“Caught Outside”: a Canadian-Australian essay in new Issue of Southerly
Today I received an invitation to attend and read at the launch party for the new issue of Southerly, in which I have a personal essay. Sadly, it’s in Sydney and I’m not. So, others will drink the wine and hob nob and the only thing of me that will be in the room will be about 5,000 of my words. Here’s to hoping they stay put and in the order in which I arranged them.
The issue’s theme is a fascinating one: Australian-Transnational writing. I received an advance proof and couldn’t help but dip into it. Turns out there’s more to Australians living across a pond than meets the eye.
This from the editors:
This issue of Southerly focuses on modern mobilities, the movements of people across the globe and the attendant dislocations and complex affiliations. The issue asks how this feature of late modernity dismantles and re-creates notions of identity, home, family, nation and literature. What is the role of writing in this circulation and how does it shape the dynamic mapping of Australia?
The issue includes a range of work deeply engaged with these questions. Bill Ashcroft offers a manifesto of sorts in his call for a new conception of diversity and for literature to produce the “anticipatory illuminations” that enable us to conceive of such possibilities. There are reflections by writers negotiating the movement to Australia and one, by expatriate author Jonathan Bennett now in Canada, that charts the fading of Australian idiom in his work as he becomes increasingly attuned to Canadian English and its writing.
If my piece is posted online, I will link to it. I am not sure how it will read to Canadians; I had only an Australian audience in mind as I wrote. Though one of the things I was able to finally write about was my friendship with the poet Richard Outram during, what turned out to be, the last year of his life.
For more on one of Australia’s great literary journals visit: www.southerlyjournal.com.au
