Articles
The Story, History or Concept behind a Book
This paper was presented by Leonie Star on 21 May 2014 at an ‘Open Forum’ event organised by the NSW Chapter of ISAA. What lies behind a book? This topic will be examined through a relatively limited prism, omitting fiction and that majority of substantial and essential works written by…
Adventures with Iambic Pentameters
Having formerly been a television documentary producer I am used to taking my brain into new territory. The diversity of ISAA’s membership allows me to continue doing this. Motivated in this way I have attended many ‘works-in-progress’ – which can be about anything. (I still remember one from many years…
Novel Conversations
An exchange of emails took place between ISAA member Susan Steggall and award-winning author of fiction for young adults, Felicity Pulman,* in December 2013 on the highs and lows of writing historical fiction. FP: Diane Armstrong once commented that in her experience, if you commit to writing a novel, the…
The Hotham Street Ladies Serve One Up to Picasso, with a Nod to Judy Chicago
On a visit to Melbourne in December 2013, I gravitated to Federation Square attracted as much by the vibrant people-filled forecourt as the grandeur of its architecture and sense of civic space. An added attraction was the exhibition Melbourne Now that had opened at the Ian Potter Centre, NGV Australia…
Rights, Interests and Obligations in Property
In compiling a submission to the Land Tenure Enquiry held by the Queensland Parliament in 2012, I drew upon an earlier departmental report as a source document. As this source document is not otherwise generally accessible to the public, I have published it on the website for the benefit of scholars and…
Land Tenure Inquiry
Land tenure is the subject of an enquiry by the Queensland Parliament. Security of land tenure is a significant issue in Queensland. Some 50% of Queensland is held under pastoral lease, for terms of thirty years and upwards; another 15% is held under perpetual lease for (usually) pastoralism. Only some…
Bias for Good or Ill? Australian Government Overseas Propaganda in the 1950s
My interest in this subject arose from my work as a journalist in the Australian News and Information Bureau in the 1950s. During part of this time I was employed almost exclusively in writing news stories and feature articles for publication in newspapers and journals in Asia. The aim of these was to moderate antagonism to the White Australia policy.
Anna Funder's "All That I Am"
‘When Hitler came to power I was in the bath.’ So begins Anna Funder’s All That I Am – a robust opening sentence for a novel that pits a vulnerable human being against the sadistic power of the ‘Great Dictator’ – Charlie Chaplin's evocative allusion to the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler.
Thinking About Gardens Thinking About Place
Places cannot exist in limbo. The concept of place is inevitably relationship-based. Whether in the mind or linked to a particular locus, a sense of place is mediated by association, be that forged through experience, history or imagination and desire. Creating a garden is quintessentially developing a sense of place and this is so whether at the level of the individual, the community or indeed the nation.
The Play's the Thing
Hamlet uses the fortuitous arrival of the players at Elsinore as the pivotal point in his prolonged campaign to expose his uncle's fratricide/regicide. He confesses his confidence in the power of the play to effect this outcom. Hamlet of course is fiction. Could this happen in real life? Apparently so, according to various accounts of the opening night performance in November 1932 at J C Williamson's Criterion Theatre in Sydney of the play Whose Child.
