The May 4 Edition

The idea that someone outwardly sweet may also be fuelled by anger will not seem incongruous to many women. Good girls who mostly do what they’re told, work hard to achieve their goals and look after younger and older family members, yet regularly feel white-hot with fury over a litany of injustices, real or perceived, directed at them and/or others, are not at all uncommon (cough, can relate). So where to channel all that rage? If you’re Shankari Chandran, you send it into the punching bag at your local boxing studio. And you put it into the characters who pepper your novels. As Chandran tells Melanie Kembrey in today’s cover story, she tends to write from a position of anger but ends up at a place of love and greater understanding. Chandran has certainly put her type-A personality to good use. She’s a novelist, lawyer, mother of four and, as of last year, one of only a handful of non-white winners of the country’s most prestigious literary prize, the Miles Franklin. The novel she won it for is a joy to read – like curling up with a cup of chai (not chai tea – see story). As a result, her next book, Safe Haven, out this month, is keenly anticipated. – Editor, Katrina Strickland