'If he wants to follow me, I can't stop him.' After a random encounter with poet and author Ellis Gunn at an auction, a stranger decides to stalk her. Years later, she sits down to write about the experience – and realises it's connected to a lifetime of gendered abuse, including surviving both sexual assault and domestic violence. In this wide-ranging and compelling interview, Ellis discusses what she learned through the experience of writing her debut memoir, Rattled, including the psychological impacts of stalking, the reactions of her family and friends, and the concepts of agency deletion and radical empathy. 

Ellis Gunn is a Scottish writer and poet who now lives in Australia. Her poetry, essays and reviews have been published widely in the UK and she has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, Edinburgh Book Festival and the British Embassy in Berlin. She lives near the beach with her partner, two children, a cat and some ants.

Learn more about Ellis on her website, and buy a copy of 'Rattled' from your local bookshop, Booktopia or wherever else books are sold. 

Ashley is teaching in-person at Writing NSW! Crafting Memoir: An Introduction. Saturday 7 May 2022, 10am-4pm, in-person at Writing NSW, Callan Park, Sydney. Visit Writing NSW to learn more about their online course program. 

Books and authors discussed in this episode:

• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk;
• 'Tribes and Traitors', Hidden Brain podcast from Shankar Vedantam;
• Troll Hunting: Inside the World of Online Hate and Its Human Fallout by Ginger Gorman;
• The Writing Life by Annie Dillard; 
• The Luminous Solution by Charlotte Wood;
• How to Be Australian by Ashley Kalagian Blunt;
• Outline by Rachel Cusk;
• The Break by Katherena Vermette

Get in touch!

• Ashley's website: ashleykalagianblunt.com
• Ashley's Twitter: @AKalagianBlunt
• Ashley's Instagram: @akalagianblunt
• James' website: jamesmckenziewatson.com
• James' Twitter: @JamesMcWatson
• James' Instagram: @jamesmcwatson