Julia

<p>'I'm ignited by three small words.<em> I will not.</em>' </p><p>It's 9 October 2012. She's been PM for two years and four months and she's worn down. She's been hounded slurred dissected libelled. She's been violated over and over again by words. Julia Gillard's prime ministership was marred by the Australian media monopoly's inability to step over one thing: that she was a woman. A woman who as a young aspiring lawyer was told 'When you are on your way up don't forget the flowers that grow on the roadside'. There in the spotlight of Australia's politics and patriarchy she encounters thorns of the sharpest cruellest kind. </p><p>Joanna Murray-Smith's <em>Julia </em>peels back the public mask to attend to the private woman; one who harbours compassion doubt rage and ambition. A woman compelled not simply by her own voice but by the voices of a million others speaking to and with her. </p><p><em>'The writing teems with wit desire and tenderness.'</em> ArtsHub</p>