AustLit

'Because of its looping, non-linear structure, the short story cycle is ideally suited to
capture the everyday experience of the Anthropocene, particularly as it manifests
through encounters with climate disaster. The dualistic nature of the short story cycle
demands that its narratives be at once self-sufficient and interrelated. Its simultaneously
fragmented and unified structure has the potential to address the complex
interconnections and enmeshments of human and environmental elements in the
Anthropocene in ways that work to integrate the consideration of climate disasters into
everyday life. A Constant Hum (2019) by Alice Bishop, Florida (2018) by Lauren Groff
and How High We Go in the Dark (2022) by Sequoia Nagamatsu are all story cycles
that centre, in some respects, on climate disasters. This article compares and contrasts
how these authors approach disaster as a unifying theme or focus in their respective
short story cycles, exploring their use of the non-linear form to address the ways in
which disaster works to reshape landscape and identity, and express the mesh of
human/non-human interaction that typifies life in the Anthropocene.' (Introduction)

'This collaborative essay, which sits at the nexus of creative writing, nature writing and
animal studies, seeks to explore the question of how we might live ethically and joyfully
in the context of anthropogenic climate change. Engaging with the fields of creative
non-fiction, philosophy, memoir and literature review, the essay asks how we might
address this question together, as writers, thinkers, artists, and living beings alongside
many others, both human and more-than-human. The authors explore their relationship
with the ocean, animals and each other, combining walking and writing as part of the
same process. Here, walking serves as a pivotal immersive writing process as well as a
creative tool. Alongside sharing ways of thinking, the essay argues the importance of
acknowledging oneself as a writer situated in a particular place and time.' 

(Publication abstract)

'Something happens to my mind when I read language that has been pushed beyond the
conventions, whether those conventions frame scholarly writing, creative expression or
demotic speech. The surprise trips some sort of wire, my perception of the world flickers
through a buffering process, and then the world reappears, crisp and clear but different.'

(Introduction)

 

'Marcelle Freiman’s Spirit Level is a delicate balancing act, where positive tensions between the seen and the remembered are painted with expert brushstrokes, advancing the contemporary ekphrastic project from a different perspective; a productive, yet blurred, binary: the poet- academic.' (Introduction)