Debrief – The Orbital

When I met Amy in her office, something I immediately noticed was her collection of books. One caught my eye straight away: Female Masculinity by Judith/Jack Halberstam. Coincidentally, the book came up more than once in our interview - she described how she came across it for the first time while she was working at Oxfam during her undergraduate degree: “I was a stones throw away from the uni but nothing like this had ever been shown to me. It turned a light on in a way, I didn’t realise Queer studies was something that even existed.”. Amy described how her journey in academia actually began in law – and that after a short 6 months she realised that it was too constrained for her ‘fairly strong opinions’ to be heard and explored, so she ended up doing her undergrad in English Literature a...

It seems extraordinary that someone who has been through such hardship could instantly fill a room with energy. She’s sassy, cheeky and has the kind of determination that makes you want to go out and conquer the world. Sophie Christiansen is an eight-time Paralympic equestrian champion. She was born two months premature with cerebral palsy. She had jaundice, a collapsed lung and a heart attack – to say that she came out the other side a fighter would be an incredible understatement. As a lover of horses and once-rider myself I am overwhelmed with the amount of things that I want to talk to Sophie about – there are bound to be a million inspiring things that I can write a debrief on her about. What we stumble across, however, was entirely unexpected. I remember seeing Sophie hit th...

Tag: Debrief

Debrief: Dr. Amy Tooth-Murphy

Debrief: Sophie Christiansen