A Huge New Year

Starting a PhD, releasing two new books, and ten years of fixed it – 2025 is going to be a HUGE year for me.

Writing is so very windswept and romantic… ahahaha no it isn’t, I’m still in my pyjamas and more than a little bit in need of a shower. (Image by Ghinzo)

I took a few desperately needed weeks off over the holidays. I spent the first week reinstating all the sleep hygiene, regular exercise, and home cooking practices that a particularly tough year had stripped out of my routine. But the most restorative thing I did was turn my phone off, toss it into a drawer,and leave it there. Weeks went by without any beeps to notify me that someone I will never meet thinks I’m stupid or awesome or fat or dangerous. News articles came and went, research papers were published, people were amazing and awful, and I didn’t know about any of it. This is not a bubble I could live in for very long, but as a three week holiday from my life, it was brilliant.

But I’m back now. Slowly working through all the notifications I missed, deciding which ones I’m happy to keep missing (farewell social media - it’s not me, it’s you and I’m putting up some healthy boundaries) and gearing up for what is going to be a huge year.

How huge? So huge that Elon Musk’s delusions are looking at my year and saying, ‘goddamn that is HUUUGE’.

First news: I am starting a PhD at Monash University in February. I’ll be doing research on men who have committed sexual violence, what they think about masculinity and shame, and whether there is anything we can learn from them to improve prevention education.

So many feelings about this. Elation. Terror. Excitement. A little bit of nausea. I’ve wanted to do this for years, ever since I first read Diana Scully’s book about the research she did with convicted rapists in Virginian prisons during the early 1980s. But a PhD is a massive undertaking. I had to wait for my kids to grow up (and maybe for me to grow up a bit more too) before I could manage a project like this. Emotionally, financially, intellectually, logistically and a few other adverbs I can’t think of right now, it’s going to be…well…HUGE. Can you dance with excitement while being frozen in fear? Yes, as it turns out, you can.

*ungainly frozen dancing*

As if that wasn’t exciting enough, I’ve got two new books and a tenth anniversary to celebrate this year!

I’m still very committed to finishing the Rape is a Theoretical Crime series. I’m hoping to get most of it done before semester starts, but there will undoubtedly be some (potentially very useful) crossover. The series will go behind the subscriber paywall at the end of February because I plan on using it as the basis of a book (for which paying subscribers will get a 50% discount). I’m hoping to collaborate with some of the rape crisis centres in Vic and NSW on publishing the book, but I’ll have more news on that later in the year.

And I’ve got another book (already written) coming out mid-year. The publisher wants me to keep schtum on the title and topic for now, but we should be ready to drop all the veils in a month or two. I can tell you that it’s non-fiction and very much connected to all the themes of the PhD and the rape series.

Finally, in September this year it will be ten years since the first ever Fixed It post. Ten years is a long time to stay so close to a topic like this. It’s been so frustrating and exhausting and rewarding. Also, so much has changed over that decade. Both news media and social media are now almost laughably different to their 2015 iterations. Reporting on men’s violence against women has changed drastically too – mostly, but not entirely, for the better. Public understanding of gender based violence, the power of language, who gets to be heard and seen – and who doesn’t – have all changed as well. The cycles and feedback loops and polarisations that fuel all these changes moved so quickly it was often difficult to examine them properly as they were happening.

I have learned so much and the Fixed It project has changed my professional life in so many ways that I think I have to do something to mark the tenth anniversary and explore some of those changes in more depth. I don’t know what form that will take yet, but you can be sure I’ll be posting about it here when I do.

What does that mean for my Substack?

Mostly, my plans for 2025 give the Substack page a direction. When I started on Substack I didn’t have a plan much more detailed than ‘I should write about stuff’ (I feel like I’m not the only writer here who started that way, but maybe that’s just wishful projection).

I started the Rape is a Theoretical Crime series because this felt like the perfect place to collect all the research and interviews I’ve done over years of writing about sexual violence, but I didn’t see it as a long term plan.

The PhD gives me that plan. For at least the next three years (probably longer) I’m going to be doing a deep dive on masculinity, shame, men who commit sexual violence, and effective prevention education strategies. I’m also going to be learning how to successfully complete PhD - and think very positively about the future.

Substack is where I’ll share what I learn about all these things and where I get to translate all that academic writing into English. Like a journal, but for ideas and knowledge not personal growth.

I generally prefer to not write behind paywalls but I’m going to treat Substack as my part-time job, the work I do to keep the cost-of-living wolf at a reasonable distance from my door while I’m studying. Which means at least half the work I do here will have to be for paying subscribers only.

Paywalls and subscribers are great when people have the means, but I’ve lived too many years with that wolf strolling through my door and prowling around my kitchen to be comfortable publishing only for people who can pay. So, if you are keenly interested in the work I’ll be doing but you can’t afford to subscribe, email me. I’ll have a few gift subscriptions ready to go.

I’ll be back in your inbox soon with the next instalment in the Rape is a Theoretical Crime series. Please do share it (or any other post) with anyone you know who might find it interesting.

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Discount offer for readers

20% DISCOUNT plus free postage on any book purchase from my store.

• Fairy Tale Princesses Will Kill Your Children

• Fixed It: Violence and the Representation of Women in the Media

• Teaching Consent: Real Voices from the Consent Classroom

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Podcast

The Fairy Tale Princesses Will Kill Your Children podcast, loosely based on the themes in my book of the same name, is out now. You don’t need to read the book to listen to the podcast, but you can find out more about both here.

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