Cirrus@Austlit

Research background

'This work of semi-autobiographical Gothic fiction explores ideas about mourning espoused by Jacques Derrida (1996, 2001) who argued that mourning is an affective state that is non-responsive to rational or theoretical ideas. This reflects Michel Foucault’s approach to the state of repression, which he argued cannot be addressed by a theoretical discourse alone (1978: 5). Therefore this work takes a creative rather than theoretical approach. The work explores Derrida’s (2001) notion that mourning is triggered not only by the death of a loved one, but also by the death of that aspect of ourselves that existed only in relationship to the deceased.'

Research background:

'This short story was inspired by the actions of Donald (Don) Ritchie who prevented more than 160 people from suiciding from The Gap in Sydney (SMH 2012). Building on Nabokov’s story ‘Signs and symbols’ (1948), this work juxtaposes two narratives within a larger structure and relies symbolism in order to gradually unveil plot elements and build suspense (de la Durantaye 2006, Rosenzweig 1980). The measured revelation of information highlights nuances within the narrative, and conveys information about how characters’ relationships change over time, according to shared experience.'

Research background :

'While many author interviews address fiction writers and their experiences with research in passing, there are few substantial meditations on the subject. This nonfiction creative research piece ‘Getting my hands dirty: research and writing’ dissects the author’s experience of research through a non-fiction narrative and discussion piece that examines how experiential research can impact both the text and author of contemporary fiction. '

Research background:

Dudek locates the role of the child protagonist in critical dystopia as central to the masked utopian reading that the text invites: ‘an impulse whose imperative it is to see difference and to resist uniformity, into a dystopian space’ (2005: 65). Ming Tan argues that the role of the child resistor protagonist in dystopic spaces is a vehicle for contemporary adult concerns: ‘this phantom – the child who never existed … is often indicative of fears for the future. Child sacrifice is a common trope in our society … beneath it lurks questions of desire, identity, and humanity’ (2013: 55).'

Research background :

'This work is written as creative non-fiction which moves from autobiographical to biographical through food, relationships and creative expression and reflects the relationship between Indigenous Australians and Greek migrants and where their cultures have influenced each other. '

Research background :

'Richardson’s 2006 list of fiction written entirely or largely in the ‘we’ form includes works by Kafka, Faulkner, Robbe-Grillet, Barthelme and Cortázar who researched the inclusive and exclusive effects of ‘we’ narratives (2006: 141-2). First person plural experiments from 1924 to 1964 were mainly undertaken in short bursts in short stories. After 1970, novels such as John Barth’s Sabbatical (1982) and Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides (1993) showed the robustness of the ‘we’ voice for longer narrative. Similar to the ‘you’ of second person narration, the narrating ‘we’ is an unstable viewpoint that can disorient readers and lure them into perspectives not previously experienced. '

Research background :

'Desktop publishing has encouraged many contemporary writers to experiment with the visual presentation of their work, using photographs, sketches, typography, white space and found documents to reinforce and invigorate their fiction (Gutjahr & Benton 2001: 14). Researchers have shown that these graphic devices, which are traditionally absent from literature, are not just superficial; they play a complex and integral role in the creation of meaning, such as morphing to reflect the action, suggesting connections between disparate elements, or highlighting aspects of the characters’ inner lives (Sadokierski 2010; White 2005; Schiff 1998).

Research background :

'Current international developments in poetry have foregrounded the poem as a linguistic artefact which is relatively autonomous from its referents. As such, there has been increased emphasis on creating poems according to models which are in sympathy with this stance, such as homophonic translation or John Tranter’s ‘The Anaglyph’ (2009: 105ff). This research uses phonemic rearrangements and an aleatory process to generate the poems of ‘The Second Partition’.'

Research background :

'This work can be situated within a fiction tradition coming primarily out of North America, represented by authors such as Lorrie Moore and Don DeLillo. Moore’s work often depicts eloquent, slightly jaded, and marooned university-educated protagonists, who wield wit intentionally (often as a defence against their circumstances) and employ parody as a quotidian mode of communication, thereby unsettling certain attachments to authenticity, while evoking tenderness and intimacy in unexpected ways. From within this stylistic lineage, ‘The growth’ – an Australian narrative – takes magical realist (veering towards surrealist) tropes, deploying them in a ‘world’ that otherwise resembles the smooth, self-reflective urban universe of the upper-middle, creative classes.'

Research contribution :

'The conceit for this meditative work brings together the delicate subject matter of familial relationships and memory. It is speculative, ‘suggestive and beckoning in its specificity’ (Clark 2008: 7); it renders the subject of father as nonfiction in oblique, fresh, nuanced ways. It gestures to the reader to consider their own father-as-fragment; also how they might ‘draw’ their father on the page into some sort of existence.'

Research contribution :

'Bodies in Boxes plaits fictional, critical and autobiographical discourses in a fictocritical search of the process involved in writing ‘Coronial Inquest’ (Meniscus 2013). The work accounts for the fictional texts researched in the creation of the short story and enmeshes this research with a third person narrative exploration of the writer’s intentions, apprehensions and other (tangential) embedded narratives. Cannibalising my own work, Bodies in Boxes enacts an ‘encounter between the writer’s emergent, embodied subjectivity and what is written about’ (Gibbs 2005).'