Alternative title: Nonfiction Now
Issue Details: First known date: 2013... no. 18 October 2013 of TEXT Special Issue est. 2000 TEXT Special Issue Website Series
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Contents

* Contents derived from the , 2013 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Nonfiction Now : A (Non)Introduction, David Carlin , Francesca Rendle-Short , single work criticism

'This essay seeks to explore the tensions in the paradoxical location of ‘non-fiction’ — orthe de-hyphenated ‘nonfiction’, as we prefer — as a literary/artistic category, one that is built upon a negation. The opposition set up in the term by the operation of the ‘non’ upon the ‘fiction’ suggests a steadfast binary. However the friction between the two sides of this binary, and the inherent resistance embodied in the close proximity and conjoining of the two parts, accounts for much of the energy and interest in contemporary nonfiction writing. Here we bring together etymologies and theoretical topographies to problematize the intriguing situation of ‘nonfiction now’.' (Authors abstract)

Postcard to David Foster Wallace, Sian Prior , single work correspondence
A Screenwriter’s Reality Hunger, Kathryn Millard , single work criticism

‘A screenwriter’s Reality hunger’ contributes to contemporary debates about what it means to write in a digital era. David Shields has described his book Reality hunger (2010) as an ars poetica for a burgeoning group of contemporary writers and artists injecting reality into their work. Media scholars suggest that, as we move towards multimodal writing incorporating text, images and sound, the spaces of the page and the screen are becoming more like each other. As a form, the essay aims to ask questions, to probe and test ideas; ‘thought does not advance in a single direction, rather aspects of the argument are interwoven as in a carpet’ (Adorno 1991). This essay extends David Shield’s argument to consider writing for the screen. It draws on key thinkers from the history of screen media and the author’s own practice to consider the relationship between words and images in the writing process. Whilst there is a long history of critics using the essay form to think through ideas, the form has found new resonance in the shift towards more fluid digital environments in which text, images and sound can be cut, pasted and reassembled relatively easily. ‘A Screenwriter’s Reality hunger’ employs the segmented essay to open up new possibilities for scholarly writing, developing an argument through the essayistic modes of accretion and layering. It takes up the idea that writing increasingly has a design element and invites readers to construct meaning in the spaces between text and images. ' (Author's abstract)

Thin Top End, Tara Goedjen , Caroline Graham , single work essay
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