The Turning
Sydney
:
Picador
,
2004
Z1146280
2004
selected work
short story
(taught in 12 units)
The Turning comprises seventeen overlapping stories of second thoughts and mid-life regret set in the brooding small-town world of coastal Western Australia. Here are turnings of all kinds - changes of heart, nasty surprises, slow awakenings, sudden detours - where people struggle against the terrible weight of the past and challenge the lives they've made for themselves.
These elegiac stories examine the darkness and frailty of ordinary people and celebrate the moments when the light shines through.
Swallow the Air
Dust on Waterglass
2003
St Lucia
:
University of Queensland Press
,
2006
Z1265164
2003
selected work
short story
(taught in 33 units)
Swallow the Air follows the life of 15-year-old May Gibson, an Aboriginal girl from New South Wales whose mother commits suicide. May and her brother go to live with their aunt, but eventually May travels further afield, first to Redfern's Block in Sydney, then to the Northern Territory, and finally into central New South Wales. She travels to escape, but also in pursuit of a sense of her own history, family, and identity.
This unit builds on the skills and knowledge developed in CWPG810 and CWPG811, with a focus on the short story in its evolving forms, including the long short story and novella, the short story sequence and cycle, and micro and 'short short' stories. In addition to the weekly writing workshops, we read works by Australian and international writers including Tim Winton, Alice Munro, Peter Goldsworthy, and Molly Ringwald; we investigate technique and craft, and consider the form's history and current scholarly debates, reader response theory, publishing trends, new medias and book futures. Students develop a critical awareness of the broader national and international contexts in which their writing is to take a place; devise a project of their own choice; and are encouraged toward publication.
