'There is a TV news item playing right now about Selah Schneiter, a 10-year old who has just climbed to the summit of El Capitan. She is the youngest to have ever successfully made that climb. El Cap, as it is often called, is a 3000 ft rock formation located in the Yosemite National Park in California's Sierra Nevada mountains. Even if you have absolutely no fear of heights, the idea of a 10-year old climbing El Cap is mindboggling. Selah comes from a climbing family (her parents met on an El Cap climbing trip back in 2004); but, for anyone of any age to do a climb like that (sheer granite, straight up) they need tremendous grip and finger strength, exceptional hip and shoulder flexibility, strong knee flexion – and they need a tremendous, unerring, deep-rooted amount of endurance. Summits are generally not considered to be within the reach of 10-year olds. Selah Schneiter's feat challenges our perception of what is possible.' (Graeme Harper. Editorial introduction)
'This article identifies the debate regarding differentiation between creative and exegetical (or scholarly) components in postgraduate research submissions and surveys the 2000-year history of creative-exegetical writing. It marks out a body of work where creative writers themselves explore and direct the theory and analysis of creative writing’s processual activities, suggesting a hybrid form that constitutes a genre in itself – what we call the Creative-Exegetical. In conclusion, the article argues acceptance for the creative work as scholarly work in the creative writing research space. The trigger for this article was provided by Peter Nash, a student at Griffith University, Australia, who in 2018 thought to challenge the status quo by submitting a crime fiction story as a ‘reflective essay’ in an Honours-level research course. Pete had already published stories in TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses which were fictions dealing with aspects of the writing process, and he wanted to go further.' (Publication abstract)
'This paper documents a year of writing dangerously to discover creative forms of inquiry that generate impact through emotional resonance. Such writing is defined as ‘dangerous’, as it involves exploring non-traditional and creative approaches, such as expressive, narrative, embodied and poetic writing. ‘Dangerous’ writing is often motivated by having the end in sight, as an awareness of limited time can help academics to prioritise personally meaningful work. Writing dangerously embodies an individual’s fundamental beliefs about an academic career worth having.' (Publication abstract)
'The serial killer novel has enjoyed unabated popularity since Thomas Harris’s 1988 bestseller The Silence of the Lambs prompted a publishing boom in the genre that endures today. Harris, as well as the influx of novelists who have followed in his wake, have been criticised for their gratuitous sensationalism, and for the rigid conservatism of their narrative arcs, which feature a return to order after the anarchism and disorder of the serial killer – narratives which bear little resemblance to the reality of the abject violence of serial homicide and its traumatic aftermath. This article examines the case studies of Ali Land’s novel Good Me Bad Me, and Emily Maguire’s An Isolated Incident, and identifies the way in which both writers innovate within the genre by using the bystander narrator to subvert the tropes of the detective procedural and decentre the generic focus on the monstrous figure of the serial killer, focussing the novel instead on the aftermath of the crime and its victims. The article argues such interventions by contemporary novelists in the serial killer genre offer a profound innovation that complicates the familiar narrative arc of anarchic crime and resolution in favour of a more ambiguous and realistic view of serial crime.' (Publication abstract)
'Comedy writers use their practice to raise questions and create awareness about social, political and cultural issues, but can these practitioners be considered academics? With creative modalities of enquiry now commonplace in universities – where research is used to shape one’s practice, resulting in creative work that embodies that research – when does comedy writing start to take on a different function? In this article, we discuss comedy screenwriting in an academic setting, arguing that it has potential as a rigorous mode of research that can sit happily alongside art, design, creative writing and media practice. Much has been written about creative practice research, yet not so much has been written about the form this type of research takes; specifically, why one might choose comedy to express, embody or otherwise perform the findings of research. Here, then, we draw on our experiences of undertaking screenwriting projects using comedy to discuss the ways in which researchers might use the comic mode to present their findings in imaginative, innovative and fun ways that can expand understanding and, potentially, garner impact.' (Publication abstract)
