In this short, special episode – to mark the launch of Clean, the latest edition of Notes – we bring you 'Hygiene Fidelity'. Non-fiction writer and art student CB Mako remembers the cleanest room in the cleanest ward of the Royal Children’s Hospital.

Read by the author themselves, this piece of memoir also coincides with Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

Read the story here 12 Sep 2019 Note Hygiene Fidelity  /  Health, medicine & psychology

Guest post by CB Mako

This episode was recorded and produced by Scott Limbrick and Jon Tjhia. Sophie Quick edited the original story.

Melissa Keil and Dhonielle Clayton at the Wheeler Centre

In a response to a reader’s letter, YA author Malinda Lo once wrote, ‘Diversity is not important. Diversity is reality. Human beings are not all the same.’ If books function as tools of empathy, what happens when we never see ourselves in them, let alone at the centre of a story? How can we support and encourage real representation in our literature, especially for younger readers?

Dhonielle Clayton is a bestselling author of YA fiction, including The Belles and The Everlasting Rose. She’s a former teacher and librarian. And she’s the COO of We Need Diverse Books, the US-based campaign for a more inclusive and representative literary milieu. The movement began as a hashtag, went viral, then formalised into a non-profit in order to methodically press for progress.

Clayton joins host Melissa Keil to talk about her writing, as well as the importance of Own Voices stories, and some of the problems with traditional publishing models. She highlights ways these models can shift while still retaining the crucial ability to connect with readers, and considers how we can create a more equitable and exciting literary culture.

Son Vivienne, Zac Collins-Widders and Bobuq Sayed — Photos: Johnboy Davidson / José Eveline

An increasing number of parents are choosing to raise their children gender-neutral. What could happen if the movement grows, and we raise whole generations of people who are not assigned a binary gender at birth? What would be the flow-on effects in health and education, and for our institutions of law and citizenship?

Is it possible to shield a child from ideas of gender entirely? Is altogether abolishing gender actually feasible, or desirable? Featuring Son Vivienne, Zac Collins-Widders and Bobuq Sayed.

Presented in partnership with Melbourne Knowledge Week.

Masha Gessen is an award-winning author and a staff writer at The New Yorker. She speaks to Sally Warhaft about The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, her non-fiction 2017 National Book Award-winning work that charts the coming-of-age of four Russians born in the early 1980s.

Masha Gessen and Sally Warhaft, live at Deakin Edge, Federation Square — Photo: Sophie Quick

Presented in partnership with Melbourne Writers Festival.