Heartland: What is the future of modern love

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From hard and fast hook-ups to loneliness, deep love and even climate change stress, I want to understand the whole gamut of modern love. I want to know the heartland.

Stump, 30, has a knack for getting herself into unusual dating situations

Alex, 25, streams porn for four hours each day

Ku, 25, relies on alcohol to meet people and push boundaries during sex

Michael, 36, discovers polyamory after raising kids

Cassandra, 26, mixes kink with sex work

Finding love and quenching lust are desires humankind has sought for millennia. Today the internet plays a key role in how we find companionship and connection, but for writer Jennifer Pinkerton - who's traversing her own ups and downs in love and commitment - this new era of dating apps, omnipresent porn and increasingly fluid identities begs the question: what is the future of modern love

This one-of-a-kind book blends reportage, memoir, extensive research and lyrical prose to take us on a journey into the heart-scapes of young Australians. Informed by interviews with more than 100 people under 40 - from transgender Aboriginal sistagirls in the Tiwi Islands to conservative Catholics living in Sydney - this book explores the hopes, fears and realities of romantic relationships at a time marked by great expectations and far fewer rules.

Heartland is a probing and insightful exploration of how love, sex and dating are changing - for better or worse. It gives us a window into the way we live now, and what this might mean for our futures.

'A warm and curious gaze upon this new landscape of sex and love . . . But it's Pinkerton's own journey through love and loss - offering glimpses into the author's heart, revealing bruises and aches, those almost unbearable aspects of love - that is most compelling.' Anna Krien, award-winning author of Night Games

Reviews

"The search for modern romance can often seem transactional, the acronyms so numerous it is practically bureaucratic and the constant browsing a rabbit-hole into narcissism, so when journalist Jennifer Pinkerton turns her warm and curious gaze on this new landscape of sex and love, her lens is a welcome one. Always observing, sometimes tense with desire or frank with her unease, Pinkerton listens to her interviewees and details their journeys without ever resorting to the picket-fence safety of judgment. She breathes life into what has become an online catalogue and is the perfect guide to take the pulse of modern love. But what makes Heartland most special is Pinkerton's own journey through love and loss; while never indulgent, it is these glimpses into the author's heart where she reveals bruises and aches - those almost unbearable aspects of love - that are most compelling." Anna Krien, author of Act of Grace

Author Bio

Jennifer Pinkerton is a writer, photographer and producer. She's written stories and journalism for The Guardian, National Geographic, the UK Telegraph, the Courier-Mail, the Canberra Times and Qantas magazine, among other publications. Previously, she worked as a federal press-gallery gofer; as a features editor on a health magazine; and as an editor and writer on art, architecture and women-focused titles. She's also helped launch live storytelling events, including the Top End's Spun: True Tales Told in the Territory, and Canberra's first Language Party, which celebrated the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages. Jennifer has exhibited her photography in Perth, Canberra and Darwin, holds a doctorate in creative arts and teaches at Charles Darwin University. She lives in the Northern Territory with her good mates-heat and humidity.