Monthly here.

Kath Kenny 17/3/19 Kath Kenny 17/3/19

Lunch with School Strike 4 Climate leader Jean Hinchliffe

I spoke to school climate strike leader Jean Hinchliffe for The Saturday Paper

Kath Kenny 5/8/18 Kath Kenny 5/8/18

The Sydney Women’s Film Group and Betty Can Jump

Before #MeToo, 1970s Australian feminists used film and theatre for women's liberation. Read my story for The Saturday Paper here.

Kath Kenny 20/5/18 Kath Kenny 20/5/18

Blackie, Blackie Brown

In her latest production, Blackie Blackie Brown, Nakkiah Lui (Black is the New White, Black Comedy) signals she will be very funny – deadly, brutally funny