It's exciting to encounter an anthology of pieces by so many new writers! Some well-known contributors have been included, such as Ellen van Neerven, Rebecca Lim and Alice Pung - and their stories are outstanding. But the less familiar writers here have produced some of the most memorable storytelling. I'm thinking of the narrator in Turkish-Lebanese-Australian Omar Sakr's story, who is washing his father's body for burial, and reflects on their last conversation in which he revealed to his father that he is bisexual. Within days his father is dead, and the narrator punishes himself with the thought that his coming out was responsible.
Or Ezekiel Kwaymullina's powerful poem about dyslexia, which is shorter than the explanatory bionote.
Clever title, ’Meet Me at the Intersection’. It invokes the critical term 'intersectionality', which the US black activist Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw used to point out that when you identify people excluded from a culture's dominant power structures, the exclusion is on overlapping or 'intersecting' terms. One single individual can be Othered for their race, gender, sexuality, physical or mental ability, and age. Exclusion doesn't stick to tidy discrete categories! (One slight difficulty is the welter of hyphens when you go to talk about them.) The title also suggests that these writers and their characters are going places, and that along the way there will be confusion and points for decision-making.
These writers are published, emerging, heterosexual, bisexual, non-binary, queer, Aboriginal, refugee and migrant, living with a physical disability, from various faith communities or none at all. What they share is the courage to confront the accusation that they don't 'fit in'. There are several references to Harry Potter, and one character wonders why teachers think that the mere mention of Harry Potter will guarantee undivided attention. These diverse Australians are, as Rebecca Lim says, 'affected by systemic injustices'. Perhaps the most powerful stories are about the brutality they've been subjected to. Bosnian-Australian Amra Pajelic's piece opens with almost unbearable playground bullying, and closes with a very different violent ritual that is intended to save - a sharply ironic bookending
This is an important moment to be confronting the concept of systemic injustice. Political movements such as MeToo and BlackLivesMatter have called time on silent endurance but have repeatedly been met with denials that the injustice they've experienced is systemic.
Handled sensitively in the classroom, ‘Meet Me at the Intersection’ probes and questions its readers. If the pronouns of the author are clearly 'she/her', what do we make of the assumption that the narrator is female, rather than male as intended? How do we respond to the question asked of one character with a complex cultural heritage, 'So do you feel Australian?' What does that mean, and, anyway, why does it matter? I found myself checking the gender balance of the list of contributors, and then challenging my own disappointment. This is an anthology that reads us without flinching, and it will reward being included in any secondary school library. If it gets there, of course...