AustLit

'Subjective and personal forms of nonfiction writing are enjoying exponential popularity in English language publishing currently, as an interested public engages with ‘true’ stories of society and culture. Yet a paradox exists at the centre of this form of writing. As readers, we want to know who the writer is and what she has to tell us. Yet as writers we use a persona, a constructed character, a narrator who is only partially the writer, to deliver the narrative. How is a writer able to convey ‘true’ stories that are inherently reliant on memory, within a constructed narrative persona?

'We find a ‘gap’ between the writer and the narrator/protagonist on the page, an empowered creative space in which composition occurs, facilitating a balance between the facts and lived experiences from which ‘true’ stories are crafted, and the acknowledged fallibility of human memory. While the gap between writer and writer-as-narrator provides an enabling space for creative composition, it also creates space for the perception of unreliability. The width of this gap, we argue, is crucial. Only if the gap is small, if writer and writer-as-narrator share a set of passionately held values, can the writer-as-narrator become a believable entity, satisfying the reader with the ‘truth’ of their story.' (Publication summary)

'While it is evident that the work of the book editor and the literary critic are different, they share important synergies around the publication of the literary text. An editor’s role is one of critical friend to the manuscript and its writer during the processes of publication. Commensurate with this are budgetary, scheduling and marketing concerns owed to the publisher. The critic’s job is to interpret, to contextualize, and to critique the published text within both public sphere and university. The critic’s responsibility is to current and following generations of writers, editors, and readers, as well as to the market for literature. As Indigenous writing enlarges its niche status within mainstream settler society publishing, the questions of cross-cultural editing and criticism have become increasingly significant discourses within the academy and the industry. Indigenous writers, as indeed do all writers, require competent and conscientious editing in order, as Emma LaRocque has observed, to advance their skills. Their books too, require perceptive critique in order to improve publishing standards and to sustain and increase markets for Indigenous works. This paper considers the symbiotic role of cross-cultural editors and critics in the development of the publication of Indigenous authors in Australia and Canada, seeking to elucidate changes since the late 20th century when critics and writers like Judith Wright, Stephen Muecke, Penny van Toorn and Emma LaRocque began to critique the nature of the dominant white society’s relationship with Indigenous texts.'

Source: Abstract.