Marginalia — Naomi Becker

Helena Pantsis (she/they) explains how their surrealist writing in Mother Salad exposes and embodies the crushing pressure on women to ‘mother’. UWA Publishing intern Naomi Becker interviews Helena about her use of horror to capture life's fears, such as mortality, aging, and purpose. Helena also responds by sharing vulnerable insights into how the short-fiction collection was partly inspired by her witnessing initially non-conforming women give in to societal pressures. This discussion addresses her masterful use of absurdism to explore the stigmatised struggles women experience.