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THE REAL POSSIBILITY OF JOY FINALE

I had no answers. I could only describe what I have witnessed—like Walt Whitman—from within the electric experience of my own body. A body which is also my soul. I remember Kafka’s story of the man who had his punishment carved in his flesh by rotating knives. But I think differently. The knives cut me and they opened me and I flowered out of the wounds. I have remade myself into the image that has always urged me from within. Perhaps that is my lived answer?

ANNE DEVESON ENDORSES THE REAL POSSIBILITY OF JOY

A courageous and passionate book, one that renewed my respect for the
many flowerings of the human race. Josie Emery’s  brave and lonely
journey from being a man to becoming a woman is written with insight,
sensitivity, and there’s also room for humour.  At the end, which is
still her beginning, I found myself quietly saying, ‘Bravo.’

The Real Possibility of Joy was published by Pier 9 an imprint of Murdoch Books in Australia and New Zealand in September, 2009.

Josephine is represented by The  Mary Cunnane Agency.


“But what is most remarkable about this memoir is not only the description of Emery’s transformation from blokey rural male to sensitive Sydney female, it is also the way in which Emery’s prose style seems to have had a gender reassignment…Obviously John Emery was a pretty good writer, but Josephine Emery is a superlative one…”

Mandy Sayer in The Australian Literary Review, October 2009.

Josephine discusses The Real Possibility of Joy with Gretel Kileen on ABC Radio. Click here.

Josephine is appearing at the Byron Bay Writers Festival, August 6-8. She runs a Memoir Writing workshop there on August 5.

You can order The Real Possibility of Joy, here.

Nita Kibble Award Shortlist 2010

Written in the style of literary fiction, Emery’s memoir, ‘The Real Possibility of Joy’, is a beautifully realised, emotionally honest and occasionally confronting account of one person’s difficult quest to find integrity and joy in everyday life.