Now an Associate Professor at UNSW’s School of Arts and the Media, Emma writes candidly about the complex combination of childhood sexual abuse, mental illness and autism that led to her being the person she is, and explores the impact each has on so many others in society. Critically, by breaking the toxic silence surrounding sexual violence and mental illness, she raises the possibility of not just surviving them but thriving.
Combining brilliant storytelling with rigorous research, she tells us how she escaped a small town and a traumatic childhood by moving to Sydney, where she made an indelible imprint on the oppressively blokey mediascape.
She played in several successful bands, married a rock star she hardly knew, had a baby, ditched journalism for academia, had cancer, completed a PhD about misogyny on the internet and changed her name from Emma Tom to Emma Jane. But all the while she was struggling with her mental health.
