Left Write Hook in the media
TV Tonight
Airdate: Left Write Hook
A groundbreaking program combines boxing and creative writing into an unexpected journey of healing for survivors of sexual abuse.
University of Melbourne
Left Write Hook now streaming on Netflix
Award-winning feature documentary Left Write Hook, directed by Dr Shannon Owen, is now streaming on Netflix Australia.
British Cinematographer
AIDC 2025 award winners announced
Read tje AIDC Awards jury statement regarding Left Write Hook, winner, Best Feature Doc Award 2025.
Ballarat Times
Powerful abuse survivor documentary to screen in Ballarat
Left Write Hook had its world premiere screening at last August’s Melbourne International Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary. A national cinema release followed in October.
The film follows eight female and gender-diverse survivors of childhood sexual abuse as they embark on a groundbreaking recovery program.
Radio New Zealand:
How a boxing and writing programme helps
A trauma-informed boxing course in Melbourne is helping women who've survived sexual abuse reclaim their bodies and rewrite their stories. Left Write Hook was founded by Donna Lyon - who was herself a survivor of abuse. She'd turned to boxing as a way to channel her anger - but instead discovered its power as a mindfulness practice.
Left Write Hook; a case study of producing a feature length documentary across and within the marketplace and the academy
Shannon Owen, Donna Lyon
Published in Media Practice and Education, 11 February 2025, 26(3), 283–301.
Marie Claire Australia
Survivor Circles. Amid Australia’s epidemic of sexual violence, a new wave of peer-led support groups is changing the way victim-survivors heal.
In a small gym in inner-city Melbourne, eight women are pounding punching bags. Every hook is charged with emotion, every jab a reclamation of control.
Minderoo Foundation
The individual and collective: co-creating social impact to transform trauma
“Over the past five years, I’ve used my lived experience as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, my stint in amateur boxing, and my professional identity as an academic and filmmaker to turn a grassroots project into a research initiative, a documentary, a book, and now a survivor-led charity.”
Berwick Star News
Left Write Hook, the journey of reclamation
Tackling trauma has never been an easy task, and finding an effective medium for it has proven to be much more difficult, but for Left Write Hook, the uncanny combination of boxing and creative writing has proven to be the needed combination for conversations on sexual assault.
The CinefestOZ Podcast
In conversation with the Left Write Hook team
Hosted by Joel Jackson. Featuring director Shannon Owen, producer Donna Lyon and film participant Nikki. A discussion on the journey from program to book to documentary, recorded at Cinefest Oz Film Festival 2024.
Roll with the punches
Left, Write, Hook…Boxing, Writing, Healing
Dr. Donna Lyon chats to Tiffanee Cook on the Roll With The Punches Podcast, about survivor experiences, recovery, the Left Write Hook Program and the Left Write Hook Film.
Voices to be Heard: An Arts, Health and Justice Perspective on Healing and Recovery from Child Sexual Abuse.
Donna Lyon, Shannon Owen, Ella Dumaresq, David McDonald
University of Melbourne, Published 2024
The 286 Project
Donna Lyon - 'People's lives have been changed'
Dr Donna Lyon runs a support group in Melbourne to help women who suffered from abuse when they were a child. The support group is called Left Write Hook and uses boxing and writing as a way to help women overcome the complex trauma they are going through.
ABC Melbourne
New boxing program helps sexual assault survivors process trauma
A ground-breaking new support group is combining boxing and writing to help victims of childhood sexual assault.
The founder of Left Write Hook, Donna Lyon, developed the project as mixed-method pilot, but was so successful she expanded into a full-fledged program.