Musician, actor and author of new memoir Lovers Dreamers Fighters Lo Carmen loves Californian roadtrips to Joshua Tree.

Thinking back, I must have met Loene Carmen somewhere in the late 1980s. But that’s only a guess. Time had a way of sliding back and forth in those days. Until you lost sense of it altogether.

When I was a teenager, The Year My Voice Broke was one of the few films where I saw teenagers like myself on the screen, as opposed to American teens. The character played by Lo Carmen, in her acting debut after being discovered in a Kings Cross pizza bar, was who I wished I could be; just the right balance of beauty, cool and rebellion.

Lo Carmen is one of those artists who seems to have crammed several lifetimes in one. Bohemian to the core, she became an acclaimed actor in her teens, and a mum and a touring musician by her early 20s. This tour de force memoir also encompasses a who’s who of Australian female rock and pop pioneers like Chrissy Amphlett and Renee Geyer, resulting in a unique perspective on what it means to pursue art.