Cirrus@Austlit

'What are regions in Australia? One place to begin to define such a slippery term might be to draw on that of the Regional Australia Institute (RAI) which defines regional Australia as ‘all of the towns, small cities and areas that lie beyond the major capital cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra)’ (RAI 2017a). According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), Australians living in these areas:

experience poorer health and welfare outcomes than people living in metropolitan areas. They have higher rates of chronic disease and mortality, have poorer access to health services, are more likely to engage in behaviours associated with poorer health, and are over-represented in the child protection and youth justice sectors. (AIHW)' (Introduction)

'The regions that colonisers know are not generally those of most importance to First Nations people, although the territorial divisions of government administration have had a huge impact on First Nations people in terms of the kinds of policies directed at them and the implementation of those policies. In this paper, I look first at the ways in which Aboriginal experience in Australia has been written out of the landscape, then at some non-territorial ways of looking at such landscapes. I then discuss how a non-Indigenous writer, in working with First Nations people, might help to make visible a different kind of ‘region’.'  (Publication abstract)

'In popular published accounts from settlement and into the early part of the twentieth century the North Queensland region was often portrayed as ‘wild’. This is a perception ripe for re-examination, particularly from the perspective of women of lower socio-economic standing, and something I am exploring through my own creative work. Writing historical fiction about my grandmother’s life in North Queensland in the first half of the twentieth century requires me to consider strategies to ethically re-imagine a peripheral history that is specific to regional geography, class, and gender. Such a task is complicated by the limited source material available about the lived experiences of poorer women living in North Queensland. The most fruitful sources are often first-hand accounts such as life writing, personal recollections, memoirs, letters, or journals. Along with oral histories, these artefacts make up the bulk of the primary archival material that forms the background and contextual groundwork for my historical fiction. These sources are highly individual accounts specific to the time, place and era in which they were written. Historical fiction relies on an ‘authenticity effect’ (Padmore 2017) to effectively build a past world, and this article explores some of the ways these primary sources can be utilised and integrated in historical fiction to effectively and ethically represent women living in the margins.'

 (Publication abstract)

'It’s never been easy making a living as a writer or illustrator, of course, but in the last fifteen years or so, literary creators have experienced significant disruption and change, due to the transformation of the publishing industry and the challenges – and opportunities – of the internet and other technological developments. Wearing many hats, for most writers, is no longer an option; it is a necessity. For those living in regional areas, who face additional issues related to geographic distance from major publishing centres, it is even more important.

'This article explores the lived experiences both of individual creators based in the New England region of northern NSW, and that of the local Writers’ Centre, which for over twenty years has provided creative and professional development opportunities for writers and illustrators in the region. Against a background of the history of the New England Writers’ Centre and a description of the author’s own career, it profiles how several other New England creators, interviewed by the author, view the advantages and disadvantages of being based regionally, and the role of their local Writers’ Centre. This presents an intimate insight into what it’s like to work as a creator within the literary ecosystem of a distinctive regional area with a rich cultural fabric, but which also faces issues of geographic distance common to most nonmetropolitan areas.' (Publication abstract)

'This paper surveys Australian literature regarding the publication of literary journals and the qualitative costs and benefits of their production. The survey was undertaken as part of a research project to develop a literary journal for Australia’s Northern Territory, which has been without a substantial journal of its own since 2000. As part of the project, the researchers also surveyed public attitudes towards a literary journal, interviewed key industry stakeholders, and commenced business planning for a journal, all framed by the overview of literature. While only the literature review is reported on here, the attitude surveys, interviews, and business planning may form the subject of future papers. Called The Borderlands Project, the research was begun as part of a 2018 strategic arts project jointly funded by Arts NT and Charles Darwin University to develop a literary journal of the Northern Territory in three phases. This paper outlines the purpose of the project and describes preliminary results from the literature survey, including comments on funding, journal format, content, how to address the problem of prosumerism, and future directions for the research.' (Publication abstract)

'This article aims to explore the representation of what I argue identifies an Australian literary regionalism in stories and poetry published in Idiom 23, Central Queensland University’s literary magazine, over the past three issues, 2016–2018. As editor of Idiom 23 during this time, I have detected in the contemporary writing of regional contributors a heightening interest in expressing a unique sense of place and history through literary elements including, but not limited to, an emphasis on local colour and characterisation, rurality and regional settings, and personal stories of time and place, as well as an idiomatic interest in literary tropes accentuating colloquialisms, regional traditions, dialogic ‘play’, personal and familial histories, Indigenous identity, and distinctive ways of mapping, representing, articulating, and celebrating cultural belonging. Exploring how contributions to Central Queensland University’s Idiom 23 literary magazine over the past three issues, 2016–2018, construct a sense of regionalism and regional identity offers rich potential to not only identify the narratives, stories, or voices ‘naturally’ arising in regional writing practices, but also how perceptions of regionality impact on the ways regional writing is itself expressed through a unique form of Australian literary regionalism.' (Publication abstract)

'This essay uses the pastoral conjured in William Shakespeare’s As You Like It to reflect on the experience of teaching Shakespeare in regional far north Queensland. By aligning the pastoral with the concept of the ‘region’, the essay negotiates the complex relationship between a sense of lived place and the literary places imagined and constructed in the texts we encounter in our teaching, writing, and research. The explicit connection of these two places – regional and pastoral – will prove mutually enlightening as the discussion works towards a framework for enabling students to incorporate a sense of place in literary studies through the concept of ardenspace. This discussion will draw on place-based learning in order to examine the way our senses of literary and regional place are imaginatively constructed and how this affects – and can be utilised in – research, writing, and teaching.' 

 (Publication abstract)

'As higher education in Australia becomes increasingly distributed geographically, regional universities play a key role in supporting distance education. With innovative online learning and strong student engagement levels continuing to be a priority, this is perhaps even more pronounced in postgraduate coursework degrees in the creative arts, a field in which postgraduate qualifications are unnecessary to secure employment in the sector. This article presents the results of a case study investigation of a regionally based postgraduate creative arts degree program that utilised blended learning principles, included on-campus and distance students, and framed discussion board usage/writing as a formative requirement across the units in the program. Alongside writing about their creative and professional practices, students produced narratives that could be described as examples of engaged reflective practice which, this analysis revealed, focused on aspects of the educational experience that assisted in developing a sense of belonging for this widely dispersed cohort.' (Publication abstract)

'The vast region of Gippsland in south-eastern Victoria is home to approximately 270,000 people, with many experiencing complex and entrenched disadvantage. Most of my students are first in family, and very few aspire to a career in writing, or even consider themselves creative; however, they are, on the whole, hungry for knowledge, bright, and engaged. Many have responded with startling creativity and enthusiasm to specific exercises designed to foster writing practice and reading as a writer, and most have flourished in a structured workshop environment that affirms workshop method and process as a learned skill. Drawing on personal reflection, anecdote, case study and research, including regional teaching and learning scholarship, Sally Kift’s ‘Transition Pedagogy’, Janelle Adsit’s ‘Threshold Concepts’ and Victor Turner’s ‘Liminal’, this paper reflects on some of the strategies employed in Federation University Australia’s first-year introductory creative writing course to conquer resistance to the notion of being creative, facilitate creative writing practice, and foster a culture of creative writing production.' (Publication abstract)

'This paper is a small case study with a brief description and evaluation of regionally based, largely extracurricular professional writing activities by staff, and the opportunities provided to students in the Writing Program, School of Arts and Social Sciences, Southern Cross University. There may be a perception or assumption by some students that creative-writing opportunities are limited in the region, in terms of number and variety, or difficulty of access. This may be due to their own limited experience of the ‘writing world’, which is directly tied to the student cohort demographics. One of our concerns is to prepare students for the rigors of a professional life of writing or other related fields in a literary industry. We provide our students with professional training or work experience opportunities: to read, to write, to publish, to be a publisher/editor, to work in a literary industry context. As well, Hartley (2014: 2) argues ‘for building on regionalism’s concern for place, space, and identity’. Writing and literature are key ways to explore and develop regional specificities. We think that the Northern Rivers is generating a regional literature, a literature of the Northern Rivers Gothic. As teachers, mentors, and residents in a regional area, we recognise that one of our tasks is to help students make connections to existing networks of opportunity, or create them ourselves, through teaching about the literary industry, participating in festivals, holding readings, providing information about publication and competition opportunities, celebrating achievements and engaging in regionally based creative research.' (Publication abstract)

'In 1993, Mary Morris, in her compilation of women’s travel writing, Maiden voyages, observed that women, while travelling, are always vulnerable to sexual violence: ‘the fear of rape, for example, whether crossing the Sahara, or just crossing a city street at night’ (Morris 1993: xvii). Twenty-five years later, the reality remains. In June 2018, three weeks before Sally Piper launched her new novel, The geography of friendship, Melbourne comedian Eurydice Dixon was raped and murdered in Carlton North while walking home from a Melbourne bar.' 

 (Introduction)