Glenn Morrison Glenn Morrison i(9019548 works by) (a.k.a. Glenn Andrew Morrison)
Gender: Male
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Works By

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1 Breaking Borders : Launching a Regional Literary Journal in Times of Arts Funding Uncertainty Raelke Grimmer , Adelle Sefton-Rowston , Glenn Morrison , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT : The Journal of the Australian Association of Writing Programs , vol. 25 no. 2 2021;
'A new literary journal of the Northern Territory, Borderlands, launched an online pilot edition in 2019 and an online print edition in 2020. The publication comes twenty years after its predecessor, Northern Perspectives, ceased publishing due to losing its Australia Council funding and support from Northern Territory University (now Charles Darwin University). As the editors of the journal, in this article we analyse how we funded and published the journal’s pilot editions against the backdrop of precarious arts funding and a ravaged arts sector, due in part to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. We provide a cost breakdown of publishing the journal and analyse our approach and processes in order to offer some insight and transparency to stakeholders, patrons and others contemplating literary journal publishing. Despite the challenging landscape of arts funding in Australia, ultimately the benefits of pursuing literary publishing in the regions to foster regional writing as part of Australian literature are worth the obstacles encountered on the path to publication. Our research suggests there are four key pillars integral to a journal’s success and sustainability in an underfunded sector: a flexible approach, community support and engagement, early stakeholder consultation, and transparency surrounding the costs of literary journal publishing.' (Publication abstract)
1 1 y separately published work icon Borderlands Magazine Online Borderlands : Where Ideas and Identity Meet Glenn Morrison (editor), 2019 Casuarina : Charles Darwin University , 2019- 18423646 2019 periodical (2 issues)

'Borderlands Magazine is a literary journal by Territorians, for Territorians and readers anywhere interested in our unique part of Australia.

'The people and places of Australia’s Centre and North are of great interest to many Australians, and often shape the way we are represented and perceived globally.

'They also hold a cherished and historically significant place in Australian literature, for example, ideas of sprawling space, isolation, , and that Australia has a ‘spiritual heart’, are all given voice in the Northern Territory.' (https://borderlands.cdu.edu.au/about/

1 From the Borderlands Editors Raelke Grimmer , Glenn Morrison , Adelle Sefton-Rowston , 2019 single work essay
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 64 no. 2 2019; (p. 140-142)
'The Northern Territory has been without its own literary journal for twenty years. This absence of a distinctive space dedicated to capturing a uniquely Territorian voice has left us on the edges of a national discussion, at the mercy of others’ agendas, and beholden to outsider publishers obligated to markets elsewhere. A quick scan of Australian literary journals finds most located in major cities and largely on the east coast, a situation symptomatic of Australia’s longstanding marginalisation of its rural, regional and remote storytellers. Compounding the blurring effect that this distance from the mainstream can have, skewed and misleading representations of Territorians and their contexts have commonly held sway in the Australian imaginary, and are, more often than is desirable, penned by outsiders. The result has been that for twenty years readers and writers from the NT have suffered displacement from the centre of ‘national’ discourse, and from any empowered position where they might influence the way Australia and the world perceives them. In the process they have come to recognise and clearly understand the gap between a lived experience of a place and its literary representation.' (Introduction)
1 Borderlands : Scoping the Publishing Landscape for a Regional Australian Literary Journal Glenn Morrison , Raelke Grimmer , Adelle Sefton-Rowston , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , June no. 54 2019;
'This paper surveys Australian literature regarding the publication of literary journals and the qualitative costs and benefits of their production. The survey was undertaken as part of a research project to develop a literary journal for Australia’s Northern Territory, which has been without a substantial journal of its own since 2000. As part of the project, the researchers also surveyed public attitudes towards a literary journal, interviewed key industry stakeholders, and commenced business planning for a journal, all framed by the overview of literature. While only the literature review is reported on here, the attitude surveys, interviews, and business planning may form the subject of future papers. Called The Borderlands Project, the research was begun as part of a 2018 strategic arts project jointly funded by Arts NT and Charles Darwin University to develop a literary journal of the Northern Territory in three phases. This paper outlines the purpose of the project and describes preliminary results from the literature survey, including comments on funding, journal format, content, how to address the problem of prosumerism, and future directions for the research.' (Publication abstract)
1 The Territory, in Its Own Write Glenn Morrison , 2019 single work essay
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , February 2019;

'Dozens of literary journals adorn the bookshelves of my Alice Springs office. Whether I have read them from cover to cover is another matter. Usually I scan each volume like a kitehawk scavenging for prey, dive for a morsel or two, move on. Trouble is, for a writer such journals are widely considered a pathway to publication. The loosely-stacked volumes are mostly trial subscriptions, a single year of editions purchased at a discount that couldn’t be missed. Next year I ‘traded up’ to a different journal, hoping for something better, Griffith ReviewThe Lifted Brow, right-leaning Quadrant, left-leaning Overland, and somewhere in between, Granta.' (Introduction)

1 Walking, Frontier and Nation : Re/tracing the Songlines in Central Australian Literature Glenn Morrison , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Intercultural Studies , vol. 40 no. 1 2018; (p. 118-140)

'Central Australia is widely characterised as a frontier, a familiar trope in literary constructions of Australian identity that divides black from white, ancient from modern. However, recent anthropological and literary evidence from the Red Centre defies such a clear-cut representation, suggesting more nuanced ‘lifeworlds’ than a frontier binary can afford may better represent the region. Using walking narratives to mark a meeting point between Aboriginal and settler Australian practices of placemaking, this paper summarises and updates literary research by the author (2011–2015), which reads six recounted walks of the region for representations of frontier and home. Methods of textual analyses are described and results appraised for changes to the storied representation of Central Australia from the precolonial era onward. The research speaks to a ‘porosity’ of intercultural boundaries, explores literary instances of intercultural exchange; nuances settler Australian terms for place, including home, Nature and wilderness; and argues for new place metaphors to supersede ‘frontier’. Further, it suggests a recent surge in the recognition of Aboriginal songlines may be reshaping the nation’s key stories.' (Publication abstract)

1 y separately published work icon Songlines and Fault Lines : Epic Walks of the Red Centre Glenn Morrison , Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 2017 11590112 2017 single work prose Indigenous story

'Visitors to the Red Centre come looking for the real Australia. What they find is both beautiful and disturbing: wilderness, desire, an ancient philosophy of home, and the confusing countenance of the Australian frontier, a meeting place of black and white, ancient and modern.

'Songlines and Fault Lines explores the stories of six epic walks that shaped a nation: a journey of Aboriginal Dreamtime ancestors; John Stuart’s south–north trek across the continent; anthropologist TGH Strehlow’s childhood journey down the Finke River; conservationist Arthur Groom’s reimagining of the country’s heart as tourist play-ground; Bruce Chatwin’s seminal travel text about the Centre, and Eleanor Hogan’s portrait of Alice Springs, a troubled town.

'Retracing the legendary pathways and stories of the Australian centre, Glenn Morrison finds new answers to age-old queries. ' (Publication summary)

 

1 2 y separately published work icon Writing Home : Walking, Literature and Belonging in Australia's Red Centre Glenn Morrison , Melbourne : Melbourne University Press , 2017 10691012 2017 multi chapter work criticism

'Writing Home explores the literary representation of Australian places by those who have walked them. In particular, it examines how Aboriginal and settler narratives of walking have shaped portrayals of Australia's Red Centre and consequently ideas of nation and belonging.

Central Australia has long been characterised as a frontier, the supposed divide between black and white, ancient and modern. But persistently representing it in this way is preventing Australians from re-imagining this internationally significant region as home. Writing Home argues that the frontier no longer adequately describes Central Australia, and that the Aboriginal songlines make a significant but under-acknowledged contribution to Australian discourses of hybridity, belonging and home. Drawing on anthropology, cultural theory, journalism, politics and philosophy, the book traces shifting perceptions of Australian place and space since precolonial times, through six recounted walking journeys of the Red Centre.' (Publication summary)

1 y separately published work icon Songlines and Fault Lines : Six Walks That Shaped a Nation Glenn Morrison , North Ryde : 2015 (Manuscript version)9019644 9019637 2015 single work thesis
1 A Flâneur in the Outback : Walking and Writing Frontier in Central Australia Glenn Morrison , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: New Scholar , vol. 3 no. 2 2014;

'While Frederick Turner's envisioning of the frontier remains pervasive in representations of Australian postcolonial geographies and constructions of national identity, recent anthropological evidence suggests more nuanced 'lifeworlds' may better approximate the lived experience of 'frontier' towns such as Alice Springs, in Central Australia.

'This paper reimagines Baudelaire's flâneur to examine two walking narratives from the region. The analysis reveals at least two levels of produced space prevailing in Alice Springs, with many other imagined spaces imbricated in a more complex political geography than Turner's frontier might explain. The paper aims to alert writers and journalists to recent shifts in anthropology, leading hopefully to more nuanced representations of Australian postcolonial geographies.

'The first text is a Central Australian Aboriginal Dreaming narrative called 'A Man from the Dreamtime,' a traditional Kaytetye story. Kaytetye elder Tommy Kngwarraye Thompson told the story to anthropologist Myfany Turpin as part of a collection published as Growing Up Kaytetye (2003). The second is one (walking) chapter from a recent narrative of political geography and memoir by Eleanor Hogan entitled Alice Springs (2012).' (Publication summary)

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