Gaston Bachelard's seminal 1958 work, Poetics of Space, urged architects to base their work on the experiences they will engender in the spaces they provide. More than 50 years later, numerous contributors have come together to explore Bachelard's notion within an Australian context. Halfway Houses explores various notions of space, including: an analysis of dance * displacement and migration * artistic space in the bush * the connection between virtual and hyper-real space from video games to detention centers * Indigenous ideas of space * urban and suburban space * and many more. The contributors include writers, performers, artists, and cultural theorists, such as Paul Carter, Stephen Muecke, Mandy Thomas, John von Sturmer, Alexis Wright, Merv Bishop, Ross Gibson, Stephen Naylor, Rachel Fensham, Joanne Tompkins, Brian Greenspan, Bernadette Brennan, Michael Brennan, and Ann McCulloch.