WHAT I WANT is for three people to speak to you. Merlinda Bobis, Julie Koh and Mammad Aidani. You may know one of them, three of them, none of them. Whatever. I will speak to you too, I guess. So it’s one of you and four of us.

We are not in any sense united. Merlinda, Julie and Mammad are not my case studies. And our shared hyphenatedness (together we’re Filipino-Iranian-Malaysian-Chinese-Ukrainian-Jewish-Australians, all of us writers) doesn’t make us speak in one voice about how our identities shape – identities…shape…have I put you to sleep? or perhaps you’re into this sort of thing? – what we write and how we are read in this country. We don’t want to talk about identities. This will not be another diversity panel.