Content warning: This talk will reference experiences of childhood sexual abuse, framed by the voices and stories of survivors.

This paper considers questions from a forthcoming biography of Dorothy Hewett that explore not just how her legacy can be reconsidered in the light of revelations about sexual abuse from her daughters Kate and Rose Lilley, in books released in 2018, but also the current status of work by the men involved, most of them well-known cultural producers – poets, artists, actors, directors, film makers, photographers, publishers - whose contributions to Australian culture have not been substantially reconsidered. The experiences of the Lilley sisters, both of them writers and scholars, expose for contemporary debate the inherited norms of 1970s cultural bohemia. Hewett’s life in turn prompts us to consider the gendered judgements at play for what Karen Guth terms “tainted legacies”. Insofar as women’s art is already about sexuality and gender, is it more vulnerable to retrospective marginalisation in cases such as this?

Nicole Moore is a professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at UNSW Canberra. Her research interests include Australian literature, women’s writing, Australian and comparative histories of publication censorship, and the cultural Cold War. Currently she is researching the history of the Australasian Book Society, funded by an ARC Discovery Project. Her biography of the award-winning Australian poet, playwright and novelist Dorothy Hewett is forthcoming with NewSouth.