Life on the Page

Jessica Kirkness grew up close to her grandparents, who were deaf in a hearing world. Sophie Matterson walked across Australia with her beloved camels. Ben Mckelvey experienced a sudden stroke, and then a heart attack, in his twenties. Eye-opening and honest, all three lay bare some of the most intimate and vulnerable moments in their lives. They speak to Fiona Murphy about what compelled them to share their stories.

Fiona Murphy is a Deaf poet and essayist. Her work has been published in Kill Your Darlings, Overland, Griffith Review and the Big Issue, among other publications. In 2019, she was awarded the Overland Fair Australia Essay Prize and the Monash Undergraduate Creative Writing Prize. In 2018, she was shortlisted for the Richell Prize and highly commended by the Wheeler Centre Next Chapter program. She is the author of The Shape of Sound.