'The April 2021 edition of TEXT features seven provocative scholarly contributions to the discipline, largely concerned with what could be considered an ethics of care. This septet is led by Julienne van Loon’s timely reflection on creative practice as ‘nourishment’, originally presented as keynote to the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP) conference held at Griffith University, November 2020.'
'The contribution from Cleo Mees takes a ficto-critical approach to the uncertainty, precarity and exploitation that characterises scholarly work for today’s sessional creative writing academics. Katherine Day’s research investigates the extent to which Australia’s defamation laws have created a practice of implicit censorship of non-fiction writing in Australia. Continuing the theme of an ethics of care, Owen Bullock offers insights into his principles and practices in running haiku workshops. Jack Kirne’s discussion of Olga Tokarczuk’s novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2018) bolsters an argument for the multirealist mode as an agile method for writing about the climate crisis. Kári Gíslason finds limited capacity in the broader culture for critically valuing and genuinely supporting multi-modal authorship. And a remarkable collaboration of six scholars engage in an experiment to explore the ‘differences, contradictions, sympathies, antipathies, and strange resonances’ between expressions of creative practice in relation to the ‘notoriously slippery’ yet personally significant notions of time and queerness. Also included are creative works focused on the process of writing, and 13 reviews of books of interest to creative writing scholars and practitioners.' (Publication summary)
Only literary material by Australian authors individually indexed. Other material in this issue includes:
Jinendra Jain, See Like a Child; Think Like an Adult: Creating Space between Perception and Thought
The doctor will see you now review by Simon-Peter Telford (Donna Lee Brien, Craig Batty, Elizabeth Ellison, Alison Owens (eds) The Doctoral Experience: Student Stories from the Creative Arts and Humanities)
Writing to change the game review by Stephanie Green (Sally Breen, Ravi Shankar, Tim Tomlinson (eds) Meridian: The APWT/Drunken Boat Anthology of New Writing.)
It’s a story not a webcam review by Michael Kitson (George Saunders A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (In Which Four Dead Russians Give Us a Masterclass In Writing and Life))
Octavia E. Butler and speculative fiction in the classroom review by Jennifer Ngo (Approaches to Teaching the Works of Octavia E. Butler)
More than ice and snow review by Simon-Peter Telford (Reinhard Hennig, Anna-Karin Jonasson, Peter Degerman (eds) Nordic Narratives of Nature and the Environment)
'What if we thought of creative writing practice and its resultant contribution (to knowledge, to arts practice, to the public good) as a means for sustaining an ethics of life?...' (Publication abstract)
'The emotional experience of writing as a casual academic in the midst of a climate crisis, a global pandemic, and a university system increasingly pervaded by neoliberal ideals.' (Publication abstract)
'This paper explores non-fiction trade book publishing alongside a contemporary construction of reputation and argues that in Australia “reputational interests” in defamation law have created a practice of implicit censorship.' (Publication abstract)
'This essay, about an immersive teaching practice, focuses on the qualities of haiku for maximum engagement in a short period of time.' (Publication abstract)
'This article advocates for the utility of multirealism for writing about the climate crisis.' (Publication abstract)
'This research takes as its basis the plurality of time and the plurality of queerness and attempts to locate a hybrid form through a case study approach to practice.' (Publication abstract)
