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y separately published work icon Storyland single work   novel   historical fiction   fantasy  
Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 Storyland
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'An ambitious, remarkable and moving novel about who we are: our past, present and future, and our connection to this land.

'In 1796, a young cabin boy, Will Martin, goes on a voyage of discovery in the Tom Thumb with Matthew Flinders and Mr Bass: two men and a boy in a tiny boat on an exploratory journey south from Sydney Cove to the Illawarra, full of hope and dreams, daring and fearfulness.

'Set on the banks of Lake Illawarra and spanning four centuries, Storyland is a unique and compelling novel of people and place - which tells in essence the story of Australia. Told in an unfurling narrative of interlinking stories, in a style reminiscent of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, McKinnon weaves together the stories of Will Martin together with the stories of four others: a desperate ex-convict, Hawker, who commits an act of terrible brutality; Lola, who in 1900 runs a dairy farm on the Illawarra with her brother and sister, when they come under suspicion for a crime they did not commit; Bel, a young girl who goes on a rafting adventure with her friends in 1998 and is unexpectedly caught up in violent events; and in 2033, Nada, who sees her world start to crumble apart. Intriguingly, all these characters are all connected - not only through the same land and water they inhabit over the decades, but also by tendrils of blood, history, memory and property...

'Compelling, thrilling and ambitious, Storyland is our story, the story of Australia. 'The land is a book waiting to be read' as one of the characters says - and this novel tells us an unforgettable and unputdownable story of our history, our present and our future.' (Publication summary)

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Notes

  • Dedication: For Gary Christian

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

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Works about this Work

Seeking Greener Pages : An Analysis of Reader Response to Australian Eco- Crime Fiction Rachel Fetherston , Emily Potter , Kelly Miller , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Humanities Review , May no. 71 2023;
'IN THEIR WORK ON HOW NARRATIVE MAY HELP AUDIENCES THINK DIFFERENTLY ABOUT other species, Wojciech Malecki et al. refer to the ‘narrative turn’ within academia and its proliferation of research that addresses how ‘moral intuitions often yield to narrative persuasion’ (2). In other words, many scholars are currently asking whether narratives can persuade readers to reflect on and perhaps reconsider their own moral beliefs. The research presented in this paper follows a similar trajectory in its discussion of the results and possible implications of a reader response study that investigated how Australian readers respond to works of Australian eco-crime fiction that portray non-humans and global ecological issues such as climate change in a local Australian context. Resonant with ‘narrative persuasion’—the idea amongst social scientists that ‘a narrative is a catalyst for perspective change’ (Hamby et al. 114)—we consider the capacity of such texts to possibly engage readers with the plight of non-humans in Australia under the impacts of climate change.' (Introduction)
Australian Fiction Is Already Challenging the Idea That Catastrophic Bushfire Is Normal Rachel Fetherston , 2020 single work column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 14 January 2020;

'The stories we tell about bushfire are changing. Our writers have been grappling with its link to climate crisis for years'

Relational Ethics : Writing about Birds; Writing about Humans Joshua Lobb , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , October no. 57 2019;
'Philip Armstrong points out that scholars in Animal Studies are ‘interested in attending not just to what animals mean to humans, but what they mean to themselves; that is, to the ways in which animals might have significances, intentions and effects quite beyond the designs of human beings’ (2008: 2). This essay asks: what are the ethics of representing birds in fiction? It promotes the model offered by Linda Alcoff in ‘The Problem of Speaking for Others’ (1992). Alcoff offers a set of ‘interrogatory practices’ for writers, including an analysis of our speaking position to expose any implicit discourses of domination at work, and, most importantly, a consideration for the effects of ‘speaking for’ on actual animals. Using Alcoff’s interrogatory practices as a framework, I examine the ways writers have allowed for ‘ethical relationships’ between humans and birds in fictional spaces. I investigate the function of birds as metaphor in three Australian novels: Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book (2013), Evie Wyld’s All the Birds, Singing (2013) and Catherine McKinnon’s Storyland (2017). In each of these, birds serve a symbolic function but are also given space to allow for their own experiences, voices, and knowledges. I will also reflect on the attempts I have made in my own novel, The Flight of Birds (2019), to grapple with the discourses of power at work and the impact of that power on the lives of real birds.' (Publication abstract)
Your Guide to the Miles Franklin Shortlist : A Kaleidoscopic Portrait of a Diverse Nation Jen Webb , 2018 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 23 August 2018; The Guardian Australia , 23 August 2018;

'The Miles Franklin award is famously for “a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases”. That’s a very broad palette, yet for most of the award’s existence — 1957 to the present — it has recognised a rather narrow field of “Australian life”.' (Introduction)

Catherine McKinnon : Storyland Tracy Sorensen , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , June 2018;

'Storyland carries us into new imaginative places – past, present and future.'

'Storyland' by Catherine McKinnon Doug Wallen , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , May no. 391 2017;
'‘I write best from place,’ Catherine McKinnon told Fairfax newspapers in a recent interview. Her second novel, which concerns centuries of human interaction with the New South Wales coast region between Wollongong and Lake Illawarra, makes this abundantly clear.' (Introduction)
Traversing the Sands of Time James Bradley , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 1 April 2017; (p. 18)
'Although the European presence in Australia is now more than two centuries old it sometimes seems the legacy of the past is more present with each passing year. Whether in the human cost for indigenous Australians, the environmental devastation on the Great Barrier Reef and elsewhere, or simply in the hostility towards those who question our assumptions about our history, Australian society has not come to terms with the dispossession and violence at its heart.' (Introduction)
Catherine McKinnon : Storyland Tracy Sorensen , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , June 2018;

'Storyland carries us into new imaginative places – past, present and future.'

Your Guide to the Miles Franklin Shortlist : A Kaleidoscopic Portrait of a Diverse Nation Jen Webb , 2018 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 23 August 2018; The Guardian Australia , 23 August 2018;

'The Miles Franklin award is famously for “a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases”. That’s a very broad palette, yet for most of the award’s existence — 1957 to the present — it has recognised a rather narrow field of “Australian life”.' (Introduction)

form y separately published work icon The Book Club [December 2017] Sydney : Australian Broadcasting Corporation , 2017 15262028 2017 film/TV

For the final episode of The Book Club, host Jennifer Byrne joins regular panelists Marieke Hardy and Jason Steger, and guests Michael Williams and Benjamin Law. The panellists discuss "Five of the Best" from 2017, and best books as voted by readers. They are joined by Jimmy Barnes for a musical performance.

Last amended 13 Jul 2021 11:24:08
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  • Sydney Cove, Sydney, New South Wales,
  • Illawarra, South Coast, New South Wales,
  • 1796
  • 2033
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