Congratulations to Dr Barbara Minchinton on her new book The women of Little Lon: sex workers in nineteenth-century Melbourne (Black Inc.) which was launched online via Zoom last night. You can see a recording of the event at in Barbara is in conversation with Fiona Patten. Barbara completed her PhD with us in 2011 on ‘That place’: nineteenth century land selection in the Otways, Victoria, Australia. This micro-study of settlement under the Land Act 1884 and subsequent acts explored some of the ways in which the legislative and administrative framework unintentionally influenced the mindscape of a developing community. Since then Barbara has collaborated with archaeologists on the interpretation of artefacts from Melbourne’s Little Lon district and was the co-editor of The Commonwealth Block, Melbourne, a historical archaeology of the city’s working-class and immigrant communities.