Lovers Dreamers Fighters

A beautiful and moving memoir about passion, creativity and fearlessness from one of Australia's true creatives, singer/songwriter Lo Carmen.

Lo Carmen was discovered at 16 working in a Kings Cross pizza bar and cast as in the seminal Australian film The Year My Voice Broke, for which she was nominated for an AFI award. But even before that, Lo has lived a bigger life than most. From being backstage at Rolling Stones concerts when she was a baby to writing her first song at eight, performing an original song onstage at nine, travelling by herself from Adelaide to Darlinghurst when she was 13, forming her first band at 21, having a baby while barely out of her teens, touring Europe without a manager, funds or a safety net, making music her life and her art. In all this, Lo has been inspired by a handful of women – all icons, one way or another, of modern Australian life.

Lo Carmen weaves her own remarkable story as an independent creative spirit and critically acclaimed singer/songwriter together with compelling portraits of the women who have influenced her life and career: bold creative visionaries, trailblazers, provocateurs, pioneers, feminists and activists such as Renee Geyer, Chrissy Amphlett and Sally-Anne Huckstepp, exploring the often complex lives of these fascinating women as a way of understanding her own life and choices.

About the Author

Lo Carmen is a cult singer-songwriter, and an AFI nominated actor in the much loved films The Year My Voice Broke, Red Dog and the notorious TV docu-drama Blue Murder. Carmen has earnt critical acclaim as a solo artist, and has opened for Renee Geyer, Paul Kelly, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Dirty Three, Kinky Friedman and The Drones as well as touring Europe and the US. She has also published essays and stories in Vogue, Meanjin, Neighborhood Paper and the Women of Letters collections. She has recently returned to Australia after living in the US for the past seven years with her husband, actor Aden Young and their children.