Chapter 1: Introducing

How do we come to organise a book on writing differently? By theme? It seems that when we organise and carve a volume which crosses so many epistemological, methodological and genre blending variations, we can only conduct editorial violence on sectioning, organising and narrating the contributions of others. We offer a collection presented alphabetically according to first name, a suggestion by Jenny so that: ‘who people are matter’. Authoring, being an author, masks who we are, and perhaps who we become in our writing. The importance of situating ourselves is vital.

Writing differently for me has become the only way I can write, breathe, be free from the academic constraints that categorise my writing as outputs with metric value. I was interested in ‘writing differently’ to write as a woman in her multiplicity. I am still interested in writing as a speaking woman, with all the complexity that being a woman writer entails. Writing against the mainstream. Writing against those that seem to silence and repress. Writing out of fear that if I stop, I may never write again.