AustLit

'As a writer, I have no qualms about drawing from my life to fuel my creative practice, though I adhere to some rules: like Brien (2002), I am guided by ‘a sincere desire to tell the truth’. It is in this manner that I have sometimes used myself as a character in works of fiction, as in ‘Letter to my children’ (in Fisher 2013a) and ‘Into the light’ (Fisher 2008). In these works, I refer to the sexual assault and subsequent suicide attempt I experienced in 1973 when I was 18. Some readers have objected to my classification of these works as fiction, arguing that I was writing non-fiction, memoir or biography. My counterpoint, however, is that these stories are not recounts of what actually happened but my imagined narratives using actual events for their framework; they are my sincere attempts to tell a story I still find difficult to comprehend nearly fifty years later. Undoubtedly, some of my unconscious motivation was therapeutic. Like Gandolfo (2014), ‘there were certainly benefits at a personal level from going through the difficult process of turning that experience into fiction’. Nevertheless, consciously I was attempting to write narratives with content and themes relatively uncommon in literature when I was that 18 year old; that is, I was exploring my deviance from the norm, as my sexuality was described to 18 year old me by a well-meaning psychiatrist.' (Introduction)

'Holding each of these books is a pleasure. Their two-tone covers have different but complementary botanical design motifs while the master design elements of the UWAP Poetry series, pushing on 23 titles, of which they are part gives them a uniform appearance. They are a credit to Terri-ann White and her team at UWAP in Perth. The miserably small print runs for volumes of poetry often lead to scrimping and saving on design and production, but here at least design costs have been defrayed over the entire series and it pays off in the look of the finished product.'  (Introduction)

'‘Lenora Jane Frayne’ comprises two small sections from a larger work of creative non-fiction and fiction, Faith, Hope and Stubborn Pride: Searching for Heaven in Aotearoa and Australia (2016), based on my research into my family history. Much of this larger work is written from traditional research and conforms to the tenets of biographical writing in that statements are supported by facts and evidence. Some sections of the larger work, however, are purely imagined, though inspired by known facts and historical evidence. They are my attempts to cast light where my traditional research provided none. On one hand I have stolen the identity of family members whom I never knew and used them in fictional narratives; on the other hand I have used what facts I could uncover from historical sources to create a biographical narrative. ‘Lenora Jane Frayne’ offers an example of the imagined as well as a more traditional biographical sketch.'

Source: Abstract.

We. Are. Family. The punctuation immediately calls to mind the Sister Sledge hit of 1979. Those full stops syncopate the disco rhythm. The song, composed by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, features the lyrics:

no we don’t get depressed
Here’s what we call our golden rule
Have faith in you and the things you do
You won’t go wrong
This is our family Jewel

  (Introduction)

'Early gay Australian novels stepped delicately in their depiction of homosexual relationships. In a murky legal climate, both publishers and authors fumbled in their efforts to recount overt homosexual narratives. As well, they were constrained by social conventions. In this environment, writers acted as their own censors, sometimes guided by their publishers, but more often cautiously coming to terms with being able to tell their own stories. Fifty years on, it is possible to document the manner in which some writers of novels with overt gay narratives navigated their problematic world and how the final works were influenced by self-censorship and censorship. As well, some reception of these writers’ works by the mainstream literary market is given a preliminary analysis in this article.'

Source: Abstract.

'When media mogul Wardell Costello’s son Julian disappears, it could be Julian’s just cheating on his beautiful model wife. Except the Premier is on the phone to Wardell, and she knows more than Wardell likes about his family’s secrets. Too dangerous in the dog-eat-dog political world of Sydney, where the Costellos are used to getting their way. Wardell Costello and the Premier are no longer the best of friends … the Premier’s Office is looking to rub the Costello name in mud.

'So Wardell calls in his old enemy, journalist Jack Rutherford, for help. “Find my son”, he demands. Jack doesn’t like the demand, but he’ll take the money to help release his partner’s parents from the clutches of the Public Guardian. His partner, Detective-Sergeant Terry Bradley, is already on the case. So far, there’s a dead body in Julian’s luxurious inner-city playpad, and another body washed up in Iron Cove. It seems a violent killer is disposing of young men who’ve shared the delights of the playpad with Julian.

'The killer is a sensitive boy, raised lovingly by a single mother, turned crazy by a restrictive school and Julian’s sadistic bullying.

'A novel about a Sydney that could almost be …' (Publication summary)

'For most of the twentieth century, as it remained in much of the world, homosexuality was illegal in Australia. The country was also subject to publication censorship relatively draconian for an English-speaking nation. This combination ensured overt homosexual works were comparatively unknown in Australia, even as titles imported from other English-speaking countries. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, publications of the homosexual rights and gay liberation movements began to appear. These were soon joined by more commercial publications aligned to an increasingly overt gay subculture. While censorship continued to be imposed on these publishers and publications under State jurisdictions, and many struggled economically, a few managed to eke out an existence. While gay-targeted newspapers and magazines documented the emerging gay subculture and provided entertainment, a number of newly-established small presses concentrated on more literary endeavours and produced a considerable number of novels, poetic works and play scripts. A number of writers published by these gay presses were taken up by more established publishers and have since gone on to mainstream success. Newspapers and magazines are still a feature of the gay media in Australia, but have now been supplemented by online publications. In light of the lessening of targeted censorship in Australia, this chapter explores the emergence of overt gay narratives and recounts their evolution from that date.' (Publication abstract)

'For much of the 20th century, homosexuality was illegal in Australia. The country was also subject to draconian censorship; overt homosexual works were banned. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, social change was afoot and publications of the homosexual rights and gay liberation movements began to appear, soon joined by more commercial publications aligned to an increasingly overt gay sub-culture. These publications prospered over the next three decades. Their focus ranged from earnest

proselytising to post-modern pornography. Most maintained strong links to their readerships, even though many of them were distributed free of charge and relied on

advertising to survive. This paper chronicles the range of these publications and examines how they helped develop and foster a gay, lesbian or queer readership (and

hence outside the mainstream); explores how and why the printed forms of these publications gradually merged within the mainstream as same-sex relationships lost their deviance; and notes that these publications have largely been replaced by digital alternatives in the 21st century. ' (Publication abstract)