Author’s Note

My recent book Ithica is a work of fiction.

I wrote this book in the shadow of things that, in my experience, are met with silence: the quiet power of institutions, the way reputations are manufactured, the way fear becomes policy, and the way people can be erased without the world noticing.

The events in this story are confronting and sometimes arrive without warning. That is intentional. In real life, the worst moments rarely announce themselves.

This story is told through a gay lens because my life is shaped by it.
My former partner of twelve years was Australia’s first openly gay Royal Australian Naval officer. He became Deputy Director within an intelligence agency. In the world we moved through, that single truth can be used by people with power and access—people who don’t need to be right to be dangerous.

The novel follows Anthea, an intelligence officer trapped inside a system of disappearances, corruption, and bureaucratic cruelty—a system that doesn’t explain itself and punishes anyone who insists on reality. Anthea is not me. This is not a memoir. I chose fiction because facts can be buried, rewritten, or made to disappear.

The story carries dark, farcical humour for one reason: sometimes farce is the only language that keeps a mind intact. Comedy doesn’t soften the horror. It makes it bearable enough to witness.

Names, places, timelines, and identifying details have been changed to protect the innocent, guilty and insane. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

In Ithica, nothing is safe. In an age of fake news, the truth is almost impossible to believe.