56 | How to survive a stalker with Ellis Gunn, author of 'Rattled'

James and Ashley Stay at Home

Content provided by James Watson, James McKenzie Watson, and Ashley Kalagian Blunt. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by James Watson, James McKenzie Watson, and Ashley Kalagian Blunt or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.

2+ y ago 50:40

MP3•Episode home

'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

100 episodes