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AustLit

Southern Cross University
NSW

2016

Act One: Screenwriting (COM01402) Semester 1
Introduction to Written Texts (ENG00400) Semester 1
y separately published work icon Only the Animals Ceridwen Dovey , Melbourne : Penguin , 2014 7149680 2014 selected work short story (taught in 4 units)

'In a trench on the Western Front a cat recalls her owner Colette's theatrical antics in Paris. In Nazi Germany, Himmler's dog seeks enlightenment. A Russian tortoise once owned by the Tolstoys drifts in space during the Cold War. In the siege of Sarajevo, a bear starving to death tells a fairytale; and a dolphin sent to Iraq by the US Navy writes a letter to Sylvia Plath.

'Ten animal souls tell extraordinary stories about their lives and deaths, caught up in human conflicts of the last century and its turnings. Together they form an animal's eye view of humans at both our brutal, violent worst and our creative, imaginative best. Exquisitely written, playful and poignant, Only the Animals is a remarkable literary achievement by one of our brightest young writers. It asks us to find our way back to empathy not only for animals, but for other people, and to believe again in the redemptive power of reading and writing fiction.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon The Empire Writes Back : Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures Bill Ashcroft , Gareth Griffiths , Helen Tiffin , Terence Hawkes (editor), London : Routledge , 1989 Z132291 1989 single work criticism (taught in 7 units)

'The experience of colonization and the challenges of the post-colonial world have produced an explosion of new writing in English. This diverse and powerful body of literature has established a specific practice of colonial writing in cultures as diverse as India, Australia, the West Indies, Africa and Canada. This comprehensive study opens debates about the interrelationships of these literatures, investigates the powerful forces acting on language in the post-colonial text and shows how these texts constitute a radical critique of the assumptions underlying Eurocentric notions of literature and language.' (Publication summary) 

y separately published work icon The Fig Tree Arnold Zable , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2002 Z959940 2002 selected work autobiography prose extract travel (taught in 3 units) The Fig Tree is a book of true stories with an extraordinary scope. It is about family, about home about the journeys that reveal to us who we are, and the ways in which contemporary tales reflect ancient myths. Arnold Zable begins with his own family. (Libraries Australia)
y separately published work icon Joe Cinque's Consolation Helen Garner , Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia , 2004 Z1132428 2004 single work prose (taught in 26 units)

'In October 1997 a clever young law student at ANU made a bizarre plan to murder her devoted boyfriend after a dinner party at their house. Some of the dinner guests - most of them university students - had heard rumours of the plan. Nobody warned Joe Cinque. He died one Sunday, in his own bed, of a massive dose of rohypnol and heroin. His girlfriend and her best friend were charged with murder. Helen Garner followed the trials in the ACT Supreme Court. Compassionate but unflinching, this is a book about how and why Joe Cinque died. It probes the gap between ethics and the law; examines the helplessness of the courts in the face of what we think of as 'evil'; and explores conscience, culpability, and the battered ideal of duty of care.' (Source: Pan Macmillan website)

Garner takes 'a deliberately subjective and "literary" approach' to her material with an 'emphasis on a sympatheitic authorial persona as the source of the reader's perspective' (Susan Lever 'The Crimes of the Past: Anna Funder's Stasiland and Helen Garner's Joe Cinque's Consolation'. Paper delivered at the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) conference 2006).

y separately published work icon My Life as a Fake Peter Carey , Milsons Point : Random House Australia , 2003 Z1045776 2003 single work novel (taught in 8 units) Sarah Wode-Douglas is an aristocratic woman who has made her living as the editor of the poetry magazine "First Proof", until she impulsively follows a friend to Kuala Lumpur. She meets Christopher Chubb, an enigmatic wreck of a man whose terrible secrets Sarah is compelled to discover and pursue. (Source: Trove)
y separately published work icon That Deadman Dance Kim Scott , Sydney : Picador , 2010 Z1728528 2010 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 43 units)

Big-hearted, moving and richly rewarding, That Deadman Dance is set in the first decades of the 19th century in the area around what is now Albany, Western Australia. In playful, musical prose, the book explores the early contact between the Aboriginal Noongar people and the first European settlers.

'The novel's hero is a young Noongar man named Bobby Wabalanginy. Clever, resourceful and eager to please, Bobby befriends the new arrivals, joining them hunting whales, tilling the land, exploring the hinterland and establishing the fledgling colony. He is even welcomed into a prosperous local white family where he falls for the daughter, Christine, a beautiful young woman who sees no harm in a liaison with a native.

'But slowly - by design and by accident - things begin to change. Not everyone is happy with how the colony is developing. Stock mysteriously start to disappear; crops are destroyed; there are "accidents" and injuries on both sides. As the Europeans impose ever stricter rules and regulations in order to keep the peace, Bobby's Elders decide they must respond in kind. A friend to everyone, Bobby is forced to take sides: he must choose between the old world and the new, his ancestors and his new friends. Inexorably, he is drawn into a series of events that will forever change not just the colony but the future of Australia...' (From the publisher's website.)

Theories of Text and Culture (ENG00406) Semester 2
y separately published work icon Carpentaria Alexis Wright , Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2006 Z1184902 2006 single work novel (taught in 47 units) Carpentaria's portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, whose members are the leaders of the Pricklebush people, and their battles with old Joseph Midnight's tearaway Eastend mob on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other. Wright's storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce. The novel is populated by extraordinary characters - Elias Smith the outcast saviour, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, leader of the holy Aboriginal pilgrimage, the murderous mayor Stan Bruiser, the ever-vigilant Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist and prodigal son Will Phantom, and above all, Angel Day the queen of the rubbish-dump, and her sea-faring husband Normal Phantom, the fish-embalming king of time - figures that stand like giants in this storm-swept world. (Backcover)
y separately published work icon Orpheus Lost Janette Turner Hospital , Pymble London : Fourth Estate , 2007 Z1364404 2007 single work novel (taught in 5 units)

'In this compelling reimagining of the Orpheus story, Leela May travels into an underworld of kidnapping, torture and despair in search of her lover, Mishka.

'Leela is a mathematical genius who escaped her hardscrabble Southern home town to study in Boston. It's there that she meets a young Australian musician, Mishka. From the moment she first hears him play, busking in a subway, his music grips her, and they quickly become lovers.

'Then one day Leela is picked up off the street and taken to an interrogation centre somewhere outside the city. There has been an 'incident', an explosion on the underground; terrorists are suspected, security is high. And her old childhood friend Cobb is conducting a very questionable interrogation. Over the years Cobb has never forgotten Leela and the secrets she knows.

'Now he reveals to her that Mishka may not be all he seems. That there may be more to him than growing up in the Daintree rainforest in northern Queensland in an eccentric musical family. Leela has already discovered on her own account that some nights when Mishka claims to be at the music lab are actually spent at a cafe. A cafe, Cobb tells her, known to be a terrorist contact point.

'Who can she believe?

'And then Mishka disappears.' (Publisher's blurb)

y separately published work icon The Secret River Kate Grenville , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2005 Z1194031 2005 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 69 units)

'In 1806 William Thornhill, a man of quick temper and deep feelings, is transported from the slums of London to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and their children he arrives in a harsh land he cannot understand.

'But the colony can turn a convict into a free man. Eight years later Thornhill sails up the Hawkesbury to claim a hundred acres for himself.

'Aboriginal people already live on that river. And other recent arrivals - Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan and Mrs Herring - are finding their own ways to respond to them.

'Thornhill, a man neither better nor worse than most, soon has to make the most difficult choice of his life.

'Inspired by research into her own family history, Kate Grenville vividly creates the reality of settler life, its longings, dangers and dilemmas. The Secret River is a brilliantly written book, a groundbreaking story about identity, belonging and ownership.' (From the publisher's website.)

y separately published work icon The Slap Christos Tsiolkas , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2008 Z1739894 2008 single work novel (taught in 40 units)

'At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own.

'This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the event.

'In this remarkable novel, Christos Tsiolkas turns his unflinching and all-seeing eye onto that which connects us all: the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century. The Slap is told from the points of view of eight people who were present at the barbecue. The slap and its consequences force them all to question their own families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and desires.

'What unfolds is a powerful, haunting novel about love, sex and marriage, parenting and children, and the fury and intensity - all the passions and conflicting beliefs - that family can arouse. In its clear-eyed and forensic dissection of the ever-growing middle class and its aspirations and fears, The Slap is also a poignant, provocative novel about the nature of loyalty and happiness, compromise and truth.' (Publisher's blurb)

y separately published work icon Wanting Richard Flanagan , North Sydney : Knopf Australia , 2008 Z1534034 2008 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 5 units)

'It is 1839. A young Aboriginal girl, Mathinna, is running through the long wet grass of an island at the end of the world to get help for her dying father, an Aboriginal chieftain. Twenty years later, on an island at the centre of the world, the most famous novelist of the day, Charles Dickens, realises he is about to abandon his wife, risk his name, and forever after be altered because of his inability any longer to control his intense passion.

'Connecting the two events are the most celebrated explorer of the age, Sir John Franklin - then governor of Van Diemen's Land - and his wife, Lady Jane, who adopt Mathinna, seen as one of the last of a dying race, as an experiment. Lady Jane believes the distance between savagery and civilisation is the learned capacity to control wanting. The experiment fails, the Franklins throw the child onto the streets and into a life of prostitution and alcoholism. A few years later Mathinna is found dead in a puddle. She is nineteen years old. By then Sir John too is dead, lost in the blue ice of the Arctic seeking the North West Passage. A decade later evidence emerges that in its final agony, Franklin's expedition resorted to the level and practice of savages: cannibalism. Lady Jane enlists Dickens's aid to put an end to such scandalous suggestions.

'Dickens becomes ever more entranced in the story of men entombed in ice, recognising in its terrible image his own frozen inner life. He produces and stars in a play inspired by Franklin's fate to give story to his central belief: that discipline and will can conquer desire. And yet the play will bring him to the point where he is finally no longer able to control his own wanting and the consequences it brings.

'Based on historic events, Wanting is a novel about art, love, and the way in which life is finally determined never by reason, but only ever by wanting.' (Provided by publisher.)

Writing Genre (ENG00411) Semester 1
Writing Lives (WRI20004) Semester 2
Writing Poetry (WRI20003) Semester 2
Writing for Performance (ENG00407) Summer Semester
Children's Literature (ENG00351) Semester 2
y separately published work icon The Amazing True Story of How Babies Are Made Fiona Katauskas , Fiona Katauskas (illustrator), Sydney South : HarperCollins Australia , 2015 9115482 2015 single work picture book children's (taught in 1 units)

'The new Australian go-to book for parents wanting help with THAT talk ...

'It's one of the most amazing stories ever told - and it's true!

Funny, frank and embarrassment-free, THE AMAZING TRUE STORY OF HOW BABIES ARE MADE gives a fresh take on the incredible tale of where we all come from.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda Eric Bogle , Bruce Whatley (illustrator), Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2015 8283492 2015 single work picture book (taught in 1 units)

'But the band played 'Waltzing Matilda' when we stopped to bury our slain. We buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs; then we started all over again.

'Eric Bogle's famous and familiar Australian song about the Battle of Gallipoli explores the futility of war with haunting power. Now Bruce Whatley's evocative illustrations bring a heart-rending sense of reality to the tale.

'A timely story for every generation to share.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon The Cleo Stories : A Friend and a Pet Libby Gleeson , Freya Blackwood (illustrator), Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2015 9003244 2015 selected work picture book children's (taught in 1 units)

'In this delightful companion to The Cleo Stories: The Necklace and the Present, Cleo comes up with ingenious ways to make a new friend and find a pet.

'Cleo's best friend is away, her parents are busy, and there's nothing to do but count raindrops - or tidy her room. Just when she thinks she'll never cheer up, Cleo has an idea. In the next story, Cleo longs for a pet but her mum and dad say no. Perhaps the answer is hidden somewhere unexpected.

'Two more endearing stories about Cleo, the little girl with a big imagination who always finds a way to have fun, from the creators of The Cleo Stories: The Necklace and the Present.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Cloudwish Fiona Wood , Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia , 2015 8775290 2015 single work novel young adult (taught in 1 units)

'For Vân Uoc Phan, fantasies fell into two categories: nourishing, or pointless. Daydreaming about Billy Gardiner, for example? Pointless. It always left her feeling sick, as though she'd eaten too much sugar.

'Vân Uoc doesn't believe in fairies, zombies, vampires, Father Christmas - or magic wishes. She believes in keeping a low profile: real life will start when school finishes.

'But when she attracts the attention of Billy Gardiner, she finds herself in an unwelcome spotlight.

'Not even Jane Eyre can help her now.

'Wishes were not a thing.

'They were not.

'Correction.

'Wishes were a thing.

'Wishes that came true were sometimes a thing.

'Wishes that came true because of magic were not a thing!

'Were they?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

y separately published work icon The Cow Tripped Over the Moon Tony Wilson , Laura Wood (illustrator), Lindfield : Scholastic Australia , 2015 8755893 2015 single work picture book children's humour (taught in 1 units)

''Hey diddle diddle, You all know the riddle, A cow jumps over the moon...' But the moon is very high in the sky. How many attempts will it take before Cow makes her famous high-flying leap? ' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Flight Nadia Wheatley , Armin Greder (illustrator), Kew East : Windy Hollow , 2015 8300096 2015 single work picture book children's (taught in 1 units)

'Tonight is the night.

'The family has to flee.

'They've been tipped off that the authorities are after their blood.

'Set in biblical times, a small family sets off across a desert in search of refuge from persecution in their own country, and an ancient story becomes a fable for our times. Their journey is beset by heat and thirst, threatening tanks and the loss of their donkey, but eventually they reach a refugee camp where they can wait in safety for asylum in another country.

'In this first-time collaboration between multi-award-winning author, Nadia Wheatley, and internationally-renowned illustrator, Armin Greder, words and images blend seamlessly to take readers on a journey they will never forget. ' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Freedom Ride Sue Lawson , Newtown : Walker Books Australia , 2015 8220769 2015 single work novel young adult (taught in 1 units)

'Robbie knows bad things happen in Walgaree. But it's nothing to do with him. That's just the way the Aborigines have always been treated. In the summer of 1965 racial tensions in the town are at boiling point, and something headed Walgaree's way will blow things apart. It's time for Robbie to take a stand. Nothing will ever be the same.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Lennie the Legend : Solo to Sydney by Pony Stephanie Owen Reeder , Canberra : National Library of Australia , 2015 8290043 2015 single work children's fiction children's historical fiction (taught in 1 units)

'This is the inspiring true story of nine-year-old Lennie Gwyther who, at the height of the Great Depression in 1932, rode his pony from his home town of Leongatha in rural Victoria to Sydney to witness the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Lennie’s 1,000-kilometre solo journey captured the imagination of the nation, and his determination and courage provided hope to many at a difficult time in Australia’s history.

'Lennie the Legend begins with a terrible accident on the family farm, when Lennie, remarkably at such a young age, takes on the responsibility for the ploughing. Lennie is obsessed with the marvel of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and, as a reward for saving the farm from missing the planting season, his parents grant him his wish to ride on his own to Sydney for the opening of the bridge. Lennie has all sorts of adventures along the way—a thief lurking in the bush in the dead of night, a raging bushfire, surprise appearances, celebrations in his honour, being the star of a newsreel, and meeting the Prime Minister.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Mr Huff Anna Walker , Melbourne : Penguin Books , 2015 6781709 2015 single work picture book children's (taught in 1 units)

'Award-winning and much-loved author and illustrator Anna Walker gives us a gentle, poignant, affirming and wise picture book sure to delight all ages. Mr. Huff is a story about the clouds and the sunshine in each of our lives.

'Bill is having a bad day.

'Mr Huff is following him around and making everything seem difficult.

'Bill tries to get rid of him, but Mr Huff just gets bigger and bigger!

'Then they both stop, and a surprising thing happens . . . ' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon My Dead Bunny James Foley (illustrator), Sigi Cohen , Newtown : Walker Books Australia , 2015 7591988 2015 single work picture book children's (taught in 1 units)

'"My dead bunny's name is Brad; his odour is extremely bad. He visits me when I'm in bed, but Bradley wasn't always dead ..." A hilarious rhyming tale about a zombie bunny who comes back to visit his owner. ' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon My Dog Bigsy Alison Lester , Alison Lester (illustrator), Melbourne : Penguin , 2015 8597719 2015 single work picture book children's (taught in 1 units)

'Meet my dog Bigsy. He's only small, but everyone knows he's the boss.

'Each morning he visits the animals on the farm.

'Squawk, neigh, quack, moo, baa, oink, cluck, purr, ruff ruff ruff!

'What a lot of noise! And all because of Bigsy!

'From Australia's favourite picture-book creator, comes this energetic story about a little dog who causes a big commotion. ' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Ollie and the Wind Ronojoy Ghosh , Ronojoy Ghosh (illustrator), North Sydney : Random House Australia , 2015 8812320 2015 single work picture book children's (taught in 1 units)

'Sometimes the best things appear out of thin air

'The wind blows all day on Ollie's island. There aren't many people around, but there's lots of space to play.

'One day the wind steals Ollie's hat. Then it darts away with his scarf. But is the wind just naughty, or is it trying to tell Ollie something?

'A stunning picture book from a new author-illustrator talent.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon One Step at a Time Jane Jolly , Sally Heinrich (illustrator), Rundle Mall/Rundle Street : MidnightSun , 2015 8074281 2015 single work picture book children's (taught in 1 units)

'One Step at a Time is an exquisite picture book which tells a touching story about the relationship between a young boy, Luk, and his elephant, Mali. On the border of Thailand and Burma, Mali steps on a landmine. Luk supports her during her recovery. Mali is eventually fitted with a prosthesis and get a second chance at life. One Step at a Time is a ground-breaking story. Heinrich’s beautiful illustrations match Jolly’s light touch when it comes to writing about the sensitive subject of landmines. It is a story about love and friendship that will enthral children around the world.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon The Pause John Larkin , Sydney : Random House Australia , 2015 8477663 2015 single work novel young adult (taught in 1 units)

'Declan seems to have it all: a family that loves him, friends he's known for years, a beautiful girlfriend he would go to the ends of the earth for.

'But there's something in Declan's past that just won't go away, that pokes and scratches at his thoughts when he's at his most vulnerable. Declan feels as if nothing will take away that pain that he has buried deep inside for so long. So he makes the only decision he thinks he has left: the decision to end it all.

'Or does he? As the train approaches and Declan teeters at the edge of the platform, two versions of his life are revealed. In one, Declan watches as his body is destroyed and the lives of those who loved him unravel. In the other, Declan pauses before he jumps. And this makes all the difference.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Phasmid : Saving the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect Rohan Cleave , Coral Tulloch (illustrator), Clayton : CSIRO Publishing , 2015 9641493 2015 single work picture book children's (taught in 1 units)

Phasmid is the amazing true story of the Lord Howe Island Phasmid, or Stick Insect. Believed to be extinct for nearly 80 years, the phasmids were rediscovered on Balls Pyramid, a volcanic outcrop 23 kilometres off the coast of Lord Howe Island, Australia. News of their unbelievable survival made headlines around the world and prompted an extraordinary conservation effort to save this remarkable invertebrate. This wonderful tale captures the life of one of the world's most critically endangered invertebrates, from beginning life as an egg to surviving harsh environments and the hopeful return to their homeland, Lord Howe Island. Phasmid is a positive story about one species' incredible survival in a time of worldwide species decline. (Source: Trove)

y separately published work icon Piranhas Don't Eat Bananas Aaron Blabey , Aaron Blabey (illustrator), Lindfield : Scholastic Australia , 2015 7207799 2015 single work picture book children's (taught in 1 units)

'Hey there guys.

Would you like a banana?

What's wrong with you, Brian?

You're a Piranha.'

'Brian is a piranha. He is also a vegetarian. But do you think he can convince his family to join him?' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Ride, Ricardo, Ride! Phil Cummings , Sarah Davis (illustrator), Lindfield : Scholastic Australia , 2015 8299195 2015 single work picture book children's (taught in 1 units)

'Ricardo loved to ride his bike through the village. He rode under endless skies, quiet and clear. He rode every day ... But then the shadows came.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Shadows of the Master Emily Rodda , Parkside : Omnibus Books , 2015 8197887 2015 single work children's fiction children's fantasy (taught in 1 units)

'Britta has always wanted to be a trader like her father, sailing the nine seas and bringing precious cargo home to Del harbour. Her dreams seemed safe until her fathers quest to find the fabled Staff of Tier ended in blood and horror. Now his shamed family is in hiding, and his ship, the Star of Deltora, belongs to the powerful Rosalyn fleet. But Brittas ambition burns as fiercely as ever.When she suddenly gets the chance to win back her future she knows she has to take it whatever the cost. She has no idea that shadows from a distant, haunted isle are watching her every move.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon A Single Stone Megan McKinlay , Newtown : Walker Books Australia , 2015 8215172 2015 single work novel young adult fantasy (taught in 1 units)

'Strong-willed Jena lives in a village shrouded in superstition and secrets. Like all the other girls, she has been bound and broken since birth to make her small enough to gather precious mica, which keeps her people warm in winter. But after a tragic accident, Jena starts questioning everything she's ever been told, and the truth will have consequences she cannot predict - for everybody. This beautifully written, haunting novel warns of the consequences of blind following, and shows the important difference between appearance and truth. This is award-winning McKinlay's best yet.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Sister Heart Sally Morgan , Fremantle : Fremantle Press , 2015 8818427 2015 single work children's fiction (taught in 1 units)

'A young Aboriginal girl is taken from the north of Australia and sent to an institution in the distant south. There, she slowly makes a new life for herself and, in the face of tragedy, finds strength in new friendships. Poignantly told from the child’s perspective, Sister Heart affirms the power of family and kinship.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Soon Morris Gleitzman , Melbourne : Penguin , 2015 8607248 2015 single work novel young adult war literature (taught in 1 units)

'I hoped the Nazis would be defeated.

And they were.

'I hoped the war would be over.

And it was.

'I hoped we would be safe.

But we aren't.

'Soon continues the incredibly moving story of Felix, a Jewish boy still struggling to survive in the wake of the liberation of Poland after the end of World War Two.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Suri's Wall Lucy Estela , Matt Ottley (illustrator), Melbourne : Penguin , 2015 8841859 2015 single work picture book children's (taught in 1 units)

'Eva squeezed Suri's hand. 'What's there? What can you see?'

''What can I see?' Suri looked out over the wall. 'Oh, it's beautiful, let me tell you all about it.'

'A moving tale of the power of the human spirit brought alive by Lucy Estela and award-winning illustrator Matt Ottley.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon We Are the Rebels : The Women and Men Who Made Eureka Clare Wright , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2015 9056457 2015 single work biography young adult children's (taught in 1 units)

'The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka is the most talked-about work of Australian history in recent years. Now here is Clare Wright's groundbreaking, award-winning study of the women who made the rebellion, in an abridged edition for teenage readers.

'Front and centre are the vibrant, adventurous personalities who were players in the rebellion: Sarah Hanmer, Ellen Young, Clara Seekamp, Anastasia Hayes and Catherine Bentley, among others.

'But just as important were the thousands of women who lived, worked and traded on the goldfields—women who have been all but invisible until now. Discovering them changes everything.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon The White Mouse : The Story of Nancy Wake Peter Gouldthorpe , Lindfield : Scholastic Australia , 2015 8818633 2015 single work biography children's (taught in 1 units)

'The Gestapo called her The White Mouse - and they wanted her, dead or alive. Nancy Wake was an Australian who joined the French Resistance during World War II and became the most wanted woman in France. Parachuting behind enemy lines, blowing up bridges and smuggling refugees across borders, Nancy fought fiercely against the enemy and became the most decorated Australian woman in any war.' (Publication summary)

2015

y separately published work icon The Empire Writes Back : Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures Bill Ashcroft , Gareth Griffiths , Helen Tiffin , Terence Hawkes (editor), London : Routledge , 1989 Z132291 1989 single work criticism (taught in 7 units)

'The experience of colonization and the challenges of the post-colonial world have produced an explosion of new writing in English. This diverse and powerful body of literature has established a specific practice of colonial writing in cultures as diverse as India, Australia, the West Indies, Africa and Canada. This comprehensive study opens debates about the interrelationships of these literatures, investigates the powerful forces acting on language in the post-colonial text and shows how these texts constitute a radical critique of the assumptions underlying Eurocentric notions of literature and language.' (Publication summary) 

y separately published work icon The Fig Tree Arnold Zable , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2002 Z959940 2002 selected work autobiography prose extract travel (taught in 3 units) The Fig Tree is a book of true stories with an extraordinary scope. It is about family, about home about the journeys that reveal to us who we are, and the ways in which contemporary tales reflect ancient myths. Arnold Zable begins with his own family. (Libraries Australia)
y separately published work icon Joe Cinque's Consolation Helen Garner , Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia , 2004 Z1132428 2004 single work prose (taught in 26 units)

'In October 1997 a clever young law student at ANU made a bizarre plan to murder her devoted boyfriend after a dinner party at their house. Some of the dinner guests - most of them university students - had heard rumours of the plan. Nobody warned Joe Cinque. He died one Sunday, in his own bed, of a massive dose of rohypnol and heroin. His girlfriend and her best friend were charged with murder. Helen Garner followed the trials in the ACT Supreme Court. Compassionate but unflinching, this is a book about how and why Joe Cinque died. It probes the gap between ethics and the law; examines the helplessness of the courts in the face of what we think of as 'evil'; and explores conscience, culpability, and the battered ideal of duty of care.' (Source: Pan Macmillan website)

Garner takes 'a deliberately subjective and "literary" approach' to her material with an 'emphasis on a sympatheitic authorial persona as the source of the reader's perspective' (Susan Lever 'The Crimes of the Past: Anna Funder's Stasiland and Helen Garner's Joe Cinque's Consolation'. Paper delivered at the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) conference 2006).

y separately published work icon My Life as a Fake Peter Carey , Milsons Point : Random House Australia , 2003 Z1045776 2003 single work novel (taught in 8 units) Sarah Wode-Douglas is an aristocratic woman who has made her living as the editor of the poetry magazine "First Proof", until she impulsively follows a friend to Kuala Lumpur. She meets Christopher Chubb, an enigmatic wreck of a man whose terrible secrets Sarah is compelled to discover and pursue. (Source: Trove)
y separately published work icon That Deadman Dance Kim Scott , Sydney : Picador , 2010 Z1728528 2010 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 43 units)

Big-hearted, moving and richly rewarding, That Deadman Dance is set in the first decades of the 19th century in the area around what is now Albany, Western Australia. In playful, musical prose, the book explores the early contact between the Aboriginal Noongar people and the first European settlers.

'The novel's hero is a young Noongar man named Bobby Wabalanginy. Clever, resourceful and eager to please, Bobby befriends the new arrivals, joining them hunting whales, tilling the land, exploring the hinterland and establishing the fledgling colony. He is even welcomed into a prosperous local white family where he falls for the daughter, Christine, a beautiful young woman who sees no harm in a liaison with a native.

'But slowly - by design and by accident - things begin to change. Not everyone is happy with how the colony is developing. Stock mysteriously start to disappear; crops are destroyed; there are "accidents" and injuries on both sides. As the Europeans impose ever stricter rules and regulations in order to keep the peace, Bobby's Elders decide they must respond in kind. A friend to everyone, Bobby is forced to take sides: he must choose between the old world and the new, his ancestors and his new friends. Inexorably, he is drawn into a series of events that will forever change not just the colony but the future of Australia...' (From the publisher's website.)

Short Story Writing (WRI10003) Semester 2
Writing Project (ENG00408) Summer Semester
Writing for Performance (ENG00407) Semester 2
y separately published work icon Radiance Louis Nowra , Paddington : Currency Press Belvoir Street Theatre , 1993 Z25564 1993 single work drama (taught in 3 units)
— Appears in: アップザラダ; レイディアンス 2003;

'Louis Nowra’s Radiance is an exuberant black sabbath for three great Indigenous dames. It begins conventionally enough: Mae, Nona and Cressy gather at the old Queenslander in the tropics for Mum’s funeral. But these three sisters are forces of nature, and they haven’t been in the same room for years, and years. It isn’t long before that old house can’t contain the joy and pain of them all being together again…

'Radiance began its life at Belvoir in 1993. After 22 years, Nowra’s feat of playwriting – almost Shakespearean, a Tempest-like packet of lust, rage, grief and high-flying foolery – is ready to be unleashed again. Leah Purcell is the woman for the job.

'Purcell is a powerhouse. She burst onto the national stage nearly two decades ago and is as full of fight and life as she ever was. What better idea than for this all-round theatre elder to direct herself in this mighty little classic?' (2015 Production summary)

Writing for Young People (WRI20001) Semester 2
Writing from the Edge (ENG10022) Semester 1

2012

Indigenous World-Views (CUL00401) Semester 1, Semester 2
y separately published work icon Elders : Wisdom from Australia's Indigenous Leaders Peter McConchie , Melbourne : Cambridge University Press , 2003 Z1583053 2003 anthology (taught in 3 units)
Theories of Text and Culture (ENG00406) Semester 1
y separately published work icon Carpentaria Alexis Wright , Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2006 Z1184902 2006 single work novel (taught in 47 units) Carpentaria's portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, whose members are the leaders of the Pricklebush people, and their battles with old Joseph Midnight's tearaway Eastend mob on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other. Wright's storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce. The novel is populated by extraordinary characters - Elias Smith the outcast saviour, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, leader of the holy Aboriginal pilgrimage, the murderous mayor Stan Bruiser, the ever-vigilant Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist and prodigal son Will Phantom, and above all, Angel Day the queen of the rubbish-dump, and her sea-faring husband Normal Phantom, the fish-embalming king of time - figures that stand like giants in this storm-swept world. (Backcover)
y separately published work icon Orpheus Lost Janette Turner Hospital , Pymble London : Fourth Estate , 2007 Z1364404 2007 single work novel (taught in 5 units)

'In this compelling reimagining of the Orpheus story, Leela May travels into an underworld of kidnapping, torture and despair in search of her lover, Mishka.

'Leela is a mathematical genius who escaped her hardscrabble Southern home town to study in Boston. It's there that she meets a young Australian musician, Mishka. From the moment she first hears him play, busking in a subway, his music grips her, and they quickly become lovers.

'Then one day Leela is picked up off the street and taken to an interrogation centre somewhere outside the city. There has been an 'incident', an explosion on the underground; terrorists are suspected, security is high. And her old childhood friend Cobb is conducting a very questionable interrogation. Over the years Cobb has never forgotten Leela and the secrets she knows.

'Now he reveals to her that Mishka may not be all he seems. That there may be more to him than growing up in the Daintree rainforest in northern Queensland in an eccentric musical family. Leela has already discovered on her own account that some nights when Mishka claims to be at the music lab are actually spent at a cafe. A cafe, Cobb tells her, known to be a terrorist contact point.

'Who can she believe?

'And then Mishka disappears.' (Publisher's blurb)

y separately published work icon The Secret River Kate Grenville , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2005 Z1194031 2005 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 69 units)

'In 1806 William Thornhill, a man of quick temper and deep feelings, is transported from the slums of London to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and their children he arrives in a harsh land he cannot understand.

'But the colony can turn a convict into a free man. Eight years later Thornhill sails up the Hawkesbury to claim a hundred acres for himself.

'Aboriginal people already live on that river. And other recent arrivals - Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan and Mrs Herring - are finding their own ways to respond to them.

'Thornhill, a man neither better nor worse than most, soon has to make the most difficult choice of his life.

'Inspired by research into her own family history, Kate Grenville vividly creates the reality of settler life, its longings, dangers and dilemmas. The Secret River is a brilliantly written book, a groundbreaking story about identity, belonging and ownership.' (From the publisher's website.)

y separately published work icon The Slap Christos Tsiolkas , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2008 Z1739894 2008 single work novel (taught in 40 units)

'At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own.

'This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the event.

'In this remarkable novel, Christos Tsiolkas turns his unflinching and all-seeing eye onto that which connects us all: the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century. The Slap is told from the points of view of eight people who were present at the barbecue. The slap and its consequences force them all to question their own families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and desires.

'What unfolds is a powerful, haunting novel about love, sex and marriage, parenting and children, and the fury and intensity - all the passions and conflicting beliefs - that family can arouse. In its clear-eyed and forensic dissection of the ever-growing middle class and its aspirations and fears, The Slap is also a poignant, provocative novel about the nature of loyalty and happiness, compromise and truth.' (Publisher's blurb)

y separately published work icon Wanting Richard Flanagan , North Sydney : Knopf Australia , 2008 Z1534034 2008 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 5 units)

'It is 1839. A young Aboriginal girl, Mathinna, is running through the long wet grass of an island at the end of the world to get help for her dying father, an Aboriginal chieftain. Twenty years later, on an island at the centre of the world, the most famous novelist of the day, Charles Dickens, realises he is about to abandon his wife, risk his name, and forever after be altered because of his inability any longer to control his intense passion.

'Connecting the two events are the most celebrated explorer of the age, Sir John Franklin - then governor of Van Diemen's Land - and his wife, Lady Jane, who adopt Mathinna, seen as one of the last of a dying race, as an experiment. Lady Jane believes the distance between savagery and civilisation is the learned capacity to control wanting. The experiment fails, the Franklins throw the child onto the streets and into a life of prostitution and alcoholism. A few years later Mathinna is found dead in a puddle. She is nineteen years old. By then Sir John too is dead, lost in the blue ice of the Arctic seeking the North West Passage. A decade later evidence emerges that in its final agony, Franklin's expedition resorted to the level and practice of savages: cannibalism. Lady Jane enlists Dickens's aid to put an end to such scandalous suggestions.

'Dickens becomes ever more entranced in the story of men entombed in ice, recognising in its terrible image his own frozen inner life. He produces and stars in a play inspired by Franklin's fate to give story to his central belief: that discipline and will can conquer desire. And yet the play will bring him to the point where he is finally no longer able to control his own wanting and the consequences it brings.

'Based on historic events, Wanting is a novel about art, love, and the way in which life is finally determined never by reason, but only ever by wanting.' (Provided by publisher.)

2011

Children's Literature (ENG00351) Semester 2
y separately published work icon Books in the Life of a Child : Bridges to Literature and Learning H. M. Saxby , South Melbourne : Macmillan , 1997 Z937263 1997 single work criticism (taught in 1 units)
Screenwriting (COM01402) Semester 1
Writing Project (ENG00408) Semester 2, Summer Semester
Writing for Performance (ENG00407) Semester 2
y separately published work icon Radiance : The Play + The Screenplay Louis Nowra , Sydney : Currency Press , 2000 Z668116 2000 selected work drama screenplay (taught in 6 units)
y separately published work icon Re-Placement : A National Anthology of Creative Writing from Universities across Australia Moya Costello , Victor Marsh , Janie Conway-Herron (editor), Lismore : Southern Cross University Press , 2008 Z1553325 2008 anthology poetry prose short story (taught in 3 units) 'Re-Placement is an anthology from writers enrolled in creative writing courses at universities across Australia. It is the fourth such anthology of work from members of the Australian Association of Writing Programs and the first to be hosted by Southern Cross University.' (Provided by publisher.)
y separately published work icon The Empire Writes Back : Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures Bill Ashcroft , Gareth Griffiths , Helen Tiffin , Terence Hawkes (editor), London : Routledge , 1989 Z132291 1989 single work criticism (taught in 7 units)

'The experience of colonization and the challenges of the post-colonial world have produced an explosion of new writing in English. This diverse and powerful body of literature has established a specific practice of colonial writing in cultures as diverse as India, Australia, the West Indies, Africa and Canada. This comprehensive study opens debates about the interrelationships of these literatures, investigates the powerful forces acting on language in the post-colonial text and shows how these texts constitute a radical critique of the assumptions underlying Eurocentric notions of literature and language.' (Publication summary) 

y separately published work icon Joe Cinque's Consolation Helen Garner , Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia , 2004 Z1132428 2004 single work prose (taught in 26 units)

'In October 1997 a clever young law student at ANU made a bizarre plan to murder her devoted boyfriend after a dinner party at their house. Some of the dinner guests - most of them university students - had heard rumours of the plan. Nobody warned Joe Cinque. He died one Sunday, in his own bed, of a massive dose of rohypnol and heroin. His girlfriend and her best friend were charged with murder. Helen Garner followed the trials in the ACT Supreme Court. Compassionate but unflinching, this is a book about how and why Joe Cinque died. It probes the gap between ethics and the law; examines the helplessness of the courts in the face of what we think of as 'evil'; and explores conscience, culpability, and the battered ideal of duty of care.' (Source: Pan Macmillan website)

Garner takes 'a deliberately subjective and "literary" approach' to her material with an 'emphasis on a sympatheitic authorial persona as the source of the reader's perspective' (Susan Lever 'The Crimes of the Past: Anna Funder's Stasiland and Helen Garner's Joe Cinque's Consolation'. Paper delivered at the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) conference 2006).

y separately published work icon Murder in Utopia Utopia Philip McLaren , ( trans. Phillippe Boisserand with title Utopia ) France : Traversees Noumea , 2007 Z1702843 2007 single work novel crime (taught in 1 units) 'A reformed alcoholic, New York doctor Jack Nugent, takes on the challenge of running the medical centre at utopia in remote Central Australia. After two and a half years of advertising the position, there were no other applicants for the job. Nugent becomes engrossed in the exotic Aboriginal people and culture and is outraged by the government neglect he sees everywhere. Unexpectedly, he is swept up in a bizarre ritual murder investigation, in such a remote place he must assist the state coroner by gathering evidence and provide police with his forensic findings. Vital evidence goes missing and every avenue Nugent takes is blocked. He falls in love with Carla, a black lawyer, who helps him overcome the obstacles police and the Aboriginal community place in his path, a better social outcome for this ancient desert community depends largely on them.' (From the publisher's website.)
y separately published work icon My Life as a Fake Peter Carey , Milsons Point : Random House Australia , 2003 Z1045776 2003 single work novel (taught in 8 units) Sarah Wode-Douglas is an aristocratic woman who has made her living as the editor of the poetry magazine "First Proof", until she impulsively follows a friend to Kuala Lumpur. She meets Christopher Chubb, an enigmatic wreck of a man whose terrible secrets Sarah is compelled to discover and pursue. (Source: Trove)
Prose (ENG00403) Semester 1, Summer Semester
y separately published work icon Vertigo : A Pastoral Amanda Lohrey , Melbourne : Black Inc. , 2008 Z1535121 2008 single work novella (taught in 3 units) 'Luke and Anna decide on a sea-change. They leave the city, fleeing a past and a future that fill them with fear. On the coast they discover a natural world that is both destructive and rejuvenating. Events sweep them up and they must confront what they have tried to put behind them.' (Publisher's blurb)
Writing from the Edge (ENG10022) Semester 1

2010

Writing Project (ENG00408) Semester 2
Indigenous World-Views (CUL00401) Semester 1, Semester 2
y separately published work icon Elders : Wisdom from Australia's Indigenous Leaders Peter McConchie , Melbourne : Cambridge University Press , 2003 Z1583053 2003 anthology (taught in 3 units)
Prose (ENG00403) Summer Semester
Screenwriting (COM01402) Semester 1
Theories of Text and Culture (ENG00406) Semester 1
y separately published work icon Carpentaria Alexis Wright , Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2006 Z1184902 2006 single work novel (taught in 47 units) Carpentaria's portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, whose members are the leaders of the Pricklebush people, and their battles with old Joseph Midnight's tearaway Eastend mob on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other. Wright's storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce. The novel is populated by extraordinary characters - Elias Smith the outcast saviour, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, leader of the holy Aboriginal pilgrimage, the murderous mayor Stan Bruiser, the ever-vigilant Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist and prodigal son Will Phantom, and above all, Angel Day the queen of the rubbish-dump, and her sea-faring husband Normal Phantom, the fish-embalming king of time - figures that stand like giants in this storm-swept world. (Backcover)
y separately published work icon Dead Europe Christos Tsiolkas , Milsons Point : Vintage Australia , 2005 Z1186455 2005 single work novel (taught in 14 units) 'The novel comprises two separate narratives. The first, told in the style of a fairytale, is set in a traditional Greek peasant village during and after World War II. Its world is still magical. ... The second narrative is set in the present time. The narrator is a 36-year-old gay, Greek-Australian photographic artist named Isaac. We meet Isaac at a time when he has travelled to Greece for what turns out to be a rather dismal officially funded exhibition of his works.'

Source: Manne, Robert. 'Dead Disturbing'. The Monthly. (June, 2005)
y separately published work icon Orpheus Lost Janette Turner Hospital , Pymble London : Fourth Estate , 2007 Z1364404 2007 single work novel (taught in 5 units)

'In this compelling reimagining of the Orpheus story, Leela May travels into an underworld of kidnapping, torture and despair in search of her lover, Mishka.

'Leela is a mathematical genius who escaped her hardscrabble Southern home town to study in Boston. It's there that she meets a young Australian musician, Mishka. From the moment she first hears him play, busking in a subway, his music grips her, and they quickly become lovers.

'Then one day Leela is picked up off the street and taken to an interrogation centre somewhere outside the city. There has been an 'incident', an explosion on the underground; terrorists are suspected, security is high. And her old childhood friend Cobb is conducting a very questionable interrogation. Over the years Cobb has never forgotten Leela and the secrets she knows.

'Now he reveals to her that Mishka may not be all he seems. That there may be more to him than growing up in the Daintree rainforest in northern Queensland in an eccentric musical family. Leela has already discovered on her own account that some nights when Mishka claims to be at the music lab are actually spent at a cafe. A cafe, Cobb tells her, known to be a terrorist contact point.

'Who can she believe?

'And then Mishka disappears.' (Publisher's blurb)

y separately published work icon The Secret River Kate Grenville , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2005 Z1194031 2005 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 69 units)

'In 1806 William Thornhill, a man of quick temper and deep feelings, is transported from the slums of London to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and their children he arrives in a harsh land he cannot understand.

'But the colony can turn a convict into a free man. Eight years later Thornhill sails up the Hawkesbury to claim a hundred acres for himself.

'Aboriginal people already live on that river. And other recent arrivals - Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan and Mrs Herring - are finding their own ways to respond to them.

'Thornhill, a man neither better nor worse than most, soon has to make the most difficult choice of his life.

'Inspired by research into her own family history, Kate Grenville vividly creates the reality of settler life, its longings, dangers and dilemmas. The Secret River is a brilliantly written book, a groundbreaking story about identity, belonging and ownership.' (From the publisher's website.)

y separately published work icon Wanting Richard Flanagan , North Sydney : Knopf Australia , 2008 Z1534034 2008 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 5 units)

'It is 1839. A young Aboriginal girl, Mathinna, is running through the long wet grass of an island at the end of the world to get help for her dying father, an Aboriginal chieftain. Twenty years later, on an island at the centre of the world, the most famous novelist of the day, Charles Dickens, realises he is about to abandon his wife, risk his name, and forever after be altered because of his inability any longer to control his intense passion.

'Connecting the two events are the most celebrated explorer of the age, Sir John Franklin - then governor of Van Diemen's Land - and his wife, Lady Jane, who adopt Mathinna, seen as one of the last of a dying race, as an experiment. Lady Jane believes the distance between savagery and civilisation is the learned capacity to control wanting. The experiment fails, the Franklins throw the child onto the streets and into a life of prostitution and alcoholism. A few years later Mathinna is found dead in a puddle. She is nineteen years old. By then Sir John too is dead, lost in the blue ice of the Arctic seeking the North West Passage. A decade later evidence emerges that in its final agony, Franklin's expedition resorted to the level and practice of savages: cannibalism. Lady Jane enlists Dickens's aid to put an end to such scandalous suggestions.

'Dickens becomes ever more entranced in the story of men entombed in ice, recognising in its terrible image his own frozen inner life. He produces and stars in a play inspired by Franklin's fate to give story to his central belief: that discipline and will can conquer desire. And yet the play will bring him to the point where he is finally no longer able to control his own wanting and the consequences it brings.

'Based on historic events, Wanting is a novel about art, love, and the way in which life is finally determined never by reason, but only ever by wanting.' (Provided by publisher.)

Writing Genre (ENG00411) Semester 1
Writing for Performance (ENG00407) Semester 2
y separately published work icon Radiance : The Play + The Screenplay Louis Nowra , Sydney : Currency Press , 2000 Z668116 2000 selected work drama screenplay (taught in 6 units)

2009

Writing Project (ENG00408) Semester 2
Indigenous World-Views (CUL00401) Semester 2
y separately published work icon Elders : Wisdom from Australia's Indigenous Leaders Peter McConchie , Melbourne : Cambridge University Press , 2003 Z1583053 2003 anthology (taught in 3 units)
Auto/biography (ENG10164) Summer Semester
y separately published work icon All My Mob Ruby Langford Ginibi , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2007 Z1381114 2007 selected work autobiography (taught in 3 units)

'This ... collection of stories features a foreword by Dr Pam Johnston that places Ruby’s anecdotes in the context of a country which seems incapable of healing its past or of creating a better future for Indigenous people. Featuring the best stories from Ruby’s Real Deadly, plus many unpublished gems dating as far back as 1992, All My Mob’s portrayal of family life, ‘home’, and life as an Aborigine in today’s Australia is fascinating, often confronting and unforgettable.' (Source: UQP website: www.uqp.uq.edu.au)

y separately published work icon Before You Met Me Alan Close , North Sydney : Random House Australia , 2008 Z1468173 2008 single work autobiography (taught in 1 units) 'No matter how hard he tried, Alan Close couldn't stay in a relationship. Then, at the age of 43, after yet another breakup, he decided he was going to find out what was going wrong and make a change. What followed was a painful yet ultimately revelatory process of looking back into the past - where memories of his childhood and early relationships where darkened by a long-forgotten secret he had failed to admit even to himself. Beautifully written, in a narrative that is utterly compelling, this is a non-fiction first - a male memoir about relationships that is impossible to put down, sure to hold up a mirror to male readers and provide a rare insight to women.' (Publisher's blurb)
y separately published work icon Delinquent Angel Diana Georgeff , North Sydney : Random House , 2007 Z1404941 2007 single work biography (taught in 1 units)

'Shelton Lea was born secretly, and adopted in the most bizarre circumstances into a high profile family. Growing up he was told he would never inherit the family fortune; that he had been adopted as a playmate for the natural children. Here began a life of extremes and excesses.

'Family dynamics produced disastrous outcomes and his adoptive mother placed him in a psychiatric institution at the age of three. He escaped from boys' homes, lived with gypsies, Aborigines, in doorways, in parks and went to prisons along the east coast of Australia. But genetics propelled his ascendance. He was born with tremendous gifts and when, as a teenager in a putrid lock-up, he discovered the writings of Ezra Pound, he knew the path his life would take.

'Reports of the legendary Shelton Lea spread. He was a romantic, bohemian outlaw - charming, insolent and contemptuous of authority. He stepped far beyond the bounds of propriety, encouraging comparisons to Rimbaud and Villon.

'When he died he took his wizard words, his mesmerising performance, his rabble rousing, and he was hailed as a seer of our age.' (Publisher's blurb)

y separately published work icon My Life as a Traitor Zarah Ghahramani , Robert Hillman , Carlton North : Scribe , 2007 Z1399785 2007 single work autobiography (taught in 1 units) Zarah Ghahramani was born in Tehran in 1981, and in 2001, her life changed suddenly when she was arrested and charged with 'inciting crimes against the people of the Islamic Republic of Iran'. - from back cover
y separately published work icon Pleasure and Pain : My Life Chrissy Amphlett , Larry Writer , Sydney : Hodder Headline Australia , 2005 Z1227969 2005 single work autobiography (taught in 1 units)
y separately published work icon Romulus, My Father Raimond Gaita , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 1998 Z827978 1998 single work biography (taught in 3 units)

'Romulus Gaita fled his home in his native Yugoslavia at the age of thirteen, and came to Australia with his young wife Christina and their infant son Raimond soon after the end of World War II.

'Tragic events were to overtake the boy’s life, but Raimond Gaita has an extraordinary story to tell about growing up with his father amid the stony paddocks and flowing grasses of country Australia.

'Written simply and movingly, Romulus, My Father is about how a compassionate and honest man taught his son the meaning of living a decent life. It is about passion, betrayal and madness, about friendship and the joy and dignity of work, about character and fate, affliction and spirituality.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Text Publishing).

y separately published work icon Tiger's Eye : A Memoir Inga Clendinnen , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2000 Z282560 2000 selected work autobiography short story prose (taught in 6 units)
y separately published work icon Unpolished Gem Unpolished Gem : My Mother, My Grandmother, and Me Alice Pung , Melbourne : Black Inc. , 2006 Z1301370 2006 single work autobiography (taught in 6 units)

Unpolished Gem tells the story of growing up with a Chinese-Cambodian family in Australia, Alice dives headfirst into schooling, romance and the getting of wisdom. Meanwhile, her mother becomes an Aussie Battler - an outworker, that is, her father starts up a chain of electrical appliance stores, and her grandmother blesses Father Government every day for giving old people money. (Back cover blurb).


y separately published work icon Re-Placement : A National Anthology of Creative Writing from Universities across Australia Moya Costello , Victor Marsh , Janie Conway-Herron (editor), Lismore : Southern Cross University Press , 2008 Z1553325 2008 anthology poetry prose short story (taught in 3 units) 'Re-Placement is an anthology from writers enrolled in creative writing courses at universities across Australia. It is the fourth such anthology of work from members of the Australian Association of Writing Programs and the first to be hosted by Southern Cross University.' (Provided by publisher.)
y separately published work icon The Empire Writes Back : Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures Bill Ashcroft , Gareth Griffiths , Helen Tiffin , Terence Hawkes (editor), London : Routledge , 1989 Z132291 1989 single work criticism (taught in 7 units)

'The experience of colonization and the challenges of the post-colonial world have produced an explosion of new writing in English. This diverse and powerful body of literature has established a specific practice of colonial writing in cultures as diverse as India, Australia, the West Indies, Africa and Canada. This comprehensive study opens debates about the interrelationships of these literatures, investigates the powerful forces acting on language in the post-colonial text and shows how these texts constitute a radical critique of the assumptions underlying Eurocentric notions of literature and language.' (Publication summary) 

y separately published work icon The Fig Tree Arnold Zable , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2002 Z959940 2002 selected work autobiography prose extract travel (taught in 3 units) The Fig Tree is a book of true stories with an extraordinary scope. It is about family, about home about the journeys that reveal to us who we are, and the ways in which contemporary tales reflect ancient myths. Arnold Zable begins with his own family. (Libraries Australia)
y separately published work icon Joe Cinque's Consolation Helen Garner , Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia , 2004 Z1132428 2004 single work prose (taught in 26 units)

'In October 1997 a clever young law student at ANU made a bizarre plan to murder her devoted boyfriend after a dinner party at their house. Some of the dinner guests - most of them university students - had heard rumours of the plan. Nobody warned Joe Cinque. He died one Sunday, in his own bed, of a massive dose of rohypnol and heroin. His girlfriend and her best friend were charged with murder. Helen Garner followed the trials in the ACT Supreme Court. Compassionate but unflinching, this is a book about how and why Joe Cinque died. It probes the gap between ethics and the law; examines the helplessness of the courts in the face of what we think of as 'evil'; and explores conscience, culpability, and the battered ideal of duty of care.' (Source: Pan Macmillan website)

Garner takes 'a deliberately subjective and "literary" approach' to her material with an 'emphasis on a sympatheitic authorial persona as the source of the reader's perspective' (Susan Lever 'The Crimes of the Past: Anna Funder's Stasiland and Helen Garner's Joe Cinque's Consolation'. Paper delivered at the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) conference 2006).

y separately published work icon My Life as a Fake Peter Carey , Milsons Point : Random House Australia , 2003 Z1045776 2003 single work novel (taught in 8 units) Sarah Wode-Douglas is an aristocratic woman who has made her living as the editor of the poetry magazine "First Proof", until she impulsively follows a friend to Kuala Lumpur. She meets Christopher Chubb, an enigmatic wreck of a man whose terrible secrets Sarah is compelled to discover and pursue. (Source: Trove)
y separately published work icon There'll Be New Dreams Philip McLaren , Broome : Magabala Books , 2001 Z901276 2001 single work novel (taught in 1 units) 'A human and pacey novel about marriage, kidnap, courtroom battles, the charm of youth and the tragedy that lurks in a darkened alley. A dynamic work done by one of Australia's most highly regarded Indigenous writers.' Source: Publishers blurb.
Screenwriting (COM01402)
Writing Genre (ENG00411)
Writing for Performance (ENG00407) Semester 2
y separately published work icon Radiance : The Play + The Screenplay Louis Nowra , Sydney : Currency Press , 2000 Z668116 2000 selected work drama screenplay (taught in 6 units)
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