Cirrus@Austlit

Documents the publicity campaign which arose from a 12 year old girl reading Nikki Gemmell's Cleave : A Novel which she had borrowed from her school library. Starke focuses on the conduct of the campaign, activated by the girl's mother, through talkback radio and the use of petitions. Starke's conclusion is that, when the need arises, writers should take issue with censorship through negotiation with the "decision-makers" rather than in the court of the "shock jocks".

Masson discusses the implications for Australian society of the dominant image of Marsden's text in The Rabbits. She highlights some possible 'readings' of the "heavily loaded sub-text" in the light of symbolic understandings of 'rabbits' in both Europe and Australia. Masson raises the complexity of extablishing identity in a "settler" society and the dangers inherent in deconstructing history by appropriating the viewpoint of indigenous culture.

A response to a session of the 1999 Melbourne Writer's Week Festival titled Why Don't They Read Proper Books?. Ryan-Punch suggests that greater faith should be placed in adolescent readers to self-mediate the suitability of books according to their own developmental and interest levels.

Goodman discusses her writing techniques, particularly her practice of making her work "visually" available to her audience. Goodman explains her use of storyboards - a technique used in film making - in enabling her to write in a direct linear mode from the beginning to the end of her novels.

Brief overivew of Young Adult literature published by Australian authors during the 1990s.