Fragments from a Paper Witch

WhyFragments from a Paper Witch? Through paper encounters we can ignite, meld, metamorphose returning utterly altered. These pieces are about the struggle to resist crippling expectations and cultural framings, but they also explore a range of modes of being (and un-becoming) a woman in passion and in grief, in the flesh and on paper. For me to write is to discover rather than to depict, to connect with new possibilities and new modes of being, but also to explore the underside, the savage side of familial and social relations, where the protective 'cosies' of the self are shed and, skinless, one finds new grafts beginning to take. These works at times literally use graft, or other writers' words to commemorate amorous connections impossible without the ardour of paper encounters. In her preface Gail Jones writes,These are encounters which stimulate intellectual and affective jubilation (another of the writer's favourite words). [] there is also here a kind of literary cruising, writing as charged transfer, as the vigilant address of arousing desire. Campbell's oeuvre is essentially of this order. I commend this luminous volume to readers in the fervent hope it will elevate her to wider notice and confirm her reputation as a major Australian writer.