Linda Jaivin is a novelist, journalist, translator and author of non-fiction who has recently begun writing for the theatre. Seeking Djira, her first full-length play, was read at Playbox’s Theatre in the Raw in 2002 and produced in Melbourne by Essential Theatre at Forty-Five Downstairs in 2003. Halal el Mashakel, her first short play, was produced by Pesto Manifesto and performed in 2003-4 in Sydney, Canberra, Wollongong, Newcastle and the Adelaide Fringe. Her short story Lucky to Have Them was performed as a monologue at the Short and Sweet Festival in Sydney in 2005. Her most recent publication is the novel The Infernal Optimist (2006). Her previous four novels – the international bestseller Eat Me, Rock ‘n Roll Babes from Outer Space, Miles Walker You’re Dead and Dead Sexy – have all been published overseas as well as in Australia. Her non-fiction titles include Confessions of an S & M Virgin and The Monkey and the Dragon. She has completed an unproduced libretto about the journey of an asylum seeker to Australia, A Better Life, for which she won a Varuna/Playworks fellowship.