AustLit

'D'Arcy Randall's essay on the Seven Writers group in Canberra in the 1970s and 1980s is a case study of literary sociability richly informed by both archival and oral history. It explores the internal dynamics of this group who worked collaboratively for a generation to nurture and critique each others writing, publishing both individually and collectively while resisting becoming a 'school'. Meeting in each others' homes to workshop manuscripts and discuss the business of publication, Seven Writers are an example of what Russell and Tuite describe as a site of private sociability: writer Sara Dowse speaks of '"a room of her own"...crowded with seven writerly spirits'. Randall explores the complex and fruitful interaction between the more formal and informal parts of the workshops, describes both the internal dynamics of the group and its relations with outsiders, and considers the role of gender in this 'Australian women's literary community' at a time when other writers' networks, especially in the major cities, were overwhelmingly masculine, and located in other sites of sociability, such as the pub and the writers' festival.' (Kirkpatrick, Peter and Dixon, Robert: Introduction xvii)