My co-editor Elena Xeni and myself are publishing a book through Progressive Connexions on the topic of Children and Evil. These can be literary or film representations of evil children. Or representations of evil children in popular culture. See below for a description of our book called Explorations of Fearful Children.

Full Book description: The main intervention and development for evil children studies that the book demonstrates is the exploration of how children function as a blank canvas for adult projections. This notion has not yet received adequate and systematic attention within the still emerging field of scholarship dedicated to iterations of the figure of the evil child. Rather, scholars in this budding field have mainly looked at paradoxical way children are represented as either evil or innocent. The volume proposed here will enrich this existing research by exploring the question how children come to be represented as evil. Furthermore, it’s new focus allows it to make this figure relevant for a wide range of disciplines.

Children are considered to be the “next generation” and, therefore, the future of the human race. When adults feel anxious about their future, this anxiety is projected onto children. This is why representations of evil children are so popular in mainstream media but is also why the nature of the children’s evilness changes depending on the historical period and area in which the representation was first conceptualized. This current volume aims to show the diversity in representations of evil children and explore the relationships between these representations and the circumstances and fears associated with them. Only a truly inclusive, interdisciplinary volume could adequately explore this question, which is why this book will necessarily incorporate these concepts as guiding principles. Explorations of Fearful Children is a truly inclusive volume, with chapters touching on topics such as LGBTQIA experiences, racism and trauma, and caste. This inclusivity is also present in geographical terms: the book includes case studies from Europe, North America, Australia and Asia.

In these times of wide-spread anxieties because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting medical, economic and societal crises, this volume couldn’t be more well-timed. The book’s premise that adult anxieties result in a specific emanation of a figure of an evil child, as a figure that represents the hopeless and dark future that lies ahead, becomes more relevant in times of heightened anxiety. Therefore, a better understanding of our ideas about “evil children” will help provide more insight into the coping mechanisms available to us in times such as these. Furthermore, it is our hope that the analyses presented will help people reflect on their own relationships with children and the ways in which these young people can become the unwitting victims of adult anxieties. 

Progressive Connexions is a not-for-profit research network dedicated to the development and
production of novel forms of interdisciplinary knowledge, experience and living. We enable people
from a wide range of areas and contexts to meet and engage in dialogue with each other across a variety of platforms in carefully crafted spaces that allow for the free exchange and equal interaction of ideas and sharing of best practices. We offer possibilities for expanding and developing those exchanges beyond the initial point of encounter so as to create a vibrant and expanding nexus of creative, global collaborations.

Please send your full length papers max word length of 5,500 words to Elena Xeni at elena_xeni@hotmail.com

Or to Gabrielle Everall at gabbyeverall68@gmail.com 

Deadline Tuesday the 17th of May 2022.

Notre Dame University is offering six writing mentorships as part of the Environmental
Writing project. Round 1mentorships with author James Bradley are intended to assist in the
development of a new essay or work of reportage of 4000-8000 words exploring
environmental concerns.

For more information and to apply, visit https://bit.ly/3DAA9qP or alternatively, email writing.mentorship@nd.edu.au

Writing Dreams: reconceptualising the literary dream in storytelling

This Special Issue of TEXT will explore the capacity of dreams, dreaming and dreamscapes to function as powerful literary devices within a wide array of creative writing forms. It is also curious about creative practice as a kind of dreaming, where a practitioner’s engagements might constitute a quasi dreamwork-on-the-page. Thus, an inherent connection exists between dreams, creative impulse and storytelling. Are dreams stories that demand more space in our humdrum routines and lives? How does writing and its ethico-political scope relate to dreams and visions of what’s possible?
 
Dreams exhibit writerly devices at work in literature—metaphor and metonymy, among a raft of others. In addition, the unconscious processes that unfold during dreaming often tap the conscious processes deployed when constructing literature, and vice versa. However, the poietic strategies fundamental to crafting dream sequences for written forms entail more than simply duplicating the realdream’s narrative potential or structure: they require writers to translate dream-like elements into tangible sequences, rhythms, or scenes, to bring material substance to the oneiric.
 
Significantly, prominent psychologists have long argued that dreams evidence unconscious processes associated with human psychic operations and lived experiences. While Freud noted the ability of creative writers to access processes akin to psychoanalysis (through the manipulation of language, deliberate lapsus linguae, etc.), Jung believed that the narrative structures common to dreams provided insights into an individual’s internal imbalances. It follows that literary dreams have often attracted interpretation through a psychoanalytic lens. While written dream sequences are typically interpreted as a re-presentation of real dreams, another take suggests that dream texts are like other literary texts and require significant creative effort and skill to be effectively crafted.
 
It could therefore be asserted that the written dream—even if based upon a real-life “dreamt” experience—cannot duplicate simplistically any process in the unconscious, but rather may complicate and extend such processes, counterpoint and unsettle them. From this perspective, literary dreams are also closely related to the compositional manoeuvres of literature and literary knowledge; raw dreaming is only the beginning, an entwined, sibling phenomenon.
 
If—for Freud—dreams conjure complex forums that allow our wishes to be fulfilled (covertly or otherwise), then dream-writing and literary dreams with their particular logics speak to the role of desire, of wishes, of our ambivalences and our attitudes to the future. In other words, dream writing dares to go beyond the mundanely possible, testing the implausible, the forbidden, the tender and the strange. Perhaps, then, a broad conceptual approach can allow an investigation of the narrative features, aesthetics, and functions of literary dreams, an approach that extends, but doesn’t exclude, the insights of psychoanalysis.
 
In the Australian context, the term “dreaming” has even broader resonances and longer history, as the term “dreaming” was adopted as the shorthand term in the English, as Yunkaporta argues, for: ‘supra-dimensional ontology endogenous to custodial ritual complexes’ (Sand Talk 2019:22). “Dreaming”, therefore, for writers on Australian soil, includes not just what happens during sleep, but what we might have a chance of encountering, honouring, if we were to wake from a colonial stupor.
 
Thus, papers about writing dreaming, dreams, wishes, visions, the supra-dimensional and literary dreamscapes might embrace tenets central to critical textual analysis, and/or practice-led research, and be informed by Indigenous knowledges, so as to scaffold inquiries concerning the narrative features, aesthetics, and functions of literary dreams as they relate to creative writing practices, and diverse forms of storytelling more broadly.
 
We invite creative and scholarly papers that investigate the myriad of literary functions, and potential aesthetics, associated with dream sequences across various forms of written narrative and storytelling. Potential topics may include, but are not limited to:  

• The dream text as de-familiarising devise 
• Amplifying the literary surreal through dreamscapes 
• Aesthetics and poetics of the literary dream 
• Dreams as literary structural devices 
• Dream sequences and the prophetic 
• Constructing gothic literary dreams 
• Representations of dreams in storytelling from different cultural perspectives 
• Dreaming in Indigenous knowledges and ontologies 
• Dreams and narrative discontinuities 
• Literary texts as dreams 
• Dreaming and creative nonfiction 
• Dreaming/writing as mode of resistance/expression 
• Literary dreams and character nuance 
• Dreaming and creative processes/methodologies 

Scholarly papers should be 6,000 – 8,000 words as per TEXT guidelines (including endnotes). 
 
Abstracts
 
Abstracts for scholarly papers should be 200 words in length and sent to the editors at textsidreams@gmail.com
 
1 – 2 creative submissions only will be considered for this Special Issue. We are particularly seeking work on the issue theme from First Nations authors locally and internationally. Prose works would be finally 2 – 3,000 words, (or a conventional equivalent for verse or script-based works). Creative EOIs to us should include a short synopsis of the proposed work (and its relation to the theme and focus of the Special Issue). Please accompany this with a 200 – 300 word creative sample.
If this topic inspires you more broadly, we encourage you to consider submitting creative works to TEXT’s sibling creative Meniscus.
EOIs should be sent to the editors at textsidreams@gmail.com, with the subject line: ‘EOI for Creative Submissions’.

The deadline for Abstracts and Creative EOIs is COB Friday, April 22 (AEST).  

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a heavy reliance on digital technologies: workplaces and classrooms have retreated to Zoom meetings; online video game narratives and streaming services have become a staple of contemporary entertainment; and social media pervades our life and seeks to distract us at every turn. Existence is now infused withnon-human computer language. Even contemporary print texts display what N.K. Hayles calls the ‘mark of the digital’ (2008).

What is realism in a digitally-saturated world? How are writers harnessing, impacted by, or restricted by such digitality?What are the new frontiers for digital literature? How does digitality interrogate/extend traditional forms? 

This special issue of TEXT seeks to publish scholarly papers, poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and born-digital worksthat investigate contemporary engagement with digitality. Papers and works are encouraged to explore, but are not limited to the following:

Scholarly papers should be between 6,000 – 8, 000 words, including notes. Up to three poems and/or one poetry sequence no more than 100 lines per poet will be considered. One short story/CNF piece per writer will be considered. Works of electronic literature will be considered, but will need to be hosted elsewhere by the submitter (links will be published in the issue). Please note, all creative submissions must be accompanied by a 200-word abstract (which may be modelled on an ERA research statement) that clearly explains the submission’s aims and significance. 

How to submit your Expression of Interest: 

Please submit a 200-word Expression of Interest for scholarly essays (by email to David Wright: davidthwright@gmail.com with ‘Digital Realism’ as the subject line. In your EOI please outline how your paper or work(s) explore(s) the theme of ‘Digital Realism’. Also, make sure you include the following information: your full name, institutional affiliation (if any), email address, title of paper/work, brief biography (50–100 words), and 3 to 5 keywords (at least two of which should clearly relate to the issue’s title). Deadline: April 1st 2022.

Creative submissions should be sent in full, accompanied by a 200-word abstract (which may be modelled on an ERA research statement) that clearly explains the submission’s aims and significance , by May 31st 2022.

Enquiries: David Wright, Nagoya University davidthwright@gmail.com or Chris Arnold, UWA chris.arnold@uwa.edu.au or Shastra Deo, UQ shastradeo@gmail.com

A University of Canberra Conference, December 5-7, 2022

For Randall Jarrell, “The good in poetry is always a white blackbird, an unusual and unlikely excellence.”

Poetry seems to have exceptionalism at its core.

But poetry is also a practice of the commonest medium there is – language. People within all classes and groups cherish its use: the well-landed expression, irony and word plays, subtle forms of power.

Poetry’s status as the oldest and most widespread of the verbal arts likewise implies a close link to tradition. All the same, a residual strangeness seems to pertain to poetry in all cultures. It may be that tradition is a stranger thing than we tend to imagine.

How do poems relate to the world they proceed from or create? What is the world of a poem?

Proposals for 20 minute papers, or 90 minute panels, are invited, in relation to the poetry or poetics of any language or historical period. Proposals may address the above CFP or any related themes involving poetry and poetics, including

Please submit your proposal to info@ucpoetry2022.info as follows: Title of paper, Name & affiliation, 250-word abstract and 100-word bio.      

Deadline for abstracts is 1 June 2022

(NB Attendees will be asked to submit proof of travel offsetting, as one plank (alongside carbon-neutral catering, public transport, low energy accommodation and paper eradication) in the conference’s strategy of achieving Climate Active certification as a Carbon Neutral Event) 

For all further information: https://ucpoetry2022.info/

In the late 18^th Century the French writer Xavier de Maistre was sentenced to six weeks house arrest in Turin for fighting a public duel. Rather than see his forced confinement as a barrier to creativity and production, he wrote the non-fiction book A Journey Around My Room (1794) which explored the details of his bedroom, from the stories of the tapestries on his wall to the ‘topography’ of his wooden floor and the value of his dog Rosine as a ‘travel’ companion.

There are many such examples throughout history of writers finding creativity, purpose, and inspiration from within their periods of confinement beyond de Maistre, whether it be Jean-Dominique Bauby, the former editor-in-chief of French Elle magazine who wrote The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (1998) only using the blinking of one eye to write after suffering a catastrophic stroke; or Behrouz Boochani who sent out the chapters of his award winning book No Friend But the Mountains (2018) from his Manus Island prison via mobile phone messages.

The forced isolation throughout the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the work patterns, job security and mobility of many as we endeavour to continue writing and researching despite the continual challenges. As a response to the changes that the current pandemic has forced on all of us, creatively, geographically and ethically, this special edition of Ethical Space will look to explore Journalism and creative non-fiction within isolation and confinement as a way to not only contextualise many of the present challenges, but also as a way to observe and reflect on how this has been approached in different historical and geographical settings when we have been faced with similar periods of confinement and uncertainty.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• Impacts of COVID-19 on journalism production
• Ethics of working as a journalist or non-fiction writer during the pandemic
• Explorations of creativity within a pandemic
• Life writing
• Experiments
• Historical approaches to writing during previous pandemics and periods of enforced isolation
• Journalism, ethics and war (from nurses to foreign correspondents and trench presses)
• The challenges of writing about illness, both in contemporary and historical settings
• Writing from within ‘closed’ environments such as North Korea
• Explorations of mobility and travel during isolation and confinement

We welcome abstracts of 250 words for articles and non-traditional outputs which explore the diverse and profound impact of writing during isolation and confinement, as a way to contextualise and reflect on the current predicament within COVID-19.

To participate, please email Ben Stubbs by April 30^th 2022 with a 250 word abstract for the Ethical Space peer review process. Contributing scholars will need to send their completed essays or articles by the 30^th of September 2022.

It is with much pleasure that submissions are invited for Beyond Human Scales ASLEC-ANZ’s conference edition of Swamphen: a Journal of Cultural Ecology. Submissions close 28 March 2022. Creative work and scholarly essays are welcome, and even more so, submissions that set these genres askew.

We seek submissions that relate to the recent ASLEC-ANZ conference, Ngā Tohu o te Huarere: Conversations Beyond Human Scales, which focused on thinking beyond the human, embracing situated and distributed knowledges across and beyond Moana Oceania. Conference participants were asked to think about questions such as: ‘What if the way to understand the world today is to step outside of ourselves for just one minute? How long can that minute last? Isn’t there an arrogance in even thinking we can do such a thing?’ The concept of scale can relate to time, or size, or space, or other interpretations that inspire you. Submissions should engage with any aspect of the conference theme, with a regional focus on the continent currently known as Australia, Aotearoa and other landforms and waters nearby, where the swamphen (Porphyrio) is flourishing. Approaches that foreground Māori, Aboriginal, Indigenous or decolonial (tauiwi) strategies are strongly encouraged.

Swamphen is a peer reviewed journal, previously published as the Australasian Journal of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology. This will be the 10th volume of the ASLEC-ANZ journal. The Swamphen editorial collective are Alanna Myers, Christine Howe, Kate Middleton, Robyn Maree Pickens and Sue Hall Pyke.

We look forward to your submissions and encourage short and focused works with 5,000 words being our maximum.

Please submit full papers via the online portal here:
https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/Swamphen/author.

If you are not already registered, you will need to create a user account. For technical difficulties please contact: susan.j.murray@sydney.edu.au. For general enquiries contact: smpyke@unimelb.edu.au.

Australia’s leading creative writing journal, TEXT, is calling for expressions of interest to guest edit an upcoming Special Issue for publication in December 2022. 

Special Issues of TEXT have long provided leading research for the creative writing discipline in Australia and internationally. We welcome issues that engage with timely or relevant themes, examine previously unaddressed themes or topics, develop new experimental methodological approaches, share or exchange inter/national perspectives, or encourage new lines of creative practice research. 

Each Special Issue comprises 8–10 articles of 6000–8000 words, including the Guest Editors’ Introduction. Guest Editors will circulate a call for papers, manage the double-blind peer review process, select papers for publication, and ensure papers are rigorously revised and edited in line with TEXT policies and house style. The completed issue is due no later than November 1^st, 2022 for a December publication date. 

TEXT publishes both research-led creative works and scholarly articles. We invite expressions of interest from emerging and established academics, both in Australia and overseas. 

Before submitting an EOI, please familiarise yourself with TEXT’s policies and examples of past Special Issues, available on the TEXT website.

EOI submissions should include the following information:

• Proposed title of your special issue
• Proposed Call for Papers (no more than one page)
• Where you will advertise and circulate this Call for Papers
• Where you will draw your peer reviewers from (nationally and internationally)
• A clear outline of the relationship of this special issue to TEXT‘s brief and audience, and particularly its relationship to current scholarship on creative writing
• The approximate predicted size of the issue 
• A list of your editorial team, including brief CVs outlining editorial experience (1-3 guest editors per Special Issue is usual)
• The main contact person for the team and their email details
• A proposed timeline for the processes involved, including circulating a call for papers, the double-blind peer review process, revision, copyediting, and proofreading.

The deadline for submitting Expressions of Interest is Monday, February 28^th 2022. Successful applicants will be notified within two weeks.  

For questions or to submit an EOI, please contact the Special Issues Editors Associate Professor Sue Joseph, Dr Emma Doolan, and Dr Kate Cantrell at textspecialissues@aawp.org.au

In the spirit of the spooky season, the new book series Horror and Gothic Media Cultures is launching a monthly online discussion group open to scholars (including graduate students) and creative practitioners around the globe working in the area of horror and Gothic media. Each discussion will be sparked by a short podcast episode that will offer a provocation related to current and key debates in the field.

The discussion group will occur 1-2 weeks after the release of each podcast episode, with the first discussion occurring on Thursday the 18th of November(08:00am Amsterdam time, CEST / 05:00pm Melbourne/Sydney time, AEDT).

The group is led and hosted by the Horror and Gothic Media Cultures series’ founding editor, Dr Jessica Balanzategui, Senior Lecturer in Cinema and Screen Studies at Swinburne University of Technology. Jessica presents the first provocation: “What’s the deal with ‘elevated’ horror?” https://youtu.be/A-boNAtYMuI (also below).

Future episodes will feature special guests, including the authors of forthcoming or recently launched books in the series. Discounts for books in the Horror and Gothic Media Cultures series will be offered to those who attend the discussion group.

You can find both the series and Jessica on Twitter @HorrorGothCult and @JKBalanzategui.

TEXT Special Issues Sub-Editors

Calling on sub-editors, or would-be sub-editors.

TEXT Special Issues is seeking applications for four annual 12 month sub-editor internships, beginning 2022. We are looking for people who love words, understand grammar, spell well, have an eagle eye for technical literals, and can learn and apply our style guide rigorously.

TEXT Special Issues is published every June and December, with one to two special issues each publishing round. You will be working with the three Special Issues Co-Editors, eager to mentor and support you through this learning curve.

If you are interested and able to volunteer your time and effort to hone your editing skills, please send me a short paragraph, outlining your current skills and any experience to date. This is an opportunity for a mid-doctoral candidate or ECR looking to make connections in our academic and creative communities.

Co-Editors: Associate Professor Sue Joseph; Dr Kate Cantrell; and Dr Emma Doolan. Please send to: sue.joseph@unisa.edu.au