It wasn't all that long ago that nobody could actually say the word cancer, let alone tell the world they had it. All that's changing - cancer seems far more common now, but a lot of that's because we can talk about it openly and without resorting to hushed tones. And that's where we come to the title of the book - we called it Exposure for a few reasons.

First, because we're all far more exposed to cancer than we ever have been - it's impossible to mention it to anyone now without them saying "My mother/sister/cousin/best friend has had it." (For two of us involved in the book, the project has been especially meaningful as our mothers have had breast cancer. We're really pleased that they're here in these pages.) Second, a diagnosis of cancer and the medical treatment involved is confronting, and the women have had to expose themselves, both mentally and physically, in their battle with the disease.

We also think it's time to expose cancer for what it is - part of life and a part that's obviously best avoided but, strangely, not necessarily a relentlessly negative experience. Talking to women who have had cancer, it has, in many cases, exposed them to aspects of life and love and friendship they didn't know existed and they feel surprised and comforted by that. Exposure is a word used in photography, and this book is essentially a portrait of Australian women of all ages who have had cancer, some so long ago that they barely think of it, while for others it's a continuing presence in their lives. We'd like to thank all the women who agreed to bare themselves to us, who had enough trust to say "yes" to appearing in this book while it was still only an idea. That in itself seemed pretty amazing to us; even more incredible has been their enthusiasm and humour and candour - it's been a huge pleasure for us to have had contact with all of them.

They've exposed themselves here for a good cause. All the money raised from the sales of this book is going to the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation, a collaboration between the Monash Medical Centre and Prince Henry's Institute for Medical Research. The Foundation fosters research into a disease which claims the life of one Australian woman every 10 hours, a disease which is often only discovered at an advanced stage and for which there are no screening tests. Progress is being made into the understanding of ovarian cancer, but much more research needs to be done.

Hopefully, one of these days it will be impossible to put together a book like this because cancer will be a disease of the past. We'd like to think we're doing our bit to help make that happen.