My Books

Click of the individual book titles for a detailed description and ordering information

 

"Someone You Know: A Friend's Farewell"

Australia's first AIDS biography and a moving documentary of the times.

It is now in its third reprint and features a new cover design

 

Girls' Talk - Young women speak their hearts and minds

Tapestry, published by Random House

A moving account of one woman's journey through Australian/Italian realities.

Boys' Stuff

Over the past couple of years we've been out there talking to all sorts of boys from all sorts of places around Australia, from Port Hedland in Western Australia to Townsville in Queensland to Rosedale in Victoria. Some guys we interviewed, some guys sent us stuff like artwork, poetry, essays and stories. Along with that came their experiences and opinions.

So What's a Boy?

Addressing Issues of Masculinity and Schooling.

This book focuses on the impact and effects of masculinities on the lives of boys at school. Through interviews with boys from diverse backgrounds, Wayne Martino and I have explored the various ways in which boys define and negotiate their masculinities at school.

When Our Children Come Out

How to support gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered young people

A valuable guide for all those whose lives are affected by a young person coming out.

Being Normal is the Only Way To Be: Adolescent Perspectives on Gender and School

A book for teachers and parents of adolescents. Each chapter draws on the perceptions and writings of teenage boys and girls, and uses these to build a specific knowledge about what it means to be an adolescent at school, what it means to be ‘cool’ and ‘normal’, and the effects of these social constructions on learning and relationships.

Love You Two

Co-Winner of the 2010 Lambda Literary Award in the Bisexual Fiction Category

Set in today’s multi-cultural, multi-sexual Australia, Love You Two is my first novel, about a young woman’s coming-of-age when life, love and family aren’t what anyone said they’d be.

 

 

Border Sexualities, Border Families
in Schools

Winner of the 2011 Lambda Literary Award in the Bisexual Non-Fiction Category

The first book of its kind internationally, Border Sexualities, Border Families in Schools explores the experiences of bisexual students, mixed sexual orientation families, and polyamorous families in schools. The book includes interviews and online research with students, parents, and teachers, as well as providing a comprehensive overview and analysis of international educational and health research, and media/popular cultural texts.

 

The Politics of Recognition and Social Justice: Transforming Subjectivities and New Forms of Resistance

Via a wide range of case studies, this book examines new forms of resistance to social injustices in contemporary Western societies. Resistance requires agency, and agency is grounded in notions of the subject and subjectivity. How do people make sense of their subjectivity as they are constructed and reconstructed within relations of power? What kinds of subjectivities are needed to struggle against forms of dominance and claim recognition?

The participants in the case studies are challenging forms of dominance and subordination grounded in class, race, culture, nationality, sexuality, religion, age, disability and other forms of social division. It is a premise of this book that new and/or reconstructed forms of subjectivity are required to challenge social relations of subordination and domination. Thus, the transformation of subjectivity as well as the restructuring of oppressive power relations is necessary to achieve social justice.

By examining the construction of subjectivity of particular groups through an intersectional lens, the book aims to contribute to theoretical accounts of how subjects are constituted and how they can develop a critical distance from their positioning.

Pallotta-Chiarolli & B. Pease (eds)

London: Routledge (2014)

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Queerying Families of Origin

This book provides an original insight into how families of origin of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) people are involved in negotiating meanings and experiences of sexuality and intimacy, an underexplored dimension of queer family life. Delving into the perspectives of families of origin and showing the complexity and heterogeneity of the ways people with their different gender and sexual identities "do" families across generations, it contributes to querying the very distinction between families of origin and families of choice, and questions the (hetero)normative assumptions about forms and boundaries of family this distinction rests upon. A focus on marginal contexts, such as Southern Europe, and on marginal subjects, like bisexuals or black lesbians, is proposed as a way to challenge the universality of privileged narratives within heteronormativity, homonormativity and anglocentrism, and to reveal unexpected resources families of origin mobilise to make sense of GLBT identities and lived experiences. The book poses a crucial question: how can alliances along family ties develop on the basis of shared stories of family diversity and marginalised identities, rather than of loving (and normative) support to GLBT people in need and an advocacy in their name from a position of heterosexual privilege?

This book was originally published in Journal of GLBT Family Studies.

 

co-edited with Chiara Bertone

London: Routledge (2014)

 

Bisexuality in Education
Erasure, Exclusion and the Absence of Intersectionality

Winner: 4th Annual Bisexual Book Award - Bisexual Non Fiction, 2015

Bisexuality appears to be falling into the gap between the binary of heterosexuality and homosexuality that informs school initiatives such as health and sexual education, and student welfare. This book addresses three significant issues in relation to bisexuality and schooling: erasure, exclusion, and the absence of intersectionality. As much research has shown, these issues have been major factors in bisexual young people, family members and educators experiencing worse mental, emotional, sexual and social health than their homosexual or heterosexual counterparts.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Bisexuality.

Women in Relationships with Bisexual Men.

Bi Men By Women

Winner: 5th Annual Bisexual Book Award - Bisexual Non Fiction, 2016
Finalist: 29th Annual Lambda Literary Awards

This book is an intimate journey into the experiences and insights of 79 Australian women in relationships with bisexual men. The research, revelations, and reflections in this book tell us much about global constructions and understandings of intimate relationships, sexual desires, and love, and the socio-cultural representations and labeling of genders and sexualities.

Lexington Books

Listen to a recent interview here and download slides here

Living and Loving in Diversity

An Anthology of Australian multicultural queer adventures

Sad and funny, sexy and sensitive, angry and insightful: the deeply personal stories in this book reflect a rainbow of experiences and emotions, as diverse as the storytellers themselves. Join chief editor Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli and the Australian LGBTIQ Multicultural Council for a journey of discovery through queer multicultural multifaith Australia, with more than sixty voices from across the spectrum of sexualities and genders,families and relationships.

Wakefield Press