y separately published work icon TEXT : Journal of Writing and Writing Courses periodical issue   peer reviewed assertion
Issue Details: First known date: 2014... vol. 18 no. 1 April 2014 of TEXT : The Journal of the Australian Association of Writing Programs est. 1997 TEXT : Journal of Writing and Writing Courses
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Contents

* Contents derived from the , 2014 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Take a Walk in Their Shoes : Empathy and Emotion in the Writing Process, Enza Gandolfo , single work criticism
'Christos Tsiolkas said Dead Europe ‘was a very difficult novel to write. It ... took me, in the writing of it, into dark and fearful places. As a writer you take on aspects of your characters and if you are not careful the world you are creating begins to blend with the world you actually inhabit’ (Tsiolkas 2008). There is substantial research demonstrating the therapeutic benefits of writing about one’s own traumas. But what are the challenges of writing fiction that requires imagining and creating traumatic events; evil, monstrous or tragic characters? If, as many argue, fiction makes readers more empathetic, it is because writers have created believable worlds that readers can inhabit. In order to create believable worlds that readers can inhabit these worlds and the characters that people them, writers have to inhabit their characters’ lives. This can mean spending years in very dark places. In this article I explore the emotional and physical impact this has on writers and look at ways writers might manage what Marguerite MacRobert calls the ‘emotional roller coaster’ (MacRobert 2012). This is an autoethnographic article and my aim is to contribute to our understanding of the processes of creative writing by exploring and interrogating my experience of writing fiction about traumatic experiences.' (Publication summary)
Wandering Beneath the Grace of Clouds : An Interview with Janie Conway-Herron, Cornelis Martin Renes , single work interview
‘Welcome Creative Subversions’ : Experiment and Innovation in Recent Biographical Writing, Donna Lee Brien , single work criticism
'While biography is popularly understood as a literature that tells straightforward, factual life stories, it is – as a literary form – the site of considerable experimentation. This article maps current biographical experimental practice and enquiry against the background of innovation during the twentieth century. This includes a discussion of the form and craft of biographical innovation, including the practical, theoretical and methodological issues involved, much of which has been contributed by working biographers who also reflect on biographical form through the lens of innovation in their own practice.' (Publication abstract)
Adding to the Hall of Mirrors : A Fictocritical Response to Anthony Macris' Great Western Highway, Julian Murphy , single work criticism
'In this essay I take, as my departure point, Anthony Macris’ 2012 novel Great Western Highway: a love story. My specific focus is the presence of technology in the novel, and the way technology is shown to shape relations between individuals and between the individual and the world. Rather than adopt a strictly critical mode of writing, I have chosen to write this essay by oscillating between critical and creative prose, and drawing on a mixture of academic research, personal experience and anecdote. Such a mode is invited by Macris’ novel, which itself occupies the liminal space between fictional and critical writing. Furthermore, the fictocritical format of this essay allows me to deliberately confuse and conflate my own images with those from Macris’ novel. I enact this confusion in the hope that my essay becomes a contribution to Macris’ textual hall of mirrors, or what he more technically labels the ‘Generative mise en abyme’ (Macris 2008: 2).' (Publication summary)
Re-encountering Christina Stead : Why Read ‘Workshop in the Novel’?, Alison Burns , R. A. Goodrich , single work criticism

'Despite waves of interest in the work of Christina Stead, one aspect of her writing life has been largely neglected. From September 1943, she taught three series of extended writing workshops in New York and in the process left more than three hundred pages documenting her teaching. The question motivating this paper is: Why should we, as writers and teachers of writing, read her writing workshop notebooks nowadays? This paper will place Stead’s workshop in the context of the development of institutional teaching of novel writing and her emergence as a major writer. It will briefly examine how the notebooks have previously been understood and offer a closer analysis than has been made to date of the notebooks and their content and of the key issues raised by them. In particular, we shall explore her pedagogic focus upon workshop participants developing a rigorous, analytical approach to crafting novels and her extensive use of Georges Polti’s Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations to achieve this. That, in turn, will enable us to assess what the notebooks independently reveal about her beliefs regarding the novel and its purpose. ' (Publication summary)
Being Read : How Writers of Fiction Manuscripts Experience and Respond to Criticism, Lucy Neave , single work criticism

'This paper brings into dialogue contemporary discourse in creative writing studies about approaches to reading draft fiction with a subjective account of the experience of being read. Through drawing on two key essays on reading strategies in the discipline of creative writing, statements by published authors and my own process, this paper looks at how writers respond to feedback on their writing. Reading of draft creative work occurs in overlapping contexts – in universities, by informal networks of writers and by editors – and social structures such as reading and writing groups support a writer in his or her response to criticism. The changes made to manuscripts as a result of feedback can be significant; this paper looks at the contexts in which such changes are executed. Ultimately, this paper argues that ‘communities of practice’ composed of writers who attended a university creative writing program together and who continued to read each other’s work after graduation utilised and developed strategies initiated in such programs. Such communities have benefits for their members in terms of social support and publication.' (Publication summary)
Inki"And through stained glass", Daniel Lael Gough , single work poetry
The Use of the Imperative, Lachlan Prior , single work prose
Self-Flagellating Narrator, Pemela Greet , single work prose
Journey, Eileen Herbert-Goodall , single work prose
'An Irregular Book', Jen Webb , single work review
— Review of Reading Coetzee Elizabeth MacFarlane , 2013 single work criticism ;
Heart of Lightness, Amy Brown , single work review
— Review of Cokcraco : A Novel in Ten Cockroaches Paul Williams , 2013 single work novel ;
Diverse Voices in Celebration of Poetry, Catherine Cole , single work review
— Review of Contemporary Asian Australian Poets 2013 anthology poetry ;
The Energy of Contemporary Chinese Poetry, Tina Giannoukos , single work review
— Review of Breaking New Sky : Contemporary Poetry from China Yu Ouyang (translator), 2013 selected work poetry ;
The Academy Applauds, Anthony Lawrence , single work review
— Review of The Vision of Error : A Sextet of Activist Poems John Kinsella , 2013 selected work poetry ;
Williams' Exploratory Lyrics, Dan Disney , single work review
— Review of Days Like These : New and Selected Poems : 1998-2013 Jane Williams , 2013 selected work poetry ;
The Pain and Pleasure of a Meal Eaten Alone, Jillian Adams , single work review
— Review of Dining Alone : Stories from the Table for One 2013 anthology short story ;
Reflective and Pleasurably Familiar, Dallas J. Baker , single work review
— Review of How to Tell Your Father to Drop Dead : ...And Other Stories Jeremy Fisher , 2013 selected work short story ;
Walking Through Land and Memory, Autumn Royal , single work review
— Review of A Country in Mind : Memoir with Landscape Saskia Beudel , 2013 single work autobiography prose ;
Double Blind : Modern Discontents, Mary Pomfret , single work review
— Review of Double Glaze Stephen Brock , 2013 selected work poetry ;
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