From Perth, Maree Walk is currently trying to combine full-time work and full-time writing. She has written two plays -- A lone woman -- Alone women, -- which toured Australia and finished with a season at the Sydney Festival, and Casualty about a woman trade-union leader. She is completing another, tentatively called Harry and Norma.

“A confession -- I have a secret revulsion for middle management EEO women half the age and on double the pay of 50-year old male workers who they sneer at; and post-mordernist discourse drives me to drink.

“Being a feminist to me means -- No retreat! No giving up the right, the ability to speak and fight back. For wages, for participation, for whatever injustice we radicalise around.

“In writing, it means we're finally getting ordinary women as characters. And even the extraordinary women ones are looking a bit more realistic! Then again, a recent critic of mine said the female lead `screeched through half the play' -- do men screech? Another time I'm asked -- `Why did you write a feminist play?' What to say? `Well, I decided that in this play I wouldn't denigrate women -- I'll do that next time'?

“It's standing on the shoulders of other fighters -- historically, internationally. It's using the word `fighters' and not seeing it as some male thing, but a proud part of my socialist history, my feminism.” Photograph by Mick Houlbrook.

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