Cirrus@Austlit

In Australia, discussions and deliberations around the (recently abandoned) Australian Research Quality Framework exercise (widely known as 'the RQF'), together with the even more recently completed call for input into the proposed research journal rankings for the replacement Excellence in Research for Australia initiative ('ERA'), have cast a more than usually searching light onto avenues for the dissemination of scholarly research. When considered in conjunction with such qualitative measuring in the UK and New Zealand, peer-reviewed publishing - academic books and book chapters, and refereed journal articles and conference papers in particular - have recently become the topic of an unprecedented degree of scrutiny. Exploring the processes of peer reviewed scholarly publication, and the access that readers and writers have to such publication in Australia, this article suggests that academic writers and readers need to be more conscious about all stages of the publication process.

One of the key differences between creative writing and almost every other discipline in the humanities is that it lacks a scholarly apparatus that assigns value to published works through the process of peer review. In 2008, the Creative Practices Area at the University of Technology, Sydney conducted a double-blind review of an extended work of fiction in order to assess the impact of the peer review process on writers' work. This study, and the problems it highlights, is timely in light of the Rudd government's ERA (Excellence in Research for Australia) system for the quantification and evaluation of academic research - in particular, the planned introduction of a peer review process for creative works to be conducted and monitored by the ARC (Australian Research Council). Source: http://www.textjournal.com.au/april09/nelson.htm

How do you develop a narrator who does not feel autobiographical to the author? This is the very real concern of a self-conscious writer who reproduces his hometown on the page. Two themes emerge in this paper: there is first the notion of reflection, of removing oneself physically from 'home', in order to turn around and see it in a new light, allowing for a more objective relationship between writer and setting. Out of this distancing develops the second theme, that of voice. I work to create a narrator with a distinct voice, specifically an idiolect that is not my own, to further allow myself to step out and away from that setting, and let it 'speak' for itself. The development of this new narrator is not an affectation but a vehicle of enablement. By using someone else's voice, I can draw from my own observations and experiences without the vice-grip of self-implication. This essay describes the relationship between the author and the narrator, and the subsequent constraint of speaking with another's mouth.

As teachers of creative writing, we strive to 'open up the field' for our students, to 'broaden their horizons', to show them that poetry doesn't need to be a narrow thing. As many students, especially in introductory courses, come to class assuming that poems must rhyme, that stories must be told chronologically, that all diction must be well-mannered, one of our jobs as educators is to show them other possibilities. In poetry writing, models and exercises can be particularly helpful, especially in dealing with preconceived notions of form and language. But we must also encourage students to move beyond exercise and towards a legitimate creative product. Ekphrastic writing can be particularly useful here. Rather than focusing on technique or surface issues, as exercises frequently do, ekphrasis is essentially a mode of content - relating a poem (or other piece of writing) to a painting (or other artwork), often beginning through the act of description. Source: http://www.textjournal.com.au/april09/kaplan.htm

In researching The Secret River (SR) Kate Grenville mobilised apocryphal stories in two ways: by employing and discarding a family apocryphal story; and by creating an alternative history of the Hawkesbury River settlement that is potentially apocryphal. Analysing SR as apocryphal oral family history and as national collective memory further clarifies its cultural and literary context. Grenville deliberately revives a hidden story of Australian settlement in which Indigenous people are massacred, for the purpose of writing against the historical canon - her reconciliatory gesture as a privileged beneficiary of her ancestor's presumed dispossession of Indigenous people. Whether or not SR finds its place in Australian collective memory, its reception exposes points of tension between historical fiction writers and historians. This paper focuses on the way Searching for the Secret River (SFSR) explicates the contradictions and anxieties embodied in Grenville's fictional text, rather than on the text itself, and her shaping of apocryphal narratives in particular times. Recent contretemps over the credibility of Australian historical fiction make an investigation of apocryphal stories timely. The Secret River, a literary transformation of historically unreliable, archetypal stories speculates about an alternative hidden history and has been economically successful; it bears the hallmarks of apocryphal stories. Source: http://www.textjournal.com.au/april09/lynch.htm

Early Career Researchers (ECRs) can learn a great deal from the insights of philosophers such as Aristotle and Socrates, although most would not necessarily wish to emulate Socrates' aggravation of the Athenian proletariat and subsequent execution (by poisoning) for stirring the status quo. While some similarities may appear between academic gatekeepers and the ancient Athenian hegemony, early career researchers are by definition trying to establish themselves; however, biting the hand that feeds you is a cardinal sin in both publishing and academia, as well as a poor option in achieving fulfilment of life choices. In this reflection based on my active practitioner perspective as a PhD in writing candidate and established children's writer, I wish to explore some of the factors affecting an early career researcher's ability to find publishing outlets and forums for their work and interests. I will in turn highlight the importance of having accessible and encouraging support structures for ECRs, the body academic and publishing forums associated with the arts and writing faculty. Source: http://www.textjournal.com.au/april09/carthew.htm