A Universe of One’s Own

Antonia Hayes' adventures in language began when, as a young child, she was a word sponge, soaking up speech and phrases and the sometimes haunted spaces in between. She became a natural bookworm, turning to the Baby-Sitters Club series to start a lifetime of finding friends and comfort in the pages of a book. When her debut novel, Relativity, was published, she again turned to literature for guidance and consolation, this time in the form of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. Woolf wished for financial independence and a room of one's own in which to write, but Hayes, writing almost 90 years later, argues here that perhaps women writers need a whole universe of their own. Buoyed by hope and a lifetime of language, Hayes tells us how we can disturb the universe before A Room of One's Own turns 100.

Antonia Hayes has been published in Best Australian Essays, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Daily Life, and others. Antonia has worked in publishing as a publicist and a bookseller, and co-directed Australia’s National Young Writers’ Festival. She is the author of Relativity.