AustLit

A summary of research from DowJones' Factiva Insight media benchmarking group - Coverage of Books in Australian Newspapers (2007) - on newspaper reviewing in Australia for the first 6 months of 2007.

Author's abstract: Imitation is an ancient pedagogical practice. It enables creative writing students to attain mastery of their craft. But it calls originality into question. Intertextuality is both a form of homage to predecessors as well as an attempt to create something new. In my own creative writing projects I have been influenced by and paid homage to Murray Bail, specifically his novel Holden's Performance. I have written the faux biography of Harriet Chandler, a minor character in that novel. Intertextuality is characterised as a liminal space with the potential for change. Present in the master-apprentice or teacher-learner relationship is the potential for the texts and identities involved, temporarily fixed, to transform.

Author's abstract: This project is an essay/comic book hybrid that analyses a number of common general perceptions and misunderstandings surrounding both the essay and the comic, and uses the contrast and similarities between the forms to suggest some new ways of understanding them.

Author's abstract: Faced with multiple requirements not only to establish a research question and a method of inquiry, but also to meet the complex demands of a bi-partite exegetical/creative dissertation, creative practice often presents as an unnavigable wilderness to novice PhD students. Sometimes circumstances arise causing candidates to lose their way and they become disconnected from their research as theory and practice diverge. Such difficulties may be overcome by repairing the interface between theory and practice through the development of a personal research ethos. Establishing a philosophical approach to ethical creative practice may restore candidate confidence by validating their positions as researchers. The author describes how by pausing and drawing on parallels between creative practice and creative horsemanship she was able to make sense of her own creative practice and restore a project that had threatened to wander dangerously off course.

Author's abstract: This article is a personal trip down Memory Lane. It is an autobiography that tells of a young person's early life devoid of books. In many ways, that period of my life is not too dissimilar to those of countless other children and teenagers whose lack of interest in reading denies them entrance to the worlds of imagination and adventure. But my life was destined not to remain a literary wasteland, it was to bud, blossom and ... well, you will need to read on to find out why and how.

Author's abstract: This paper examines the differences between historical and fictional representations of recognisable pasts, in an attempt to negotiate a critical and theoretical relationship between history and fiction. It argues that the 'fake' or 'counterfeit' of fiction may present us with a way of intervening in the discourses of reality - playing in the gap between the narratives of history and the actualities of the past.

Author's abstract: How does the imagination work? How do artists working in different forms move from the very beginning of an idea to something they are ready to share with the world? How do artists - even the most experienced - contend with the possibility of failure? And, how do we develop a robust reflective and creative practice in our creative writing programs? This article doesn't pretend to answer these questions explicitly, rather, in its own elliptical style, it explores the possibilities of creation, how to express the inexpressible, how to share the most nascent of ideas. It introduces the reader to the Artists Talk program that has been developed successfully at the University of Canberra as a model of practice.

'Each year at this time TEXT looks at some of the latest products of Australia's university writing programs.'