Tasmanian author Meg Bignell says when she wrote her latest book she was "seriously angry" about the state of play for women.
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Former Australian of the Year Grace Tame had emerged into the public eye as an articulate and furious compelling survivor of sexual assault.
Rape allegations were circling about former attorney general Christian Porter and tainting national politics.
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On top of that, there was a lack of information and awareness about menopause, peri-menopuses and the effect that hormones have on womens' and girls' lives.
"As a mother of children and a working mother, I was angry with the eighties feminism movement, of the need to 'smash glass ceilngs', and wanting to have it all, because it is exhausting and kind of impossible," Bignell said.
"The bar was set really high for women, and so I was cross about that," she said.
Bignell said in this time of feminist rage, she wanted to take a look at how feminism plays out in a really busy modern time.
"I wanted to work out what was going on, so I started researching, and when my characters appeared they fed my anger...I created them, and they created a writer who got angrier and angrier as the process went on."
She said there is not much questioning about the expected roles of women and men in society.
"We just get on and play those socially constructed roles that have been assigned to us, but we don't have to," Bignell said.
"Being an activist and a feminist doesn't have to dominate your life, it doesn't have to take up much of your time."
And so The Angry Women's Choir was created, but Bignell stressed that her novel is not just a "burning pile of rage".
"One of my pre-requisites for my books is to have fun with it. If I'm not having fun with it, then I don't think my readers are going to have fun," she said.
"I just couldn't do it if I wasn't making myself laugh and making other people laugh as well."
The Angry Women's Choir has a colouful, unwieldy, eccentric and hilarious cast of characters who find their way through life with the unconditional support of each other.
There is also the music.
"Music has been in all of my books...I am a complete enthusiast," Bignell said.
"I try really hard to put it in my life, and in the life of my children. I am so intrigued by it that it has become quite central to my writing."
In addition to the novel, Bignell "by some miracle" wrote music for The Angry Women's Choir, which is included as bonus material in the audio book.
"For a book that is all about music, it is just a gift."
The Angry Women's Choir is the story of Freycinet Barnes, who is navigating mid-life.
She has "a pretty perfect life on the face of it".
"She is well off, privileged, she has beautiful children, a successful husband, a nice house, and a really, busy schedule that she doesn't fit into," Bignell said.
"Then she accidentally falls into this community of musical women who are in this choir."
Freycinet discovers her husband is cheating, she begins to realise the demands of her teenagers, and she is also angry.
"Then the choir help Freycinet to open her eyes," Bignell said.
"Kindness and anger can go together and create something quite beautiful."
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