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Helen Marshall Helen Marshall i(19671067 works by)
Born: Established: 1983
c
Canada,
c
Americas, ;
Gender: Female
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Works By

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1 A Flare of Light or ‘the Great Clomping Foot of Nerdism?’ : M John Harrison’s Radical Poetics of Worldbuilding Helen Marshall , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT : The Journal of the Australian Association of Writing Programs , October vol. 24 no. 2 2020; 'Over the last forty years, as Mark JP Wolf argues, worldbuilding has become central to the art of writing science fiction and fantasy books, as market conditions prioritise fictional worlds that are encyclopaedic, extendible, franchisable, consumable and which generate new forms of cultural pleasure. Following early fantasists George MacDonald and JRR Tolkien, much advice focuses on invention, completeness and internal consistency. This paper provides a counterpoint, arguing for the importance of M John Harrison in developing a poetics of scepticism toward worldbuilding, which he calls ‘the great clomping foot of nerdism’ (Harrison 2007b). The deliberate shifting depiction of his most famous fantasy world Viriconium – the Pastel City – across a sequence of novels and short stories exemplifies how he translates his radical poetics into practice. Focusing on blog posts, articles and internet comment threads in addition to literary works and my own exercises, I explore how Harrison developed a politically oriented approach to ‘the world’ in relation to the New Wave of the 60s and 70s and the New Weird of the last fifteen years, and I contrast it with contemporary approaches from China Miéville, Jeff VanderMeer and Timothy Morton.' 

 (Publication abstract)
1 y separately published work icon Wish You Were Here! Postcards from Future Queensland Kim Wilkins , Helen Marshall , St Lucia : The University of Queensland , 2020 19671103 2020 website short story

'Telling stories of a better world...

'The Greek krisis means ‘to decide, a point at which a change must come'. In Queensland, the COVID-19 crisis is altering life in ways that were unimaginable even a few weeks ago. While this is undeniably frightening, as writers we also see it as a moment of possibility.

'We want to inspire you to imagine this as a turning point on the way to a better future. Every two weeks, our UQ writers will reveal a new challenge to help you write a postcard from that future to the world. Then we’ll publish some of our favourites here!'

Source: Project website.
1 Do Not Feed the Monkeys!!! Helen Marshall , 2014 2014 single work short story
— Appears in: Science Write Now , September 2020;
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