'In this paper Paul Sharrad suggests that Murray Bail 'could not have produced most of his work without journeying abroad, and that his book of travel observations, Longhand, offers insights into one particular kind of 'journeying' as well as his reliance on material picked up along his journeying out from and back to Australia. While he began serious writing around the age of 19 in his native South Australia, and composed some other stories during his years in Melbourne working in advertising, Bail did not really get going as a published writer until he had been overseas for several years, first in India and then England and Europe. His jottings in Longhand: a Writer's Notebook, show on the one hand, how his sense of being a writer affects his recording of the travel experience, and secondly, how much his travels have had an impact on his fiction.'' (25-26)