Cirrus@Austlit

'Washington Post publisher, Philip L. Graham, famously declared that journalism is the “first rough draft of history”. It’s also the first rough draft of inspiration for movies and books “based on a true story”.

'Since four Victorian journalists witnessed Ned Kelly’s last stand on June 28 1880, their vivid accounts have influenced portrayals of the bushranger – from the world’s first feature film in 1906 to Peter Carey’s 2000 novel, True History of the Kelly Gang, adapted to a gender-bending punk film earlier this year.' (Introduction)

'In 1886, a year before American journalist Nellie Bly feigned insanity to enter an asylum in New York and became a household name, Catherine Hay Thomson arrived at the entrance of Kew Asylum in Melbourne on “a hot grey morning with a lowering sky”.' (Introduction)

'The Australian Colonial Narrative Journalism (ACNJ) database (1788-1901) is a digital archive of colonial literary journalism. It is an expression of cultural memory in Australia using examples of colonial writers and their featured works--from the journalists who captured the bushranger Ned Kelly and his gang, to those who sailed undercover to expose the "blackbirding" trade in northern Australia, to the women who first wrote and published Australian profiles, including the earliest known written portraits of Aboriginal Australians. Research institutions are increasingly interested in creative digital dissemination strategies to target audiences for exploring, interrogating, and communicating new knowledge both within and beyond academia. At the same time, the focus of archival theory, in acknowledgement of the political framework behind archiving, has moved from evidence to memory. The online archivist has been transformed from a passive curator to a community facilitator, asking questions around the role of archives-- whether the archives are being posited as projects of collective identity that serve the interests of the community in power or as diverse collections from a range of communities with differing levels of empowerment. With those factors in mind, this study explores the creation of the database and its transfer from an experimental WordPress site to being hosted by AustLit, the online national literary research resource. In the process, the study examines the issues involved in establishing and building the database, which range from attempts to define the form as it evolved in Australia's colonial history, to the potential role of the database as a cultural narrator, a creator and facilitator of cultural memory, and a creative dissemination strategy rendering social historical themes in a democratized online form that can be delivered to a broad constituency of users.'

Source: Abstract.

A research project established by Dr Willa McDonald with Dr Bunty Avieson and Dr Kerrie Davies for Macquarie University.

This is the first stage of a larger study that aims to define Australian narrative journalism and trace its history from 1788 to today. The term ‘narrative journalism’ (sometimes called ‘literary journalism) has come to be associated with factual reporting that uses scenes, characterisation, dialogue, point of view, setting and other literary techniques usually connected with imaginative storytelling. While legacy media outlets are shrinking around the world, narrative journalism can be found in book form, in prestige Australian print publications and on websites that provide long-form, in-depth content.

Originally published on a pilot Wordpress site, the project was moved to AustLit and expanded by Dr Willa McDonald in 2017-2018.

'Willa McDonald looks at works by three Indigenous women writers which have played a significant role in breaking the silences that exist around the lives of Australia's First Peoples under European Settlement. These texts respectively tackle overlapping yet distinct themes, broaden-ing western notions of individual memoir to include collective and oral traditions, contributing to a long-term public dialogue about Indigenous history and politics.'

Source: Introduction, p.8

'In 1975, a tiny, grey-haired woman took the microphone at a protest rally following Prime Minister Whitlam's dismissal, and blasted the audience with an impassioned speech about the importance of the democratic process.

'Dorothy Auchterlonie Green was a teacher, literary critic and poet. Together with her husband H. M. Green, she is best known for her unstinting work to promote Australian literature. In her later years, she established herself as a defender of the power of the word, using her writing and speeches to expose those structures in our society which misuse language for exploitation and greed.

'How did this small conservative academic become a warrior for peace? Willa McDonald traces Dorothy Green's path to political activism, from her childhood and early working years as a wartime radio journalist in Brisbane, through to the 1980s and her role in the founding of the Australian Association for Armed Neutrality, the Nuclear Disarmament Party and the lobby group, Writers Against Nuclear Arms.' (Publication summary)