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Rohan Wilson Rohan Wilson i(A139679 works by) (a.k.a. Rohan David Wilson)
Born: Established: Launceston, Northeast Tasmania, Tasmania, ;
Gender: Male
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Works By

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1 ‘I Want a Mortgage and Comfort’ : Consumption, Totality and Identity in Australian Gay Fiction Rohan Wilson , Craig Bolland , Myles McGuire , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , 19 December vol. 38 no. 3 2023;

'The 2017 Marriage Law Postal Survey marked a historic moment for the gay community in Australia, as it resulted in same-sex unions being recognised under law. For novelists, this historic change served as the impetus to re-evaluate the position of gay men as queer subjectivity became more articulable through the market and was no longer excluded from the social mainstream or, in Marxist terminology, totality. This presents a challenge: how do writers dispense with outdated taxonomies of oppression, while still identifying the unique ways in which those who exist along axes of sexual difference continue to be exploited and oppressed? This article examines The Pillars (2019) by Peter Polites and The Adversary (2020) by Ronnie Scott to identify ways in which this nascent dimension of gay life is being depicted in fiction, arguing that gay fiction in Australia can meaningfully represent, and critique, its relation to capitalism. ' (Publication abstract)

1 Extract from the Novel ‘Restoration’ Rohan Wilson , 2021 extract novel
— Appears in: New Writing , vol. 18 no. 2 2021; (p. 229-238)
1 The Writing Collective: a Cross-university Collaboration between Undergraduate Creative Writing Students Alex Philp , Emma Doolan , Rohan Wilson , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , October no. 59 2020;
'Online publishing platforms present opportunities for emerging writers to both share their work with an audience and to engage in a critical dialogue with peers. However, the potential of these platforms remains largely untapped in a tertiary education environment, even with the increasing focus on online learning. This paper presents the results of a pilot project that matched undergraduate students at a metropolitan university with students at a regionally based university to use the digital platform Wattpad as a site for creative writing peer critique. We found that while Wattpad presents a number of benefits for students engaging both across universities and online, digital spaces present unique challenges for the critique process. Critiquing often relies on trust and personal bonds in order to be effective, and these can be harder to establish in a digital environment. Wattpad also presents barriers to ease of use and ease of communication. From our perspective as facilitators of the Writing Collective, we examine the successes produced by the collaboration, as well as the drawbacks, and suggest further avenues for research.' (Publication abstract)
1 Tough Decisions Amid the Tentacles of Friction Rohan Wilson , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 20 June 2020; (p. 14)

— Review of The Octopus and I Erin Hortle , 2020 single work novel
1 Laws of the Land Defiled Rohan Wilson , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 23 May 2020; (p. 16)

— Review of The Ghost And The Bounty Hunter : William Buckley, John Batman And The Theft Of Kulin Country Adam Courtenay , 2020 single work biography
1 Difficult Historic Tale Well and Truly Told Rohan Wilson , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 28 December 2019; (p. 15)

— Review of Paris Savages Katherine Johnson , 2019 single work novel

'For the white Australian writer, the question of how to portray Aboriginal history in fiction is a fraught one. Novels of this kind require the author to cross cultural boundaries in an attempt to imagine the subjectivity of someone entirely unlike themselves. This difficult task is further complicated by the gaps in the archival record that introduce a range of trade-offs and decisions into the creative process.' (Introduction)

1 Chafing Satire and Explosive Views Rohan Wilson , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 9 November 2019; (p. 21)

— Review of Bruny Heather Rose , 2019 single work novel
1 Tempestuous Heart of Korea Rohan Wilson , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 3 August 2019; (p. 24)

— Review of Typhoon Kingdom Matthew Hooton , 2019 single work novel

'What can a novel say about something as boundless as a nation? It might appear to be beyond the scope of what a work of fiction might achieve from some angles, given the infinite points a writer might begin or end a story about nationhood.' (Introduction)

1 Climate-crisis Dystopia Is a Story of Now Rohan Wilson , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 21 September 2019; (p. 18)

— Review of Wolfe Island Lucy Treloar , 2019 single work novel

'It’s a truism among climate fiction writers that at some point soon all contemporary fiction will become climate fiction. Already, a range of topics demands that the author is awake to the changes taking place. Could anyone seriously write about the Arctic without mention of ice loss? Or bushfires without mention of drought?' (Introduction)

1 Writing Across Place and Time Rohan Wilson , 2019 single work essay
— Appears in: Island , no. 157 2019; (p. 64-69)
'Rohan Wilson wrestles with the art and ethics of writing about the people and places most at risk from a changing climate.'
1 2 y separately published work icon Daughter of Bad Times Rohan Wilson , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2019 15521337 2019 single work novel

'Rin Braden is almost ready to give up on life after the heart-breaking death of her lover Yamaan and the everyday dread of working for her mother's corrupt private prison company. But through a miracle, Yamaan has survived and turns up in an immigration detention facility in Australia, trading his labour for a supposedly safe place to live. This is no ordinary facility, it's Eaglehawk MTC, a manufactory built by her mother's company to exploit the flood of environmental refugees. Now Rin must find a way to free Yamaan before the ghosts of her past and a string of bad choices catch up with them both. In its vision of the future, Daughter of Bad Times explores the truth about a growing inhumanity as profit becomes the priority.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

1 A Skilful, Menacing Update to a Convict Saga Rohan Wilson , 2017 single work review essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 12 August 2017; (p. 20)

'There’s a long tradition in Tasmanian literature of the gothic convict saga. In fact, Tasmanians do the convict novel better than anyone. We have a wealth of mythology, trope and imagery on which to draw and an outsized sense of our own past, a past that’s visible in the architecture wherever you go on the island.

'Our best known book, Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life, provided the template and writers have iterated on it down the generations. Think particularly of Richard Butler, Bryce Courtenay, Christopher Koch and Richard Flanagan. Now Rachel Leary has provided us with a contemporary, skilful update on the dustier of these traditions in her new novel Bridget Crack.' (Introduction)

1 Humour, Hope Relieve Tensions Rohan Wilson , 2017 single work essay review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 5 August 2017; (p. 18)

'These days the release of a new Kim Scott novel feels like a literary event. It wasn’t always this way. His first two books, True Country (1993) and Benang (1999), established him more as a writer’s writer: a brilliant, if raw, voice calling to us from across the Nullarbor. But with his previous book, the gobsmacking That Deadman Dance (2010), Scott announced himself as the country’s most important novelist.

'It was a book that took a fresh look at Australia’s past. We had the typical scenes of first contact as white settlers arrived in Albany and began to alienate Aboriginal land, yet in Scott’s telling this didn’t devolve into violence.' (Introduction)

1 Father-and-son Dynamic Flensed Rohan Wilson , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 22 July 2017; (p. 22)

'I have heard it said that men are reluctant to become fathers because we haven’t yet finished being children ourselves. There’s quite a bit of truth to that, I suspect. But, then, how do any of us become men? Who teaches us? What are the rites of passage that lead us into manhood? These are the questions Brisbane writer Ben Hobson seems to be contemplating in his moving debut novel, To Become a Whale.' (Introduction)

1 Memoir Gorges on the Ugly Truths of Excess Rohan Wilson , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 11 March 2017; (p. 21)
'Marcel Duchamp once said a painting that doesn’t shock isn’t worth painting. The French artist knew a thing or two about shock, that strange power art has to upset and surprise. The porcelain urinal he attempted to exhibit at the 1917 Society of Independent Artists show became a sensation after the committee refused to allow it. A urinal presented as art? It seems quaint to us today that anyone would consider it upsetting. We are used to the affronts that art so likes to give. Take a walk through MONA and see how far you go without being affronted.' (Introduction)
1 Convict Ordeal Distilled into Its Brutal Essence Rohan Wilson , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 30-31 July 2016; (p. 22)
1 1 Introduction Rohan Wilson , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: His Natural Life 2016;
1 Eaglehawk IDC Rohan Wilson , 2016 single work short story
— Appears in: Island , no. 146 2016; (p. 25)
1 From : To Name Those Lost Rohan Wilson , 2015 extract novel (To Name Those Lost)
— Appears in: Seizure [Online] , January 2015;
1 Extinction Discourse in Wanting and Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World Rohan Wilson , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 29 no. 1 2015; (p. 5-17)
'Wilson examines Auster's poem, which he considered as a lucid example of the way in which the Aboriginal population was imagined by some nineteenth-century observers to be in a state of irreversible decline. Moreover, what this poem demonstrates most strongly is the correspondence that the discourse of Aboriginal extinction has with both the colonizing process in Tasmania and the representation of Aboriginality in Tasmanian literature.' (Publication abstract)
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