AustLit

'Scholarly contributions to this issue of TEXT include a broad range of topics from reflective practice, improvisation, and collaborative writing as method, to questions of examination, experimentation, misinterpretation and activism.' (Source : Editorial)

'This creative work (screenplay) is informed by queer theory relating to gender and sexuality and explores the complex negotiations and disclosures that gender nonconforming persons are often forced to undertake in social situations that are largely structured by heteronormativity. The screenplay foregrounds the mutable nature of sexual attraction and actively imagines a scenario in which gender non-conforming persons are not confronted with fraught, and often dangerous, social navigations and disclosures about their gender status. The screenplay foregrounds dialogue and direct address as a subversion of mainstream (masculinist) screen conventions that accentuate the visual (masculine) over the verbal (feminine) and verisimilitude over self-reflexivity. The script also makes a contribution to the rethinking of attraction itself, presenting it as fluid and negotiable rather than fixed. The script deploys these ideas in an accessible way, in the form of a LGBTIQ romantic drama.'  (Publication abstract)

'In the ‘Screenplays as Research Artefacts’ special issue of TEXT (Baker & Batty 2018), which is the fourth in a line of those focussed on scriptwriting as research, but the first to focus exclusively on writing for the screen, we present a range of stories, worlds, characters, visual scenarios and dialogue exchanges that function as vessels for theories and ideas. The eleven screenplays included in this issue use creative practice approaches to research across a wide variety of discourses, from archival work on historical subjects, to notions of gender, sex and sexuality, to more meta concepts regarding screenwriting craft and researching in the academy. But all of these screenplays have one important aspect in common: the use of fiction to do this research work. Whether parody, speculative biography or straight-forward drama, all of the works in this special issue embrace fiction as an important method to convey their respective critical concerns. Perhaps this is one of the hallmarks of screenwriting (as) research when compared with associated forms in creative writing and screen production: fiction as a staple of its storytelling. There are, of course, those who use non-fiction in screenwriting (as) research; but comparatively, and considering the affectual nature of screen drama and comedy, is fiction one of the defining features of this creative practice research endeavour? Let us consider this idea before we outline the works that appear in the issue.'  (Introduction)

'Here the authors discuss the role of fiction in screenwriting practice research. The screenplays included in the ‘Screenplays as Research Artefacts’ special issue of TEXT present a range of stories, worlds, characters, visual scenarios and dialogue exchanges that function as vessels for theories and ideas. These eleven screenplays all use creative practice approaches to research across a wide variety of discourses. All of the works embrace fiction as an important method to convey their respective critical concerns, which, the authors argue, evidences an emerging hallmark of screenwriting (as) research when compared with associated forms in the creative writing and screen production disciplines: fiction as a staple of its storytelling, creative practice and research methodology. The authors suggest that the use of fiction to perform research and present findings illuminates the ways that knowledge can be affective, not merely textual or verbal, something that is exemplified in the selected screenplays.' ( Craig Batty and Dallas John Baker : introduction) 

'This script was developed through a collaborative process. A work of stream-of-consciousness prose reflecting on Iced VoVos, an iconic Australian confectionery, penned by Janet McDonald constitutes the heart of the script. This piece was adapted to script form by Dallas Baker, who created characters through which Janet's prose could come to life. The explorative questions that emerged when Dallas and Janet began discussing the adaptation of the text focussed on memory and embodied experience. As the collaboratively led inducement of material developed, the period of ‘handing over’ the prose for adaptation engaged ghosting that resisted what Diana Taylor calls ‘the archive’. This is a place relegated in theatre to where performative ideas take concrete form, often as a written script that can be ‘published’, and therefore maintains an emphasis on discourse to manifest creative enterprise, rather than the lived experience of the performance of the work. What emerged from the collaboration was a script that took the prose in a different, unexpected yet intriguing, direction. This research was therefore more about exploring the relational aspects of working together. In this sense the knowledge produced by this research collaboration manifests Taylor's ‘repertoire’ (rather than ‘archive’) of performance and relates to the richness of both collaborative experience and the creative outcomes arising from that experience.' (Publication abstract)

'This edited collection brings together research that focuses on historic figures who have been largely neglected by history or forgotten over time. The question of how to recover, reclaim or retell the histories and stories of those obscured by the passage of time is one of growing public and scholarly interest. The volume includes chapters on a diverse array of topics, including semi-biographical fiction, digital and visual biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs, among others. Apart from the largely forgotten, the book provides fresh perspectives on historical figures whose biographies are distorted by their fame or limited by public perception. The subjects explored here include, among others, a child author, a Finnish grandmother, a cold war émigré, an Elizabethan era playwright, a castaway, a celebrated female artist, and the lauded personalities Mary Shelley, Judy Garland and J.R.R. Tolkien. Altogether, the chapters included in this collection offer a much-needed snapshot of new research on biography and its many variations and hybrids which will be of interest to academics and students of biography and life writing in general.'   (Publication summary)

'It is well established that some types of performance and theatre both document and catalyse social and/or cultural change (Mitchell, Dupuis and Jonas-Simpson 2011; Epskamp 1989; Shank 1982). This idea is so influential that for decades many anthropologists have used the notion of theatre or performance to describe the way whole social and cultural systems work (Schechner 2004; Turner 1982; Goffman 1956). Similarly, certain types of writing document and catalyse individual or personal change processes (Baker 2012, 2017). In other words, writing can be understood as an intervention into subjectivity in the way that performance and theatre are interventions into social systems and cultural practices. Michel Foucault (1997) described this process as self-writing or self-bricolage. This paper focuses on stage writing as an intervention into subjectivity or identity and a catalyst for personal transformation.' (Abstract)

'This article describes how a practice-led research methodology used to produce a creative writing artefact, a short play aimed at a high school audience, had a transformative impact on a number of levels: on the artefact, on the writing practice itself and on the author’s own self-knowledge in terms of gender identity and subjectivity. The creative writing artefact in question is a short stage play entitled Ghosts of Leigh, an exploration of the gender-bending club culture of the 1980s. The play is set in regional Queensland, Australia, which, at that time, was a strongly homosocial and homophobic environment. The script and this article explore the notion of effeminacy as a monstrous masculinity of considerable discursive potency that simultaneously disrupts both masculinity and femininity. The article also discusses how the practice-led research methodology itself facilitated the development of fresh understandings around effeminacy and how these new understandings interacted with the author’s lived gender and embodied subjectivity.' (Abstract)

Ghosts of Leigh is a one-act play that explores effeminacy through the gender-bending performance of fashion designer and 1980s nightclub denizen Leigh Bowery. The play’s target audience is high school students.

'Jack Gordon and his sister Harriett barely escaped with their lives when they fled the citadel of the Mountain Elves, pursued by the Prince of Fellwood and his legions of dark elves and goblins. Now they are on the edge of Fellwood Forest, alone again. They must journey through Fellwood with all its dangers to the goblin fortress at Pitmouth, on a quest to ensure that Morrigan remains imprisoned and searching for a mysterious object that might hold the power to defeat Prince Serza.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Seventeen year old Jack Gordon thinks he’s going mad, just like his mother who believed in mythical beings like elves, dragons and monsters. He’s even started hearing voices. But then he and his little sister Harriett are attacked by a monster that is definitely real.

'Led by the voice in his head, Jack and Harriett are magically transported to the hidden realm of Anwynn. In Anwynn, Jack learns that elves, dragons and Druids are very real and that he is a Waycaller: he has the power to part the veil between the hidden realm of Anwynn and the human realm. Jack faces the challenges that come with being in an unfamiliar world that is as dangerous as it is magical. To survive, he must overcome his doubts and fears and learn to accept and use the power that resides within him. That might be a little easier if he weren't also struggling with his feelings for the mysterious Anarra, a part-elvish girl whose beauty is matched only by her skill with a sword.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Jack Gordon and his sister Harriett are reunited with their friends, but now they face their final challenge, their greatest danger. They must go into battle with Morrigan and her vast armies. If they defeat her, the prophecy will be made real and the Dark Powers will be banished forever. If they fail, the prophecy will be unmade and Morrigan will conquer not only Anwynn but the human realm as well. They will also lose their lives.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Jack Gordon and his sister Harriett made it through Fellwood Forest, but now they face the journey through the vast bog of Swampmere to the goblin fortress of Pitmouth. The Dark Prince is right behind them, at the head of a huge army. They’re all racing to retrieve the Key Song, the key to the magical barrier that keeps Morrigan imprisoned.

'Meanwhile, Anarra Settonett must act from afar to help Jack in any way she can, and also strive to protect Elvinidd, the dominion of the elves, from destruction. It is clear to Anarra now that Jack’s fate and the fate of Elvinidd, and all of Anwynn, are intimately linked.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Jack Gordon and his sister Harriett barely escaped with their lives when they fled the citadel of the Mountain Elves, pursued by the Prince of Fellwood and his legions of dark elves and goblins. Now they are on the edge of Fellwood Forest, alone again. They must journey through Fellwood with all its dangers to the goblin fortress at Pitmouth, on a quest to ensure that Morrigan remains imprisoned and searching for a mysterious object that might hold the power to defeat Prince Serza.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.