Courage, rage, and resilience: the women in Bron Bateman’s inspiring new collection


Poet Bron Bateman is the editor of Women of a Certain Courage, a new collection of inspiring stories by Australian women. In this interview, Bron gives us insight into her experience connecting with courageous women writers.


How did you go about creating the list of women you wanted to contribute to this collection? Were there certain kinds of stories you were hoping to receive?

When I was creating the list of contributors for this collection, I had some stories in mind that I wanted to receive. I wanted the stories to be inclusive and diverse. I knew that I wanted queer stories but also stories that would broaden our understanding of what queer means, and that included seeking stories from trans and gender-diverse women.

I wanted to include Indigenous essay writers and, in particular, people who were actively involved in bettering their communities, who perhaps may not have had the opportunity to explore and unpack their experiences of courage, and how it was practised as a direct action – and of what courage meant to them.
As a crip woman, I also wanted to explore the idea of the courage to be crip, not in the kind of way that is foregrounded as being somehow superhuman, but that explored the daily courage needed to live in a crip body.

I also wanted there to be geographical diversity among contributors so that the reader could experience stories from all around Australia.

Which story surprised you the most? And which made you think about the world in a different way?

I did experience one expected surprise in the selection process. When I thought of a person to invite, that association would suggest another person, and so on. And when the pieces were written, I found that the connections that appeared between the stories were not necessarily ones I was expecting, and that there were resonances across the different diversities of stories that were shared.

The particular story that surprised me most was Shannon Meyerkort’s bushfire story. I had anticipated that she would submit a certain story but instead what she wrote was a haunting, gothic evocation of the Australian landscape – a place in which she had once experienced grave danger. I was affected by her descriptions of the damage wrought upon the landscape by global warming and the infiltration of suburbia on bushland when a fire sweeps through. And even though I knew (because she was writing it) that Shannon herself had survived the threat, it was still a powerful story about a young person who suddenly has to become an adult in an adult world.

The two pieces that made me think about the world in the different way were Megan Krakouer’s and Andrea Thompson’s – the stories that begin and end the collection. I think of myself as educated to a degree about issues affecting Indigenous Australians, and those affecting gender-diverse people, but the personal stories of Megan and Andrea opened my eyes to a world of difficulty and suffering, and an inkling of the incredible courage it takes for these women to create change in their communities and their own lives. I read their stories, and I was changed by them.

Do you see yourself as a courageous person?

Thanks to this anthology, yes, I do, because I live my life as a queer and crip woman, and those are marginalised groups that, by definition, require a daily focus and deliberate action in order for their subjects to not be oppressed by the worlds that lie within the margins, and which create conditions that require a subject to live bravely and with intentionality.

In fact, I find all of the stories in this collection so powerful in their intentionality: I only hope to walk alongside these women who have shared their stories and for my story to be yet another voice of a courageous woman.

The collection that came before this was called Women of a Certain Rage. Do you think anger has a place in courage, and vice versa?

Absolutely. There is a saying that if you are not angry, you are not taking notice. I think there is so much about being a woman that we have to be angry about, and that we need to be angry about if we are to bring about change for ourselves, for our communities, our families and our children.

Many of the stories in this collection are manifestations of the powerful force of courage and anger. I think of Cynthia Dearborn’s story about her life as an activist and risking her personal freedom to bring about environmental change. I think of Megan Krakouer’s excoriating essay about institutional racism and the oppression of Indigenous families, and what it takes to resist these powerful negative forces. I think of Shel Sweeney’s story about the Lismore floods and her finding the courage to rebuild her physical life, along with the emotional and psychological lives of her community. I think of Penny Jane Burke’s essay about surviving domestic violence and about how she used her experience to enhance her education and undertake research that benefits women who also experience domestic violence.

I think about the kinds of institutions that make survival a difficult thing, and of how the world of mental and physical health treatments can be oppressive and difficult to manoeuvre, and how one needs resilience, patience and endurance to fight to find a way clear to live healthily and be well. These are things that are not just readily bestowed upon women. Women need to be able to articulate their desires and what they require. In a patriarchal society that can be a very difficult thing to do. And so I think there is a place for courage, and the rage that can be found in courage is a result of that need to be resistant for so long.

What is next for Bron Bateman?

I have my fourth poetry collection coming out mid-2025 with Fremantle Press. It is titled Love Like This Isn’t Harmless. Many of the poems I’ve written have been inspired by the stories of these women of a certain courage, whose own bravery pushed the boundaries of what I had previously been prepared to share. They gave me a greater liberty to explore issues and they gave me the compulsion to write about them.

I am also doing some workshops at the end of 2024 on themes in my poetry, performance of that poetry, and also on journal writing. I am also looking forward to having the chance to do more editing, because it was such an honour and a privilege to go through that process with these women. I loved the profound element of creation and would welcome the chance to do that again.

Women of a Certain Courage is available now from all good bookstores and online.


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