Cirrus@Austlit

Reflecting upon the evolution of my fractured novel The Earth Does Not Get Fat (2018), this article asks how narrative form represents underlying ideas. This inquiry reflects an abiding interest in the concept of ideasthesia, or ‘sensing concepts’ (Nikolić 2016). Ideasthesia is a means for deconstructing the ways in which writers sense concepts or ideas in metaphorical or associative ways. As I investigate the development of the fractured form and polyphonic voice in my novel, I take an interest in form as a metaphorical map, a ‘linguistic bridge’ (Cacciari 2008) between the brain and the mind. With reference to Christopher Bollas’ concept of the unthought known (Bollas 2014; 2017), I probe the relationship between narrative structure and latent themes. This extends contemporary debates about form and theme, investigating how fiction writers use cross-sensory modalities and experiential knowledge to plot concepts or ideas. Further, this analysis invites discussion about how ideasthetic practices in narrative represent creative problem-solving. This article focuses on the realist text as a sensory narrative image, a form of abstracted realism.'  (Publication abstract)

'This article is a fictocritical intervention in the patriarchal form of the elegy and a reflection on the expression of grief, anger and subjectivity by women writers. It uses Adrienne Rich’s writing on women’s self-destruction as a feminist methodological framework to explore two specific ideas. First, how we speak of the dead, which concerns the agency, subjectivity and anger with which we express our remembrance and our grief, and second, literary style and feminist interventions in the elegiac form. Taking a fictocritical approach, the article combines the objective style of the academic mode with a subjective treatment, resulting in a cut-up text that combines analysis and my own reflections. In this, the article is informed by work by Anna Gibbs (1998; 2005) and Ross Watkins (2014). This multivocal approach aims to answer the question: how does the approach to the elegy form employed by Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath enable a nuanced representation of grief, mourning and agency, and how can other women writers build on this approach to write to and through each other in the context of a patriarchal literary tradition?' (Publication abstract)

'This critical/creative work responds to a call from Krauth and Watkins for a more radical form of the scholarly paper. Its hybrid form presents poems written in response to events at the second Poetry on the Move festival at the University of Canberra in 2016. Key ideas about the intersections between poetry and knowledge from David McCooey and William Carlos Williams are considered together with readings and discussions by poets Tusiata Avia and Simon Armitage. The article charts writing experiences, tracking the drafts and the editing process for ways in which my festival-inspired poems reflect on the intersections between poetry and knowledge, knowing and unknowing. Specifically, the poems concern the topics of knowing and observing the world; knowing memory and integrating the past with the present; and knowing the body. They embrace embodiment, imagination and biography, conscious of antagonisms between memory and the present. In this article, I problematise the use of the noun knowledgeas opposed to the verb knowing and demonstrate that the former is unnecessarily privileged. I argue that articulating the full scope of poetry composition from inspiration to the final stages of editing demonstrates that artistic knowledge is best defined as a process of knowing. It is my contention that poets do demonstrate the knowledge of how to make things, as identified by Aristotle (1954); and also that we show ‘knowing as a process of inquiry’ (Johnson 2010). In doing so, we offer readers ‘new ways of knowing and doing’ (Webb 2012, my emphasis). At the same time, our own new work, as I demonstrate here, responds to knowledge as ‘a living current’ (Williams 1923), an active state characterised by the verb ‘to know’.' (Publication abstract)

'While national agendas and individual university mission statements seek to make Australian higher education more inclusive for an increasingly diverse student population, the contribution that writing centres can make to achieving these goals has been overlooked. This article outlines the rationale, development, and growth of the Writing Hub at the University of Sydney to advocate for writing centre/writing across the curriculum (WAC) collaborations as the future of writing instruction in Australia. By reimagining academic writing instruction as creative, collaborative practice, Australian higher education can move beyond the antiquated deficit remediation model.' (Publication abstract)

'Prior to writing A Wife’s Heart (Davies 2017), I did not see myself as a flâneur. I walked in public spaces, but I often hurried rather than strolled. When I did slow, I found myself having spontaneous conversations with strangers. A flâneur seemed too leisurely an observer of the crowd; too detached. An exegetical examination of my work, however, together with a historical understanding of the flâneur, led to the realisation that flánerie was a motif integral to my writing process, and to creating a narrative of timelessness over a century of divorce and single parenting. My moments of flânerie, punctuated with engagement among the crowd, also change the dynamics of the flâneur to a dialogic and empathetic experience. A similar flânerie is evident in the auto / biography Stasiland (Funder 2002), which explores the pervasive presence of East German history after Germany’s reunification. I suggest that the fluid mindset of a flâneur suits the writer on a quest (Marr 2016-2017), augmenting specific interview, archival and site research practices with sensory awareness and a dialogic empathy in such auto / biographical works. I further argue that the slash between the auto and biography is dissolved via the flâneur becoming a motif of timelessness.'  (Publication abstract)

'This article evaluates two web serials: novels published in serialised instalments through digital mediums. John C McCrae’s Worm (2011-2013) was self-published online in the style of a blog, and Stark Holborn’s Nunslinger (2014) was published by Hodder & Stoughton as serialised e-books. This article refers to debates on the publishing industry (Young 2007; Thompson 2012), self-publishing (Young 2014; Tushnet 2017) and digital publishing (Colbjørnsen 2014; Mustafa & Adnan 2017), and applies these to a comparative study of Worm and Nunslinger in order to demonstrate how web serials can engage online fan networks that refashion the forms of capital accessed by established publishing houses. This article concludes that web serials such as McCrae’s work as ‘slow’ media that gain traction over a period of years using word-of-mouth and crowdsourcing through online fan networks.'
 

'The vexed question of what distinguishes historical novels from other genres has yet to be resolved. From the time of Homer, and looking forward to the more complex treatment of history by postmodern and post-postmodern novels, many definitions have been offered. None has completely satisfied. When the history in question is a significant event such as the Holocaust or, in the case of Falling Backwards: Australian Historical Fiction and the History Wars, ‘cultural and political significance … of the period known as the History Wars’ (3), then wider considerations come into force. In tackling this topic Jo Jones raises many questions and refrains from answering all of them. This is an excellent thing in an academic text.' (Introduction)

''The title story ‘Jungle Without Water’ about a devout young Sikh newly migrated to Australia is perfectly placed at the beginning of this often humorous, but also heart rending, collection. It’s a story about navigation. Jogi needs to find a place to pray in Brisbane and is shown a refidex. It seemed ‘almost as big as the Holy Granth Sahib. Jogi imagined his mother’s surprize at the notion of a book that only existed to tell how to travel around a city’ (9).' (Introduction)

'Marionette: a biography of Miss Marion Davies is an audio adaptation of Jess Wilkinson’s biographical collection of poems, marionette: a biography of miss marion davies, published by Vagabond in 2012. The adaptation comes in a stylised red CD sleeve (and is also available as a download), with cover art evoking a puzzle – showing parts of the subject’s face on squares of film reel. It features music composed by Simon Charles, and is performed by Jenny Barnes, Andrew Butler, Phoebe Green, and Michael McNabby, with spoken word by the poet herself.'' (Introduction)