The University of Western Australia School of Social and ... · Chapter 4: Book publishing in...
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Outside Traditional Book Publishing Centres:
The Production of a Regional Literature in Western Australia
Per Hansa HenningsgaardBA, Vassar College (USA)
Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of Doctor of Philosophy
The University of Western AustraliaSchool of Social and Cultural Studies
Discipline Group of English and Cultural Studies
2008
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Abstract
This thesis provides a study of book publishing as it contributes to the production of a
regional literature, using Western Australian publishing and literature as illustrative
examples of this dynamic. ‘Regional literature’ is defined in this thesis as writing
possessing cultural value that is specific to a region, although the writing may also have
national and international value. An awareness of geographically and culturally diverse
regions within the framework of the nation is shown to be derived from representations
of these regions and their associated regional characteristics in the movies, television
and books. In Australia, literature has been the primary site for expressions of regional
difference. Therefore, this thesis analyses the impact of regionalism on the processes of
book production and publication in Western Australia’s three major publishing houses—
a trade publishing house (Fremantle Press), an Indigenous publishing house (Magabala
Books), and an academic publishing house (University of Western Australia Press).
Book history, print culture studies and publishing studies, along with literary
studies and cultural studies, roughly approximate a disciplinary map of the types of
research that constitute this thesis. By examining regional literature in the context of its
‘field of cultural production’, this thesis maintains that regionalism and regional
literature can avail themselves of a fresh perspective that shows them to be anything but
marginal or exclusive. Regionalism has been a topic of peripheral interest, at least as
far as scholarly research and academia are concerned, because those who are most likely
to be affected by and thus interested in the topic, are also those who are most
disempowered as a result of its attendant dynamics. However, as this thesis clearly
demonstrates, access (or a lack thereof) to the field of cultural production (which in the
case of print culture includes writers, literary agents, editors, publishers, government
arts organisations, the media, schools, book clubs, and book retailers, just to name a
few) plays a significant role in establishing and shaping an identity for marginalised
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constituencies. The implications for this research are far-ranging, since both Western
Australia and Australia can be understood as peripheries dominated in their different
spheres (the ‘national’ and the ‘international’, respectively) by literary cultures residing
elsewhere. Furthermore, there are parallels between this dynamic and the dynamic
responsible for producing postcolonial literatures.
The three publishing houses detailed in this thesis are disadvantaged by many of
the factors associated with their distance from the traditional centres of book publishing,
while at the same time producing a regional literature that serves as a platform from
which the state broadcasts its distinctive contributions to the cultural landscape and to a
wider understanding of concepts such as space, place and belonging. These publishing
houses changed the way in which Australians and others have come to know and think
about ‘Australia’, re-routing public consciousness and the national imagination. Since
the early 1990s, however, innovations in their publishing activities seem to indicate a
declining interest in the regional formulation, either instigating or responding to a
decline in critical and popular interest in issues related to regionalism and regional
literature in Australia. Considering the central role Western Australian book publishing
has played in the cultivation of a regional literature in Australia, the current practices of
the state’s three major publishing houses raise questions about the future of Australian
literary regionalism. This analysis of three Western Australian publishing houses
contributes to a larger exploration of the possibility of regional publishing houses
fostering an increased sense of regional identity through their production of a regional
literature, alliances with local authors and appeal to a local readership.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 7
Introduction
I. Overview 9II. Thinking about regional literature 10III. Thinking about publishing and book history 12IV. Establishing relevance 14V. Chapter outline 19
Chapter 1: Regionalism: Various definitions and the historical context
I. The evolution of a critical debate about regionalism 23II. Early articulations of regionalism 32
A. Defining ‘the region’ 33B. Justifying ‘the region’ 40
III. Challenging early regionalism 44A. Regionalism and parochialism/provincialism 45B. Nationalism and the region 48C. The region in the world 53D. The role of universities 58
IV. The importance of the reader to a new understanding of regionalism 61
Chapter 2: Regional anthologies: A piece of the historical context of
regionalism
I. An introduction to regional anthologies 69II. States and territories other than Western Australia 71
A. Northern Territory 72B. Tasmania 75C. South Australia 78D. Queensland 84E. New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT 90
III. Western Australia 93
Chapter 3: Regional literature: A new working definition
I. Preliminary definitions 115A. ‘Literature’ 115B. ‘The region’ 119C. My timeline 124
II. Cultural studies 127A. Literary theory 131B. Field of cultural production 139
i. Government as an instrument in the field of culturalproduction 143ii. Publishing as an instrument in the field of culturalproduction 149iii. Paratext as an instrument in the field of cultural production 153
C. Minority literature and its importance in a new definition ofregional literature 160
III. Defining ‘regional literature’ and ‘regional publishing’ 168IV. The importance of literary regionalism and a sense of regional identity 173
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Chapter 4: Book publishing in Western Australia: Fremantle Press,
Magabala Books and University of Western Australia Press
I. Introduction to book publishing in Western Australia 177II. Fremantle Press 181III. Magabala Books 276IV. University of Western Australia Press 297V. Other Western Australian publishing houses 308
Conclusion
I. Critical regionalism 319II. Australia as a region 324III. Postcolonial literature 329IV. The contemporary relevance of regionalism and regional literature 335
Bibliography 345
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following people for assisting me in my research:
From the Discipline Group of English and Cultural Studies at The University of
Western Australia: Professor Dennis Haskell, to whom an especially large debt of
gratitude is owed for his unparalleled performance in the capacity of my supervisor;
Associate Professor Brenda Walker; Associate Professor Judith Johnston; and Dr Kieran
Dolin.
The Australian-American Fulbright Commission for endowing me with a
Fulbright Grant, which brought me to Australia and funded my first year of research at
The University of Western Australia. In particular, Mark Darby, Lyndell Wilson and
Heather Rietdyk.
Professor Alan Robson, Vice-Chancellor of The University of Western Australia,
for agreeing to fund an Ad Hoc Scholarship, thereby allowing me to continue my
postgraduate research career.
The staff at the Reid Library of The University of Western Australia, and in
particular the Scholars’ Centre staff.
Staff of Fremantle Press: Ray Coffey and Clive Newman.
Former staff and individuals published by Fremantle Press: Ian Templeman,
John Mateer, Veronica Brady, and John Kinsella.
Staff of Magabala Books: Suzie Haslehurst and Rachael Christensen.
Former staff and individuals published by Magabala Books: Wendy Albert,
Merrilee Lands, Peter Bibby, Pat Torres, Glenyse Ward, Patricia Lowe, and Nikky
Finch.
Staff of University of Western Australia Press: Terri-ann White.
Former staff and individuals published by University of Western Australia Press:
Jenny Gregory, Emma Matson and Geoffrey Bolton.
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The journals and magazines that have published sections of this thesis:
Antipodes, Limina, Tamkang Review, Australian Author, and Preparing for the Graduate
of 2015 (proceedings of the 17th Annual Teaching and Learning Forum).
Ivor Indyk, Giramondo Publishing; Noel Rowe, Southerly; David Brooks,
Southerly; Elizabeth Webby; Dugald McLellan; Robert Gray; Ivan Head; Richard
Rossiter; Greg Jackson, Western Australian Museum Publications; Stephen Matthews,
Ginninderra Press; Paul Hetherington, National Library of Australia; Mark O’Connor;
Alan Gould; Ian Syson, Vulgar Press; Zoe Dattner, Sleepers Publishing; Louise Swinn,
Sleepers Publishing; Andrew Kelly, Black Dog Books; Susan Hawthorne, Spinifex
Press; Kevin Pearson, Black Pepper; Elisa Berg, Melbourne University Publishing; Joel
Becker, Victorian Writers’ Centre; Chris Feik, Black Inc.; Alae Taule’alo; Nick Walker,
Australian Scholarly Publishing; Louise Poland, Publishing Research List (Pu-R-L);
Nicholas Birns; Paul Kane; Peter Gregory, Vanguard Press; Marion Nixon; David
Carter; Jill Jones, Department of Culture and the Arts; Fremantle City Library; State
Records Office of Western Australia; and State Library of Western Australia.
My family and friends, with special acknowledgement to my partner, Aimee
Quaife, for all her support and love.
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Introduction
I. Overview
At more than 2.5 million square kilometres, Western Australia is the second
largest subnational entity in the world (as well as the largest Australian state, occupying
approximately one-third of the mainland), and yet most non-Australians are unfamiliar
with the term and the geographical area it represents. They know Sydney and maybe
Melbourne, on Australia’s eastern seaboard. Nonetheless, it is common for Australians
to speak knowledgeably about different regions in, for example, the United States—
most commonly the East and West Coasts, as well as the South.
The relevant point here is not that Australians are better at geography than
Americans and others, but rather that the awareness of geographically and culturally
diverse regions within the framework of a nation is derived from representations of
these regions and their associated regional characteristics in the movies, television and
books. It is no accident that many non-Australians are unfamiliar with Western
Australia, as the region is infrequently represented in the cultural record, much less in
those aspects of the cultural record that are transmitted overseas. This imbalance in
‘cultural currency’ arises because regions are at least in part defined by their ability to
participate in what Pierre Bourdieu has deemed the ‘field of cultural production’. In the
case of print culture, this field includes writers, literary agents, editors, publishers,
government arts organisations, the media, schools, book clubs, and book retailers, just
to name a few.
This thesis examines the role of book publishing outside the traditional centres
of such activity, where the lack of access to the gate-keepers of cultural production, such
as literary agents, editors and publishers, inhibits the production of a meaningful
cultural identity. It takes Western Australia as a case study, analysing the effects of
geography on the processes of book production and publication in its three major
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publishing houses—Fremantle Press, Magabala Books and University of Western
Australia Press—and on its writers. This analysis contributes to a larger exploration of
the possibility of publishing houses fostering an increased sense of regional identity
through their production of a regional literature, alliances with local authors and appeal
to a local readership. Furthermore, it will assist in identifying the place of regional
literature in a rapidly evolving publishing industry.
II. Thinking about regional literature
Most of the very limited amount of critical writing and thinking that has been
done on the subject of regional literature in Australia was done in the 1980s. This
includes many journal articles, though what is more striking is the large number of
state-based (or regional) literature anthologies published in Australia in the 1980s,
where there had been few in previous decades. However, not a single scholarly
monograph has been devoted to the subject. Furthermore, none of these explorations of
the subject of regional literature seriously considers the role of regional publishing in
the development of a regional literature or culture.
Instead, where Australian scholars have taken notice of regionalism, their
interest has typically been restricted to determining the centrality of either ‘the region’
or ‘the nation’ as concepts in Australian culture. Consequently, ‘in Australia the
development of regional differences in the cultural sphere has been dwarfed and
stultified by a powerful continental vision of nationhood which has been the mainspring
of our sense of identification’.1 The reason for this particular discourse being ‘dwarfed
and stultified’, whereas many other challenging discourses enjoyed a much healthier
scholarly reception around this time, is the popular misconception that regionalism
1Gillian Whitlock, ‘Queensland: The State of the Art on “the Last Frontier”’, Westerly 29, no. 2 (July
1984): 88.
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means the advocacy and advancement of the interests, functions, andcompetence of parts of a nation-state as against those same aspects of thewhole state. ... It may be harmful if it weakens a sovereign state when thebest interests of all can be better served by the larger entity.2
In other words, a regional discourse is seen as challenging ‘the mainspring of
[Australians’] sense of identification’—the (singular) national discourse. It is perceived
as an affront to the long-standing ideal of nationalism and also to the works of
Australian writers who have embraced this ideal, not to mention the academics who
have devoted their careers to addressing these writers’ treatment of national themes.
However, in places such as North America where critical thinking about
regionalism and regional literature has a much longer history, there is not nearly the
same sense of the region and the nation battling for perceived influence. Canada, in
particular, fosters a vibrant regional culture:
in Canada a sense of the integrity of regions has led to a more pluralistconception of the nation. In Australia our sense of difference has beendetermined by the national construct, in Canada on the other hand the tailwags the dog as it were and the sense of nation flows from the region.3
In contrast, discussion of regionalism in the United States has been concentrated in a
single region, the South, though this has stemmed neither its volume nor its influence.
In the latter half of the 19th century, for example, following the conclusion of the Civil
War, regional literature was first aired in the United States in a form roughly
approximating a genre. ‘Local colour stories’, as they were called, typically featured
dialogue written in dialect and detailed descriptions of local customs. The form proved
extremely popular, and local colour stories regularly appeared in leading magazines
until the end of the century. Regionalism resurged in the 1920s and again in the 1980s,
during which periods scholars first began to debate whether regional literature was just
nostalgic ‘local colour’, or if it instead offered resistance to and critique of dominant
2Richard Preston, ‘Regionalism and National Identity: Canada’, in Regionalism and National Identity, ed.
Reginald Berry and James Acheson (Christchurch: Association for Canadian Studies in Australia and
New Zealand, 1985), 3.3Whitlock, ‘Queensland’, 88.
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cultural groups. Yet, even in the United States, scholarly debate about the role of
regional publishing in the production of this literature is almost non-existent.
III. Thinking about publishing and book history
In fact, serious critical analysis of the role of the publishing house in the
production of literature in general has only a recent history. Book history, which had its
beginnings in France with the French annales school of historians, ‘delves into the
context in which printed materials ... are produced and received’, including the role of
the publishing house.4 These early scholars emphasised ‘broad social movements
drawing on detailed statistical evidence’, an approach that would become influential in
the field.5 From these geographically circumscribed beginnings, ‘the discipline spread
to England and Germany in the 1960s and 1970s and began to make its appearance in
[the United States], as a formally recognized field of study, in the late 1970s’.6
Until the mid-1980s, however, there remained two distinct book history
methodologies: the French school which examined ‘the impact of the book on society’
and culture, and the Anglo-American school which was ‘primarily bibliographical, and
concerned with the book as a physical object’.7 This thesis is less concerned with the
latter approach—the ‘technical analysis of individual books or editions characteristic of
bibliography’—since it can be understood as simply one component of the French
school’s more far-reaching investigation of the cultural value of printed materials.8 It is
worth noting, however, that Australia’s premier scholarly organisation devoted to the
4Karen J. Winkler, ‘In Electronic Age, Scholars are Drawn to Study of Print’, Chronicle of Higher
Education, 14 July 1993, A7.5David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery, eds., The Book History Reader (Oxon: Routledge, 2006), 1.6James L. W. West III, ‘Book History at Penn State’, in The Pennsylvania Center for the Book (2006,
accessed 10 Aug. 2007); available from http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/histofbook/article.html.7Martin Antonetti, ‘Exploring the Archaeology of the Book in the Liberal Arts Curriculum’, in Teaching
Bibliography, Textual Criticism, and Book History, ed. Ann R. Hawkins (London: Pickering & Chatto,
2006), 20.8Finkelstein and McCleery, 1.
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study of book history, the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand
(BSANZ), has a mandate in the area of physical bibliography. This mandate hinders its
engagement with more recent interest in book history, which is increasingly concerned
with matters foreign to physical bibliography but comfortably accommodated within the
critical framework of this thesis and the French school of book history, such as
authorship and the role of the reader.
Other noteworthy organisations and publications in this field in Australia include
the Centre for the Book at Monash University (which publishes BSANZ’s refereed
journal, Script & Print) and the national History of the Book project. Volume I of this
project, covering the period up to 1890, has yet to be published, but Volume II, A
History of the Book in Australia, 1891–1945: A National Culture in a Colonised
Market, edited by Martyn Lyons and John Arnold, was published by University of
Queensland Press in 2001. Volume III, Paper Empires: A History of the Book in
Australia, 1946–2005, edited by Craig Munro and Robyn Sheahan-Bright, was
subsequently published in 2006. The only other major scholarly publication in the area
of Australian book history is the 2007 release of Making Books: Contemporary
Australian Publishing, edited by David Carter and Anne Galligan, and once again
published by University of Queensland Press. Notably, the aforementioned titles have
all been published in the last decade.
The increasing influence in Australia in recent years of a book history approach
to literary and cultural studies has aided in the production of this thesis. Yet, the
application of this approach to the subject of the production of a regional literature by
publishing houses located outside the traditional centres of Australian book publishing
—while a logical step forward from large-scale, survey projects like History of the
Book and Making Books—runs the risk of marginalising itself to the point of
irrelevance. After all, this is a relatively new critical approach (with a French bent,
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rather than the Anglo-American more popular in the English-speaking world) applied to
a culture with an apparently limited history of interest in regionalism—where, in fact,
the term ‘regional’ is most often used generically to refer to everything outside the
capital cities, rather than to identify a specific geographical area that can be
distinguished in some way from neighbouring regions.
Even in the United States, with its aforementioned more vibrant and long-
standing interest in regionalism, book history is rarely employed as a critical approach
to this subject matter. Discussion about the intersection of book publishing and regional
literature, for example, has never gotten much beyond the superficial acknowledgement
that the South ‘had assumed a new sort of leadership in literature’ in the 1920s and ‘30s,
and that ‘this was made possible by an extraordinary liberal cooperation of publishers
and educational leaders and philanthropists in the Northeast’.9 There is little scholarly
writing that makes any better use of book history as a critical approach with the
potential to reveal the factors contributing to the rise of the ‘Southern Renaissance’ and
some of the most significant writers of the 20th century, including William Faulkner,
Flannery O’Connor, Robert Penn Warren, and Eudora Welty.
IV. Establishing relevance
In order to halt this process of marginalisation and establish the relevance of the
subject matter of this thesis as well as its scholarly approach, it is necessary to resist
conceptualising regionalism in the same narrow terms that defined early American
regionalism as ‘local colour’. In other words, in this thesis I do not utilise an exclusive
definition of regional literature as writing about a specific place. I am also unconcerned
with a version of regionalism that posits an ideological divide between the ‘regional’
and the ‘cosmopolitan’, thereby conceptually aligning it with the ‘provincial’. Finally, I
9Howard W. Odum, ‘The Way of the South’, in In Search of the Regional Balance of America, ed.Howard W. Odum and Katharine Jocher (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1945), 18.
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reject an understanding of regionalism as the ‘advocacy and advancement of ... parts of
a nation-state as against those same aspects of the whole state’. Instead, I recognise
‘there can be no concept of the region, except as it is a component, constituent part of
the total nation. ... The very definition of the region always connotes that it is a
contributing part to, of, for, and by the total nation.’10 I have rejected these various
frameworks, because they are too narrowly conceived and exclusive for my purposes
and would potentially contribute to the marginalisation of the subject matter of this
thesis.
By examining regional literature in the context of its field of cultural production,
I draw upon a fresh perspective meant to demonstrate that regionalism and regional
literature are anything but marginal or exclusive. In fact, it is my contention that a
‘regional group’ is ‘like any other group’:
like any other group, a regional group has a myth of itself that furnishesnot only a basis for identification, but a rationale for at least some aspectsof its culture. Understanding that myth may be the key to understandingnot only how members feel toward their group but how they think andfeel about a great deal else.11
Clearly, the region is seen here as a potential source of identity. Conceptualising the
region in this manner is, in part, the result of a recognition that ‘questions of identity—
couched in national, regional, local or personal terms—recur frequently in Humanities
research and teaching. Ethnic and gender-based identity issues are also prominent.’12
In Australia, as was briefly noted near the beginning of this Introduction, this
sense of identity has for a long time been bound up with the concept of the nation:
Nation-based studies began—let’s say very roughly—in the 1960s; thepeak of their growth was probably the decade from 1977 to 1987, which
10Howard W. Odum, ‘From Community Studies to Regionalism’, in In Search of the Regional Balance ofAmerica, ed. Howard W. Odum and Katharine Jocher (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1945), 13.11John Shelton Reed, One South: An Ethnic Approach to Regional Culture (Baton Rouge: Louisiana StateUniversity Press, 1982), 27.12Bruce Bennett, ‘Identity and Heritage’, in Reflective Essays, vol. 3 in Knowing Ourselves and Others:
The Humanities in Australia into the 21st Century, ed. Reference Group for the Australian Academy ofthe Humanities (Canberra: Australian Research Council, 1998), 75.
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saw the establishment of the Association for the Study of AustralianLiterature (ASAL) in 1977, the Australian Studies Association (ASA) in1983–4, and the Committee to Review Australian Studies in TertiaryEducation (CRASTE) in 1984–7.13
Nonetheless, scholars have observed that the Australian bicentenary in 1988, which
should have in many ways represented the peak of this nationalist sentiment, ‘failed to
produce the sense of a unified nation because the very idea of “the nation” is no longer
secure in the Australian popular consciousness’.14 In fact, there is speculation that
‘1980s nationalism may actually have given rise—in spite of itself—to a commitment
among Australians to “redefine” themselves’.15 Therefore, viewing the region as a
‘basis for identification’ and ‘key to understanding ... how members [of the region] ...
think and feel’ is also (again, in part) a response to calls that ‘Australian literary studies
—and Australian studies in general—should now move beyond the national paradigm
that was a necessary part of the original disciplinary formation’.16 In other words,
conceptualising the region in this manner constitutes an acknowledgement of the
perceived prevalence of the national paradigm in Australian culture, as well as the need
for a revisiting and redefining of this paradigm.
The recent and ‘ongoing globalization of all realms of human affairs, including
material and nonmaterial culture as well as the economy’, makes the present historical
moment particularly well-suited to this process of redefinition.17 After all, it has been
noted that ‘place-bound identities become more rather than less important in a world of
diminishing spatial barriers to exchange, movement, and communication’.18 This
13Robert Dixon, ‘Internationalising Australian Studies: Non-fiction 2004–2005’, Westerly 50 (2005): 128.14Graeme Turner, Making it National: Nationalism and Australian Popular Culture (St. Leonards: Allen& Unwin, 1994), 7.15Ibid., 8.16Dixon, ‘Internationalising Australian Studies’, 128.17Wilbur Zelinsky, ‘The World and Its Identity Crisis’, in Textures of Place: Exploring HumanistGeographies, ed. Paul C. Adams, Steven Hoelscher, and Karen E. Till (Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 2001), 138.18David Harvey, ‘From Space to Place and Back Again: Reflections on the Condition of Postmodernity’,
in Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change, ed. Jon Bird et al. (London: Routledge, 1993),4.
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statement would seem, however, to directly contradict another observation about ‘place-
bound identities’, which is that ‘regional identity is based on limitations of technology,
on limited options or choices to effect changes to the environment, or on one’s ability to
move freely from one place to another’.19 The implication of this statement is, of
course, that globalisation, which ostensibly represents the removal of some of these
limitations, will have a negative impact on ‘regional identity’. Indeed, this thesis
examines regional literature in the context of its field of cultural production precisely
because it hopes to demonstrate the influence of these sorts of realities (for example,
‘limitations of technology’) on the formation of a regional culture. Accordingly, it must
be admitted that the removal of such barriers would likely result in the diminishment of
a sense of regional identity. This does not mean, however, that the earlier statement
—‘place-bound identities become more rather than less important in a world of
diminishing spatial barriers to exchange’—is necessarily untrue. After all, the processes
associated with globalisation do not affect all places equally. Instead, they mimic and
thus reinforce the dynamics that have always defined regions and regional identities.
In spite of the advent of electronic communication and affordable air travel, for
example, which give Western Australians access to the world in ways not previously
available to them, there remain in place processes of cultural imperialism that have
historically helped define regional identities. For example, globalisation has resulted in
the American bookstore chain Borders setting up shop in Western Australia’s capital
city, and the simultaneous worldwide release of the Harry Potter books, but there has
not been a comparable reciprocal exchange of culture. Of course, some Western
Australian writers have, as a result of processes associated with globalisation,
successfully sold the overseas rights to publish their books, but this is not a comparable
19Michael Hough, Out of Place: Restoring Identity to the Regional Landscape (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1990), 58.
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reciprocal exchange of culture, and any discrepancy is likely to contribute to a sense of
regional identity.
Only recently have Australian commentators begun to systematically observe the
effects of an ‘Australian publishing industry and market [which] is dominated by a
handful of large corporations, themselves generally parts of massive, multi-national
media conglomerates’.20 These effects are typically held to include a reluctance to
publish ‘mid-list literary titles’ and an increasing desire to publish ‘celebrity and
blockbuster authors’.21 Furthermore, ‘decisions about what to publish are strongly
driven by “retroactive data”, by understandings of what has sold before’, and this
‘information on what has sold before, that these large corporations (alone) can afford to
obtain from Nielsen BookScan, is homogenous data, recording sales levels but no
regional or other sales variations’.22 Consequently, a further effect of the Australian
publishing industry’s dominance by multinational publishing houses is that ‘this further
reinforces an already existing trend towards an homogeneity of published products’.23
The concern that globalisation does not represent a levelling of the geographical playing
field, but rather a process that is likely to result in the consolidation of power around
dominant cultures, has already led to an ‘efflorescence of regional sentiment in the
United States and some European countries’, whereby ‘many cities have indulged in
some interesting, if rather desperate, ploys to proclaim their, and thus their inhabitants’,
particularity’.24
This thesis clearly endorses the sentiment that
modern societies will have to find some way to reverse the trend towardlarger and larger agglomerations and to recreate units compatible with the
20Nathan Hollier, ‘Between Denial and Despair: Understanding the Decline of Literary Publishing inAustralia’, Southern Review 40, no. 1 (2007): 66.21Ibid.22Ibid.23Ibid., 67.24Zelinsky, 141.
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limits of man’s comprehension—in other words, small enough that theycan develop a social identity and spirit of place.25
While geographically quite large, Western Australia is demographically small enough—
with a population of just over two million—to satisfy this requirement. After all,
meaningful diversity exists in Australia in the minds of its citizens and in their feelings
of identification with the specific state or region in which they reside, were born, or
lived for a significant period of time. Also, in their identification with fellow residents
of that state or region—a particularly important factor when it comes to the support of
regional literature and regional arts, writers and artists.
The study of literature also lends itself well to this agenda of identifying units
‘small enough that they can develop a social identity and spirit of place’, since ‘books
can afford to go against the current, to raise new ideas, to challenge the status quo’.26
Furthermore, literature occupies a preeminent cultural position:
Books are still a central—though by no means the only—medium for thedissemination of myriads of ideas—be they mediocre or sublime—thatshape the public mind. A study of the book industry ... [is] of crucialsignificance for any assessment of the contemporary world of ideas.27
For these reasons—but perhaps mostly for the ‘ease of entry [that] has characterised the
publishing industry in contrast to film, which tends to be more capital intensive’—in
Australia, literature has been the primary site for expressions of regional difference.28
V. Chapter outline
Chapter 1 discusses the various definitions of ‘the region’, ‘regional literature’
and ‘regionalism’ that have been advanced in Australian literary criticism. It also
outlines the evolution of a scholarly debate on these themes, something that did not
25Rene Dubos, A God Within (New York: Scribners, 1972), 286.26André Schiffrin, The Business of Books: How International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing andChanged the Way We Read (London: Verso, 2000), 171.27Lewis A. Coser, Charles Kadushin, and Walter W. Powell, Books: The Culture and Commerce ofPublishing (New York: Basic Books, 1982), 4–5.28Richard Nile, The Making of the Australian Literary Imagination (St. Lucia: University of QueenslandPress, 2002), 135.
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really come into being until the late 1970s, before enjoying a period of critical
popularity in the 1980s in the lead-up to the Australian bicentenary, and then quickly
vanishing from the literary critical spotlight in the 1990s. Throughout the evolution of
this scholarly debate about regionalism, however, the region was challenged as a
formation appropriate to the Australian situation; thus, it is only appropriate that this
chapter outlines some of the more significant challenges to which regionalism and
regional literature were subjected. Finally, Chapter 1 considers the importance of the
reader to recent thought on the subject of regions in Australia, and the potential for this
shift—away from the physical region and towards the reader as perhaps the central
feature in an understanding of the region—to revitalise both scholarly and popular
interest in the subject.
Regional literature anthologies are the subject of Chapter 2, where they are used
as further evidence of the terms and timeline of the scholarly debate about regionalism
outlined in Chapter 1. It is noted, for example, that beginning in the 1970s, regional
anthologies first began actively promoting ideas associated with regionalism and
regional literature and participating in a larger critical debate on the subject. The
chapter initially considers regional anthologies concerned with Australian states and
territories other than Western Australia, before advancing to a much more
comprehensive consideration of Western Australian anthologies.
Having surveyed in the first two chapters of the thesis the history of scholarly
and popular interest in literary regionalism in Australia, the aim of Chapter 3 is to offer
up new definitions of terms such as ‘the region’, ‘regional literature’ and ‘regional
publishing’. These definitions are meant to supersede all that have come before them,
since they are made with full knowledge of the criticisms to which earlier definitions
were subjected. Also, even during the heyday of the scholarly debate about literary
regionalism in Australia, there was almost no agreement about what was meant by any
20
of these terms. Writers and critics often operated with implicit and internally
inconsistent definitions of, for example, ‘regional literature’; thus, they could hardly be
expected to formulate externally consistent definitions of such terms. Chapter 3 also
explains why, in a discussion of the production of a regional literature in Western
Australia, the historical scope of this thesis is limited to the period from 1970 to the
present.
Chapter 4 surveys Western Australia’s three major publishing houses—
Fremantle Press, Magabala Books and University of Western Australia Press—and the
contributions each has made to the production of a regional literature in Western
Australia. Fremantle Press has been particularly successful in re-routing public
consciousness and the ‘national imagination’ in the direction of Western Australia; this
seems to set it apart in a number of senses from the other two publishing houses, both of
which have had different (and arguably lesser) kinds of impact, though Magabala Books
is a special case as the country’s first Indigenous publishing house. Nonetheless, it is
the diversity represented by these three publishing houses—a trade publishing house
(Fremantle Press), an Indigenous publishing house (Magabala Books), and an academic
publishing house (University of Western Australia Press)—that is the most intriguing
feature of the Western Australian book publishing scene. Within this diversity, the sites
at which these three publishing houses experience commonalities form a compelling
case for the shared experiences of regional publishing houses in other parts of the world.
These sites, derived from their shared experience of operating outside the traditional
centres of book publishing, can be fleshed out and fashioned into a publishing plan for
the future, one that through the very diversity it represents is sure to develop and extend
minds and cultures.
While surveying the aforementioned publishing houses, Chapter 4 utilises the
findings from the first three chapters of the thesis to identify instances of a contribution
21
to a regional culture. In other words, not every title published by these three publishing
houses is given equal attention, but rather this weighting is informed by the history of
critical and popular interest in regionalism and regional literature in Australia. Chapter
4 also employs the definitions of terms such as ‘regional literature’ and ‘regional
publishing’ outlined in Chapter 3, in order to establish a consistent conceptual
framework, as well as to demonstrate the successful practical application of these
definitions and confirm the investigations giving rise to them.
In addition to discussing the findings of Chapters 1 to 4, the Conclusion
investigates the association of ‘power’ with ‘the region’, as in the expression ‘power of
place and region’.29 Furthermore, it explores the relationship that exists between this
power and the cultural centres against which regions are so often defined. The thesis
then finishes by identifying the implications for this research in Western Australia and
other contexts, and reasons for prioritising regionalism and regional literature in future
scholarly and popular conversations about literature, culture and identity.
29Glen A. Love, ‘Nature and Human Nature: Interdisciplinary Convergences on Cather’s Blue Mesa’, in
Willa Cather’s Ecological Imagination, vol. 5 in Cather Studies, ed. Susan J. Rosowski (Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press, 2003), 6.
22
Chapter 1
Regionalism: Various definitions and the historical context
I. The evolution of a critical debate about regionalism
The conversation about literary regionalism in Australia did not begin to take
shape until the late 1970s. This development was foreshadowed, however, by a long-
standing tradition of political regionalism. In fact, state-based political regionalism has
been around since the early days of European settlement in Australia, inspiring
historians to attribute distinctive characteristics to each state and its residents. For
example, Manning Clark writes in A Short History of Australia, of the colonial reaction
to the Australian Colonies Government Act, which was passed by the British parliament
in 1850:
The legislative council of New South Wales . . . [was] not interested in afederal assembly that could not be dominated by New South Wales; andSouth Australia, as a hint of future provincial loyalties, rejected theproposal as in a British sense unconstitutional.30
Though the New South Wales and South Australian Governments were united in their
dislike of the Australian Colonies Government Act and in their desire for self-
government, the logic employed by the two governments to reach this conclusion is
entirely different. New South Wales is depicted as arrogant and self-centred, while
South Australia is said to have ‘provincial loyalties’. The same characteristics are
thought to define these two states today.
An example from Western Australia confirms the existence of political
regionalism in early Australian history, as well as demonstrating the significance of
shared history in shaping the identity of a region:
Early on, immigrants to the Swan River Colony looked not east to thebetter established and more populous colonies of New South Wales andTasmania, but north-west to the United Kingdom, which remained‘home’ longer here than elsewhere. New South Wales and Tasmania
30Manning Clark, A Short History of Australia, 4th ed. (Ringwood: Penguin, 1995), 119.
23
were originally founded to house a convict population, unlike WesternAustralia and South Australia which were founded for free settlement. Adistrust of the ‘east’, and especially of ‘the convict states’, was widelyvoiced when Federation was proposed.31
Once again, the state in question is still thought of today as defined by these early
manifestations of political regionalism. Clark notes that ‘intercolonial customs and
different railway gauges [are] part of the price paid for indulging in [the] folly’ of
political regionalism.32 However, there are many more striking examples of regional
difference in Australia, including the threat of secession that has been a very real part of
Western Australia’s political landscape since shortly after European settlement in 1829.
Australian literary regionalism of the 1970s was clearly foreshadowed by
political regionalism, but it was further inspired by articles such as Thea Astley’s ‘Being
a Queenslander: A Form of Literary and Geographical Conceit’, which was published in
the literary journal Southerly in 1976 and explores the impact of Astley’s Queensland
upbringing on her evolution as a writer.33 In fact, Australian literary regionalism could
be alleged to have been a topic of interest even earlier, as state-based literature
anthologies were published throughout the 20th century. (Perhaps surprisingly, however,
none were published in the 19th century.) The specific circumstances surrounding the
publication and purpose of these books will be discussed in Chapter 2, but for now it is
important to note that these early state-based literature anthologies did not comprise a
conversation about regionalism in Australia in the way their successors would do so
successfully beginning in the late 1970s. The latter conversation showcased an
increasingly sophisticated understanding of the historical and contemporary influences
at work in any conception or reception of regional literature, which the earlier
anthologies lacked, especially as they did not engage in any form of inter-textual debate.
31George Seddon, ‘Perceiving the Pilbara: Finding the Key to the Country’, Thesis Eleven 65 (May 2001):80.32Clark, 119.33Thea Astley, ‘Being a Queenslander: A Form of Literary and Geographical Conceit’, Southerly 36, no. 3
(1976): 252–264.
24
It was not until October 1978 that the elements necessary to spark a widespread
critical debate on the subject of Australian literary regionalism finally began to coalesce.
This landmark event occurred at a seminar organised by Fremantle Arts Centre Press,
founded only three years earlier in the port city of Fremantle, Western Australia, with a
regional mandate and only a handful of books to its credit. The three-day gathering was
organised to explore the theme of ‘Time, Place and People: Regionalism in
Contemporary Australian Literature’. Speeches delivered at this seminar by Australian
writers such as Frank Moorhouse, Thomas Shapcott, Elizabeth Jolley, Peter Cowan, and
T. A. G. Hungerford, were later reprinted in an edition of the literary journal Westerly,
thereby affording them greater circulation and ‘cultural currency’. The published
versions of these speeches are as close to foundational works as can be found on the
subject of literary regionalism in Australia; they provided the basis for future discussion,
as well as formally introducing the terms and ideas against which many critics reacted.
In 1978 when the seminar was held, however, the speakers had only each other’s
comments to which they could refer, as there was no precedent for this sort of debate—
not on this subject, and certainly not in this forum. Earlier writings that had engaged
with the idea of ‘the region’ were composed primarily of observations about the region
and its supposed ‘character’ and would not withstand critical examination. While the
speeches delivered at the 1978 seminar do not generally make reference to any larger
discussion of regionalism in Australia, they still exhibit an element of critical debate
absent from earlier writings, as any given speaker might respond to comments made by
an earlier speaker. For example, Elizabeth Jolley remarked:
Mr. Peter Ward spoke about the geographical immensity of Australiawith its ‘oppressively homogenous character’. This is clearly the pictureone would have from staying in luxury hotels on an expense account. ...Does Mr Ward think it is the same to live all the year within the sound of
25
a tired generator in a small town in the wheatbelt as it is to live inNedlands or Peppermint Grove?34
The speakers at this event appear to be marking the territory for future engagements.
Where there had previously been no critical debate, these individuals created one
amongst themselves, thus laying the necessary foundation for a larger, more widespread
conversation on the subject of Australian literary regionalism.
Considering its importance in the development of this conversation, it is perhaps
useful to provide a brief but coherent exposition of the various positions—the
arguments and counter-arguments—that were advanced at the seminar. Moorhouse
delivered the first paper, a long and thoughtful analysis of the subjects of ‘regionalism,
provincialism and Australian anxieties’. In this paper, he observes a movement in
Australian culture from nationalism to regionalism, the latter contingent on the idea of
Sydney as a metropolis or cultural centre; distinguishes the definitions of ‘parochial’
and ‘regional’; takes an accounting of three recently published anthologies of Western
Australian writing; and declares that the state’s desire to be different makes Western
Australia the most likely home in Australia for a culture of regionalism. However, his
conclusion is much less upbeat: Moorhouse speculates in a roundabout way that time
will reveal that the value of regionalism is limited to the political sphere, and that its
artistic and cultural futures are unpredictable, at best.
Shapcott spoke next, delivering a rather obtuse paper structured around two long
quotations from two different cultural critics. Like Moorhouse, he discusses
parochialism and nationalism, though he also introduces a series of ideas associated
with internationalism and globalisation in literary culture. Perhaps as a result of his
awareness of the latter set of influences—which he treats with a healthy dose of
scepticism—Shapcott’s assessment of regionalism is overwhelmingly positive.
34Elizabeth Jolley, ‘Landscape and Figures’, Westerly 23, no. 4 (Dec. 1978): 73.
26
The next speaker, Peter Ward, presented a remarkably different perspective on
the subject of ‘regionalism in contemporary Australian literature’. Ward’s basic
contention is that Australia is a predominantly metropolitan society, and within its urban
areas homogeneity rather than regional differentiation is the order of the day. By virtue
of a comparison of Australian and American regionalisms, he concludes that Australia
lacks the historical, linguistic and cultural diversity necessary to establish a coherent
sense of regional identity.
Jolley, more than anyone else, responded to the ideas expressed in the papers
delivered by other speakers at the seminar. In particular, Ward comes under intense
attack for his comments about Australia’s homogenous character. Jolley also raises a
series of provocative questions about what exactly constitutes ‘provincialism’, drawing
upon writers as diverse as Jane Austen and William Faulkner to demonstrate the
possibility of great writing emerging from apparently provincial conditions.
In addition to seconding many of the sentiments expressed by Moorhouse,
Shapcott and Jolley, Cowan’s presentation at the 1978 seminar focused his energies and
considerable writing talent on the role of the regional writer. He adds another layer to
earlier propositions by musing on what one can only assume is his own experience as a
Western Australian writer. In particular, he observes that the regional writer draws
creative strength and inspiration from the region in which he works, and that, as a result,
he may be ineffective creatively if he is removed from this region.
In his presentation at the seminar, Hungerford picked up on (and expressed more
clearly) a point made earlier by Moorhouse: ‘I suggest that at present Western Australia
stands in much the same relationship regionally to the Eastern States of Australia as
turn-of-the-century Australia had stood in relation to Great Britain, and later to
America.’35 Hungerford further asserts that Western Australia will outgrow its status as
35T. A. G. Hungerford, ‘Time, Place and People: Regionalism in Contemporary Australian Literature’,
Westerly 23, no. 4 (Dec. 1978): 75.
27
a region in much the same way that Australia did, which is to say by virtue of its
maturing economic status. Accordingly, he concludes that the effects of ‘regionalism in
contemporary Australian literature’ are visible in the economics of literary culture,
rather than in any artistic or stylistic quality associated with the writing. In other words,
Hungerford believes that regionalism in Australian writing is meaningful only in terms
of the lack of opportunity afforded regional writers, and not as a formative influence for
these writers.
Jim Davidson’s paper sounded an appropriate closing note for the seminar.
Davidson discusses the emergence of a regional consciousness in Australia following its
shrugging off of British colonial influence—thus connecting with comments made by
Moorhouse and Hungerford. He also addresses the distinguishing features of
regionalism and parochialism, and in so doing, establishes links with the presentations
of Moorhouse, Shapcott, Ward, and Jolley. Finally, he expresses his belief that regional
writing is about the particularity of a writer’s response to a given place, and that the
value of this response should ideally transcend that place, which he concludes makes
regionalism (in the final analysis) irrelevant.
This concludes the exposition of the various positions that were advanced at the
1978 seminar organised by Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Since this thesis is concerned
with regional literature and its production in Western Australia, it is important to note at
this early juncture that interest in regionalism and regional literature has always been
particularly strong in this western-most state. Of course, the aforementioned seminar
was held in Western Australia, conferring upon the state a degree of importance as the
launch site of critical debate on this subject. Western Australia’s particular association
with literary regionalism does not end here, however, as was noted by two speakers at
the seminar:
28
If we were to look for regionalism in Australia, Western Australia wouldbe the obvious case study. It is by far the most self-conscious, self-analytical and articulate region in Australia.36
To live in Western Australia is to be strongly aware of a physicallandscape—one behind the urban facade, and even though the populationis overwhelmingly urban. This sense of another environment comesthrough the sprawling suburbs, it comes in the smoke of the forestdepartment’s endless burning fires, the lack of water, the heat, thedistances.37
These statements suggest that, while the 1978 seminar might mark the unofficial
beginning of critical debate in Australia on the subject of literary regionalism, the idea
of a state-based ‘regional identity’ or ‘regional consciousness’ already existed.
The sense of Western Australia as a special case in the conversation about
literary regionalism continued long after the 1978 seminar, as the following excerpt
from a 1992 article by Beth Watzke, an American temporarily resident in Australia,
demonstrates:
It seems to me that this view of place and landscape as effecting in a verypalpable way the shaping of individual literary worlds, of places asdifferent and of that difference making its own difference in writing, is aview that is distinct to this region [Western Australia].38
John Rickard reaches much the same conclusion in his book Australia: A Cultural
History:
Outside of the two great capitals there has been a developing tendency todefine more of a regional identity, as a sense of place has supersededmore generalised perceptions of the Australian environment. Particularlyhas this been so of Western Australia, with its own brand of isolation.39
An even more persuasive indication of the strength of this tendency in Western Australia
can be found in the analysis of regional literature anthologies contained in Chapter 2 of
this thesis. The number of regional literature anthologies published in Western Australia
36Frank Moorhouse, ‘Regionalism, Provincialism and Australian Anxieties’, Westerly 23, no. 4 (Dec.
1978): 63.37Peter Cowan, ‘Time, Place and People: Regionalism in Contemporary Australian Literature’, Westerly
23, no. 4 (Dec. 1978): 74.38Beth Watzke, ‘Writing the West: Regionalism and Western Australia’, Westerly 37, no. 1 (1992): 28.
39John Rickard, Australia: A Cultural History (London: Longman, 1988), 262.
29
is disproportionate both to its population and also to the numbers published in other
Australian states and territories.
The conversation about literary regionalism gained momentum in the early
1980s when Bruce Bennett began actively promulgating regionalism as a critical
framework for understanding Australian literature. Bennett was the most prolific
advocate of
a study of regions from the ground up: commencing with particularplaces, the biographical connections of writers with these places andtheir literary references to, or recreations of these places, together with astudy of their intellectual and cultural milieux.40
The works most often cited in articles published in the 1980s on the subject of regional
literature are from the aforementioned 1978 seminar. Nonetheless, it seems this
occasion has escaped notice as the unofficial beginning of critical interest in literary
regionalism in Australia. Even the most basic summary of events given above—
charting the progression of interest in the subject of regionalism in Australia and
Australian literature from the late 1970s through to the present day—has been
assembled from primary sources, rather than with the assistance of another critical eye.
In fact, as late at 1986, scholars were still claiming a ‘recent’ interest in literary
regionalism: ‘In recent years regionalism has emerged as a significant way to approach
Australian writing.’41 Susan McKernan’s essay, ‘Crossing the Border: Regional Writing
in Australia’, is a review of five regional anthologies: Latitudes: New Writing from the
North (1986),42 Unsettled Areas: Recent Short Fiction (1986),43 Portrait: A West Coast
Collection (1986),44 Effects of Light: The Poetry of Tasmania (1985),45 and The Orange
40Bruce Bennett, ‘Concepts of “the West” in Canadian and Australian Literary Studies’, Westerly 29, no. 2
(1984): 81.41Susan McKernan, ‘Crossing the Border: Regional Writing in Australia’, Meanjin 45, no. 4 (1986): 548.
42Susan Johnson and Mary Roberts, eds., Latitudes: New Writing from the North (St. Lucia: University of
Queensland Press, 1986).43Andrew Taylor, ed., Unsettled Areas: Recent Short Fiction (Netley: Wakefield Press, 1986).44B. R. Coffey and Wendy Jenkins, eds., Portrait: A West Coast Collection (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts
Centre Press, 1986).45Vivian Smith and Margaret Scott, eds., Effects of Light: The Poetry of Tasmania (Sandy Bay:
30
Tree: South Australian Poetry to the Present Day (1986).46 McKernan identifies a
sudden burgeoning of regional anthologies in the years 1985 and 1986, but of course
this would not have occurred without the encouragement of scholars over a longer
period of time than she identifies. The only sources McKernan cites in relation to this
‘recent’ interest are Bennett’s ‘1984 lectures for the Foundation for [Australian] Literary
Studies at James Cook University’, which she says ‘present the case for regional study
of Australian writers’.47 (Bennett’s lectures were later reprinted as a book, Place,
Region and Community.48) Considering the conversation about Australian literary
regionalism sustained itself in its most concentrated form for barely a decade, the six
years McKernan overlooks between Bennett’s lectures and the 1978 seminar are
significant.
Bennett, whom McKernan recognised in 1986 as ‘one of the most active
promoters of the concept of regionalism in Australian literature’,49 gets closer to the
truth with his 1984 assessment of the timeline of interest in Australian literary
regionalism: ‘There are signs in the 1980s of a healthier responsiveness to place, region
and community in Australia and a curiosity to know more.’50 However, even Bennett
does not trace this interest directly back to the 1978 seminar organised by Fremantle
Arts Centre Press. In fact, he attributes burgeoning interest in the subject to an entirely
different (and not yet fully realised) event:
In Australia, a national project commenced in 1983 by the Associationfor the Study of Australian Literature is concerned with the compilationof a Literary Guide to Australia, which involves a close investigation ofplace references in authors’ work and their biographical connections to
Twelvetrees Publishing Company, 1985).46K. F. Pearson and Christine Churches, eds., The Orange Tree: South Australian Poetry to the Present
Day (Netley: Wakefield Press, 1986).47McKernan, 548.48Bruce Bennett, Place, Region and Community (Townsville: Foundation for Australian Literary Studies,
1985).49McKernan, 548.50Bruce Bennett, Place, Region and Community, 3.
31
Australian places, and this has stimulated a renewed attention to regionalliterary studies.51
The Oxford Literary Guide to Australia,52 to which Bennett refers, was eventually
published in 1987, three years after Bennett made his remarks (though at the time of
Bennett’s writing it was planned for 1986).53 In light of this information, Bennett’s
assertion about the importance of The Oxford Literary Guide to Australia in stimulating
interest in the subject of literary regionalism begins to sound improbable. It is rather
more likely that planning for the book began as a result of a previously established and
burgeoning interest in this subject.
By the early 1990s, however, the conversation about literary regionalism had
largely died out—perhaps because those who had campaigned so actively for its notice
felt that, in the few years it had enjoyed a spotlight of Australian literary criticism, it had
managed to accomplish its goals. Only the smallest of whimpers was heard on the
subject in the decade of grunge rock and grunge literature, and there has been veritable
silence in this regard with the dawning of the 21st century. Without even the dignity of a
death knell, the matter of regionalism in Australian literature disappeared from the
literary critical landscape.
II. Early articulations of regionalism
Charting the evolution of definitions of ‘regionalism’ and ‘regional literature’
over time is a much more difficult task than roughly sketching the history of critical
debate on this subject. Particularly in the 1980s, when a substantial amount was written
on the subject of Australian literary regionalism, detailing a specific path along which
definitions and understandings progressed is impossible. Oftentimes, scholars worked
51Bruce Bennett, ‘Concepts’, 76.52Peter Pierce et al., eds., The Oxford Literary Guide to Australia (Melbourne: Oxford University Press,
1987).53Bruce Bennett, ‘Concepts’, 82 note 4.
32
over the same few ideas again and again without advancing the debate, because they
were ignorant of other contributions to the field. Indeed, the use of the term ‘debate’ in
this instance could be considered misleading, since there is little evidence of an
understanding amongst participants that they were participating in such a forum.
Nonetheless, a significant conversation gradually evolved, even if foundational texts
were never nominated nor contours of the conversation formally acknowledged.
This section of the thesis charts the movement of this debate by identifying
several key themes, and then placing these themes in an order that replicates in a rough
way the order in which they were introduced. This section also explores the
justifications Australian scholars typically employ for their various ways of
conceptualising literary regionalism.
A. Defining ‘the region’
One of the earliest tasks faced by those pioneers of literary regionalism in
Australia in the 1970s and ‘80 was defining the concept of ‘the region’, as it is from this
root that regionalism is derived—both in linguistic and practical terms. The long
history of literary regionalism in North America meant that much of this work had
already been done for them; however, they were faced with the challenge of defining the
region in a specifically Australian context. Of course, defining the region necessitates
identifying regional borders so as to distinguish one region from neighbouring regions.
This is a particularly important task, since the most basic definition of literary
regionalism holds that it can be productive to examine literature through the lens of the
physical environment, geography, or the idea of ‘the region’; this is impossible if the
borders of that region have not been identified.
If those individuals who were interested in regionalism and regional literature in
Australia wanted to make any gains in the critical and popular imagination, they had to
33
respond to the various ways in which Australia’s physical environment had previously
been apprehended and also to posit a convincing new scheme. Therefore, at the
beginning, it is important to recognise the existence of certain dominant attitudes
towards the physical environment in Australia and Australian literature:
In Australian culture, one of the most prevalent and persistent sites of the‘other’—in both popular and ‘high’ culture—is the physicalenvironment, nature. Narrative accounts of the relationship between theself and the natural world constitute the most significant single issue inestablishing identity, from the arrival of the first Europeans to the presentday.54
Bennett seems to agree with this assessment, though he states his case in more moderate
terms: ‘Gaining one’s bearings, physically and emotionally, in Australia has been a
major preoccupation of many of our writers, artists and thinkers.’55 Indeed, it would be
a difficult task to find an Australian scholar who believes the physical environment is
not a significant ‘preoccupation’ of Australian writers and artists. Although, clearly, she
still may not agree that it is the most significant.
Of course, the physical environment has an entirely different significance within
the Aboriginal value system. However, as this perspective was not successfully
incorporated into the larger conversation about literary regionalism in Australia, it will
not be discussed at this time. Further discussion of this and related topics can, however,
be found in the section of this chapter titled ‘The region in the world’. Also, Chapter 4
contains a discussion of the publishing activities of Magabala Books, an Indigenous
publishing house located in the northwest of Western Australia.
As the physical environment is such a well-established subject in Australian
literary criticism, it is unnecessary to burden the reader with a large number of scholars
making such an assertion. However, this thesis has not yet addressed the previously
54Richard Rossiter, ‘Reading the Landscape: Prose Literature’, in Farewell Cinderella: Creating Arts and
Identity in Western Australia, ed. Geoffrey Bolton, Richard Rossiter, and Jan Ryan (Crawley: Universityof Western Australia Press, 2003), 130.55Bruce Bennett, ‘A West-side Story’, Conversations 5, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 40.
34
established borders within this physical environment to which individuals interested in
literary regionalism in Australia were compelled to respond. For example, the boundary
between the city and the bush was (and still is) a very popular way of imagining the
physical geography of Australia.
By the early 1980s, scholars with an interest in literary regionalism were already
reacting against this myth of being able to divide Australia into just two distinct parts—
the city and the bush. Susan McKernan captures the spirit of such reactions in her
summary of Bennett’s position on the subject:
Bennett argues that the old division between the city and the bush inliterature has misrepresented the true nature of Australian social life andliterature, the difference between one region and another being moreimportant than the difference between the big metropolis and the country.Bennett believes that the place where a writer lives—its landscape,vegetation, climate, idioms and community attitudes—deeply influencesthe writing.56
This excerpt illustrates the dominance of the dichotomy between the city and the bush
as a way of apprehending Australia’s physical environment and also the rising tide of
opposition to this dichotomy. Another excerpt, this one from Bennett himself, labels the
division between the city and the bush ‘one of the chief defining myths of Australia’:
The graph which I have sketched suggests a decline since the 1950s inthe engagement of our writers and artists with the bush and the outback,though there remain outstanding exceptions to this .... One of the chiefdefining myths of Australia, as powerful for us as the northernwilderness is for Canadians, seems to have been put aside, perhapstemporarily, as writers come to terms with more restricted territories.57
Clearly, this excerpt exemplifies a growing dissatisfaction with the limitations of this
myth and the search for an appropriate replacement.
Australia’s physical environment has also been understood in ways that disrupt
the notion of an absolute division between the city and the bush. Some of these
formulations existed well in advance of the conversation about Australian literary
56McKernan, 548.57Bruce Bennett, Place, Region and Community, 38.
35
regionalism charted in Part I of this chapter. However, unlike the dichotomy between
the city and the bush—which individuals interested in literary regionalism in Australia
felt compelled to respond to given its high profile, but they actually took very little
away from this encounter—many of these formulations contributed to a productive
dialogue that would influence the shape of Australian literary regionalism in the 1970s
and ‘80s. Chilla Bulbeck recognises a particularly significant example:
A central concern in the definition of ‘region’ is the size of the unit andits relationship to other units, both smaller and larger. At the largest levela group of nations may be conceived of as a region: the countries ofSouth-East Asia for example. Most commonly in Australia, region istreated as synonymous with state.58
Dividing Australia’s physical environment into regions that are recognised as
‘synonymous with state’ is an example of defining borders, thereby making it possible
to identify one region as distinct from its neighbouring regions. Australia’s long history
of political regionalism has been enabled by this particular formulation. It is also one
way in which Australia’s physical environment has been promoted as a critical
framework for the study of literature.
However, many critics have taken issue with the state-as-region formulation:
The convenient identification of regional literary studies with state orprovincial boundaries is challenged not only in the Canadian, but also inAmerican regional studies. Such questioning and redefining ofboundaries which must always be considered mutable, is a legitimateinvestigation of the theory and practice of literary regionalism, but it isoften clouded by political considerations.59
Notably, Bennett looks in this instance to North American literary regionalism for
guidance. He employs these studies as the basis for a new way of apprehending
Australia’s physical environment and to sketch a complex system of regional borders in
Australia. In fact, he goes on to propose three different senses of the region that exist
simultaneously, each of which can be illustrated with a quotation from his writing.
58Chilla Bulbeck, ‘Regionalism’, in Australian Studies: A Survey, ed. James Walter (Melbourne: Oxford
University Press, 1989), 70.59Bruce Bennett, ‘Concepts’, 78.
36
Through the agglomeration and juxtaposition of these different senses of the
region, Bennett proposes an alternative to the previously surveyed dominant attitudes
towards the physical environment in Australia and Australian literature. His first sense
of the region is smaller than the state:
What then are the major implications of these studies for continuingwork on the literature of Western Australia? First is the need to think interms of subregions within, and sometimes across, state borders.Examples of these in Western Australia are the South-West; the North-West, or Kimberleys; the Pilbara; the Central and Southern Wheatbelt;the Goldfields; and Perth and suburbs. The categories are from physicalgeography, regional administration and functional land-use but all areterms which have lodged themselves in the consciousness of WesternAustralians. It has been suggested that the Goldfields and the Wheatbelthave provided the most distinctive literatures, but all of them can claimat least a small body of writings which contain significant originalresponses to landscape or society; which together build a distinctivepicture of place, conditions and atmosphere.60
Bennett seems to propose an alternative to the state-as-region model, in which the
boundaries of regions are derived from ‘physical geography, regional administration and
functional land-use’. Just as soon as this idea has been established, however, Bennett
adds a layer to this sense of the region by re-introducing the role of the state as a
significant factor in Australians’ perception of the physical environment:
After taking into account regions such as these, there remains thequestion of whether a larger regional identity of the West exists inAustralia. So many Western Australian writers have asserted that a stateidentity does exist, or has existed, that we must take notice of thisconsciousness. Self-definition is often accepted as the criterion ofmembership of a group, or community, and in this case must be taken aspersuasive, supportive, if not final evidence.61
Bennett asserts that ‘self-definition’ can be taken as ‘supportive, if not final evidence’ of
the state of Western Australia as a literary region but maintains there also exist regions
within Western Australia. His final assertion complicates the matter further:
Just as political, administrative and other boundaries are changedaccording to changing conditions, so also should the definitions,
60Ibid., 79.61Ibid., 81.
37
characteristics and boundaries of literary regions be continually re-examined and revised.62
In the final analysis, Bennett claims the state-as-region formulation and the formulation
of regions within the state as valid ways of understanding and identifying borders within
Australia’s physical environment, but that the borders illustrated by these two
formulations are subject to change at any time.
As a result of complicated constructions like this one, Bennett has been accused
of not taking a firm enough stance on issues of literary regionalism: ‘He is unable to
make precise claims about the way a certain region may affect its literature.’63 It is not
only Bennett, however, at which this excerpt points the finger. As easily the single
greatest contributor to the cause of Australian literary regionalism, when Bennett’s
rhetoric is shown to be faulty or deficient, this implicates all scholars writing on the
subject. After all, his three-pronged formulation for the borders of the literary region in
Australia is representative of the variety of such formulations being proposed by
Australian scholars at this time. Even if he has not made a convincing case for any one
formulation, it can be said that he has captured the breadth of contemporary thought on
this subject.
Not long after Bennett proposed this particular method of identifying regional
borders, a more sophisticated way of articulating literary regionalism was developed
that purported a divide between the centre and the periphery in Australia. Bennett’s
method owes a debt to the longstanding state-as-region formulation, while this new
articulation bears a stronger resemblance to the dichotomy between the city and the
bush discussed above. Its dominant influence, however, is practical experience, though
this does not mean the work done by Bennett and others in the late 1970s and ‘80s is
overlooked.
62Bruce Bennett, Place, Region and Community, 14.63McKernan, 548.
38
Beth Watzke explains the origins of the dichotomy between the centre and the
periphery:
Regionalism as a concept has developed along with an awareness ofAustralia’s difference and diversity in terms of cultures, communities andplaces, as well as an assertion that the ‘centre’ in terms of literary workand publication (as well as political and economic power) is the East, oras it is often referred to, Sydney–Melbourne.64
Watzke identifies a couple key elements of this dichotomy: ‘Sydney–Melbourne’
(sometimes referred to as ‘Sydney–Canberra–Melbourne’) as the centre of Australian
culture and cultural production, and also that it is impossible to assert a centre without a
previously established ‘awareness of Australia’s difference and diversity in terms of
cultures, communities and places’. This last point suggests that earlier articulations of
regional borders perhaps paved the way for this later, more sophisticated one.
Susan McKernan discusses the practical experiences that inform this particular
understanding of literary regionalism:
Writers and critics who live outside the centres of the East coast feel thattheir work will be overlooked by publishers and readers in the centre,and regionalism asserts the importance of writing which does notconform to the current fashions of the centre; the regional approachpresents a way of renewing Australian literary life so that it does notbecome a tired imitation of an ‘international’ literary model.65
Clearly, publishing opportunities and literary fashion are integral to a formulation of
literary regionalism that draws upon a divide between the centre and the periphery;
these are some of the practical matters alluded to above. It is worth noting that
McKernan’s comment comes much earlier (1986) than the other comments in this
section that concern themselves with the centre and the periphery. This can be
explained by looking closely at the content of the above excerpt, which, while it
demonstrates some of the practicalities informing this formulation, is primarily
concerned with the association between parochialism or provincialism and literary
64Watzke, 22.65McKernan, 548–49.
39
regionalism. McKernan’s concern and the criticisms of regionalism that give rise to it
will be more fully examined in Part III (‘Challenging early regionalism’) of this chapter,
but for now it should suffice to say that this particular articulation is a flawed though
still helpful illustration of the dichotomy between the centre and the periphery.
Bennett provides a far simpler and more accurate articulation of this concept:
‘Marginality from presumed centres of power is one of the keys to regionalism.’66 This
excerpt also contains within it the seeds of a more complicated implication, which is
that those who are ‘marginalised’ will view regionalism differently than those who are
‘from presumed centres of power’. In fact, Bennett maintains that ‘it is a psychological
fact that those who inhabit a perceived centre are less likely than those who inhabit the
perceived periphery to believe in the values of regionality’.67 However, before
addressing challenges (such as ‘that those who inhabit a perceived centre are less
likely ... to believe in the values of regionality’) to the various formulations of literary
regionalism discussed above, it is first necessary to understand some of the ways in
which Australian scholars justify their interest in the physical environment and the idea
of ‘the region’ as a legitimate critical paradigm for the examination of literature.
B. Justifying ‘the region’
Australian scholars in the 1970s and ‘80s typically employed one of two
justifications for their interest in the physical environment and belief that the region can
constitute a legitimate critical framework. These two justifications, while both relevant
to the full array of thought on the subject, remain distinct from one another. The first of
these justifications is that the region is distinctive. This is a precarious articulation that
scholars have frequently been at pains to prove, as was evidenced above when Bennett
66Bruce Bennett, An Australian Compass: Essays on Place and Direction in Australian Literature (South
Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1991), 72.67Ibid., 16.
40
debated the relative merits of the state-as-region formulation and the ‘subregion within
the state’-as-region formulation.
Nonetheless, many early proponents of literary regionalism in Australia
maintained that the region is a distinctive entity, abounding with particular
characteristics and qualities. Furthermore, since it is literary regionalism that is being
discussed, it is not enough for these characteristics and qualities to be simply evident in,
for example, the physical environment; they must also be evident in the writers and
artists resident in that region, thereby indelibly marking them with the regional stamp.
Watzke establishes the importance of the ‘region as distinctive’ formulation in the
evolution of critical debate on the subject of literary regionalism:
In Australia, discussions of how to define the West inevitably involvediscussions of regionalism, and often evolve into debates about themerits and limitations of posing any particular geographical space andmaking literary claims to it as a unique ‘region’.68
It seems the various ways of apprehending Australia’s physical environment and
identifying regional borders in this environment, which were described above, all rely
on this notion of the region as distinctive or ‘unique’. Yet, it is equally clear that if the
region is somehow shown not to be distinctive, it will render these formulations
impotent. In fact, the region must be shown to be not only distinctive, but capable of
imprinting its residents with a manifestation of this distinctiveness.
A second justification for the belief that the region can constitute a legitimate
critical framework for the study of literature maintains that diversity is the key
ingredient rather than distinctiveness. Of course, these two justifications are not
mutually exclusive. In fact, they occupy much the same territory—a region must first
be distinctive in order for the existence of regions to be used as evidence of diversity in
a larger unit such as the nation. Still, diversity seems to be a slightly later (as well as an
only slightly more sophisticated) justification of literary regionalism in Australia.
68Watzke, 22.
41
Bennett claims that, when it comes to literary regionalism as a critical paradigm,
‘the first, and guiding, principle must surely be a recognition of diversity’.69 He is not
alone in this opinion: ‘The real strength of the argument for regional grouping of
Australian writing is its insistence on the diversity of Australian literature.’70
Furthermore, Geoffrey Bolton and his colleagues argue in their book Farewell
Cinderella: Creating Arts and Identity in Western Australia, that ‘exploration of
regional diversity will lead to an understanding of the subtleties of Australian society
and culture as a whole’.71 This is one reason why diversity is seen as the key to literary
regionalism—because it reveals the ‘subtleties’ of Australian culture, rather than
showing it to be homogenous.
However, this last excerpt also raises a fundamental question about how the
existence of regional diversity in Australia is determined. Farewell Cinderella tackles
this issue as well:
Is it unreasonable to suggest that isolation fosters distinctive traits in thelocal culture, so that scholars can write of a Western Australian‘identity’? Just as Australian culture in its formative years had toovercome the reproach of being merely a provincial transplant of Britishoriginals, so there is space for regional diversity within Australianculture. Despite Sydney’s progress in recent decades, Australia still doesnot have, and never has had, a single metropolitan centre dominatingcultural exchanges in the same way that London was the metropolis forthe British Empire and Commonwealth.72
It seems that in order to demonstrate the existence of diversity in Australia, Bolton and
his colleagues find it necessary to invoke the notion of a division between the centre and
the periphery. This demonstrates the interconnectedness of the various ways of
‘defining “the region”’ found in Section A and the justifications of these definitions
contained in Section B.
69Bruce Bennett, Australian Compass, 72.
70McKernan, 548.71Geoffrey Bolton, Richard Rossiter, and Jan Ryan, eds., Farewell Cinderella: Creating Arts and Identity
in Western Australia (Crawley: University of Western Australia Press, 2003), 4.72Ibid., 3.
42
However, both of the aforementioned justifications rely on the assumption that
literary regionalism is inextricably linked to the distinctive creative output of the region.
In the absence of a distinctive creative output, the region is assumed to no longer be
distinctive, in which case it can also no longer stand for diversity in the context of the
nation. Consequently, literary regionalism is thought to have ceased usefulness as a tool
for critical analysis and debate. The prevalence of this assumption is illustrated by the
following excerpt:
At its extreme—and critics such as Bennett are careful to avoid thisposition—the idea of regional writing suggests that literature may beread simply as a reflection of the community from which the writercomes and be valued according to the accuracy of its depiction of aparticular place or society.73
While McKernan is seemingly reluctant to let regionalism off the charge of being
‘simply a reflection of the community from which the writer comes’ (in other words, a
distinctive creative output), she is forced to recognise that Bennett does not, in fact,
endorse this position. In fact, at the time McKernan was writing (1986), most advocates
of literary regionalism in Australia were beginning to move beyond this narrowly
conceived understanding of regional literature.
Just a couple years after McKernan wrote on the subject, however, P. R. Hay
targeted the notion of a distinctive creative output as it relates to literary regionalism:
Whilst it is not important that writers work from an overt sense of place,there is a related principle that should be consciously promoted, and thatis the defence of diversity. ... To strive for the preservation of diversityagainst the standardisers of the market is to strive for the uniqueness thatmakes community identification (and hence place identification)possible.74
Hay seems to be saying that regional writers should not be limited to subjects that are
‘simply a reflection of the community from which the writer comes’—or, in his own
words, they should not have to ‘work from an overt sense of place’. Nonetheless, he
73McKernan, 549.74P. R. Hay, ‘Place and Literature’, Island Magazine 34/35 (Autumn 1988): 35.
43
continues to advocate diversity as the key to literary regionalism, but without indicating
how this balance can be achieved in practical terms. This final piece of the puzzle
would be left to later advocates of literary regionalism in Australia, whose ideas will be
surveyed in Part IV (‘The importance of the reader to a new understanding of
regionalism’) of this chapter.
III. Challenging early regionalism
The various articulations of Australia’s regional landscape outlined above have
all been challenged by critics at one time or another. Indeed, while many scholars have
written about literary regionalism in Australia, most have done so only in passing and
usually to disparage it. It is only Bruce Bennett who has devoted a significant amount
of scholarship over an extended period of time to establishing the terms necessary for an
active critical debate on the subject of literary regionalism. However, the time and ink
spent dismantling the idea of literary regionalism far outstrips that spent building its
case. The most common criticisms of literary regionalism in Australia have been
separated into four categories: ‘Regionalism and parochialism/provincialism’,
‘Nationalism and the region’, ‘The region in the world’, and ‘The role of universities’.
These categories cover the themes of virtually all of the most often expressed criticisms
of literary regionalism, as well as being relevant to all the different ways in which the
borders of literary regions can be conceived.
For that matter, many of these criticisms do not respond to any specific
articulation of literary regionalism, but rather seem interested only in an outright
dismissal of the concept:
In the end, though, while it may have been the shaping factor,regionalism has become irrelevant: the achievement transcends it. Once
44
the location has been fully recognised and comprehended, ideally itbecomes the standpoint from which the writer looks out.75
Davidson does not appear to be responding to any particular formulation of literary
regionalism discussed in Part II of this chapter. Instead, it would seem he has thrown up
some sort of mental block, refusing to even consider regionalism as a viable critical
framework for the analysis of literature and culture in Australia. Davidson, while
initially recognising regionalism as a potential ‘shaping factor’, then proceeds to
summarily discard it as ‘irrelevant’.
In spite of the lack of critics who consider the full spectrum of literary
regionalism articulated in Part II, it is nonetheless helpful to examine the available
criticisms, as these are integral to the formulation of a later and more sophisticated
understanding of literary regionalism. This survey begins with perhaps the most
common criticism of literary regionalism—that it is a justification of what are
essentially parochial or provincial interests.
A. Regionalism and parochialism/provincialism
For better or worse, the terms ‘parochialism’ and ‘provincialism’ are used almost
interchangeably by critics of literary regionalism in Australia. These two terms taken
together constitute one of the oldest criticisms of literary regionalism, as evidenced by
the dates attached to the following excerpts:
Many people (especially those interested in the arts) in the various partsof Australia do indeed fret about what they see as their ‘isolation’ andseek to console themselves by arguing that their communities aredeveloping special identities, local skills, and unique qualities. It isunderstandable but usually unfortunate because the road to that kind ofself-conscious cultivation of cultural difference leads nowhere .... Istrongly suspect that people in Western Australia (or for that matter inSouth Australia, Tasmania or Queensland) who are preoccupied with
75Jim Davidson, ‘Writing and the Regional Factor: Some Notes’, Westerly 23, no. 4 (Dec. 1978): 79.
45
defining notions of apartness are quite often also defending localparochialism, small-mindedness, limited vision, and amateurism.76
It is necessary to distinguish between the social and artistic purposes andaspirations of a community. Images of identity can serve the former butmight limit the latter. In the absence of linguistic and racial determinantsof regional differences the cultivation of local interests can produce thatparochialism Walter Murdoch attacked. Regionalism can becomeprovincialism by claiming immunity from large movements of ideas inthe outside world.77
The first of the above excerpts was delivered at the 1978 seminar organised by
Fremantle Arts Centre Press, while the second was published in 1980. Clearly, this
particular criticism attached itself to the conversation about literary regionalism in
Australia from its earliest days. It should also be clear that there is little variety in the
content of these two accusations. In fact, all such accusations basically boil down to a
single statement: ‘Literary regionalism is inward-looking when there is no cause for
introspection on this scale in Australia; this will surely result in small-mindedness.’
However, some critics actually attempt to define the terms of dismissal, which is
a slightly more useful enterprise:
I think we can separate out regional and provincial. As I use it,provincial means a posture of the mind, the imagination, towards aperceived centre, towards a metropolis. It is a formation in reaction tothe centre. I would use regional as a posture growing out of specialconditions surrounding or forming the imagination—geography,historical accident, distance, climate. Provincialism may be a false kindof regionalism, or a ‘low regionalism’.78
Moorhouse’s definition of ‘provincial’ draws upon the notion of a divide between the
centre and the periphery. As demonstrated in Part II, literary regionalism is often
conceived in similar terms. Moorhouse is careful to distinguish his definitions of
‘parochial’ and ‘regional’, but when a specific articulation of regionalism is taken up by
others as fodder for accusations of parochialism, this dichotomy is often present; in
other words, they do not bother to make the same distinction. After all, a divide
76Peter Ward, ‘What “Sense of Regionalism”?’, Westerly 23, no. 4 (Dec. 1978): 71–72.77Leonie J. Kramer, ‘Islands of Yesterday: The Growth of Literary Ideas’, Westerly 25, no. 2 (1980): 96.78Moorhouse, 62.
46
between the centre and the periphery reinforces the notion of regionalism as inward-
looking and small-minded, or, more precisely, as a reactionary trend—the periphery
reacting to the centre by looking inward and closing itself off to ‘large movements of
ideas in the outside world’.
A slightly different manifestation of this most common criticism is that regional
literature is stylistically provincial:
There is nothing as experimental here as the short fiction being written,chiefly in Sydney, by Frank Moorhouse, Michael Wilding, VickiViidikas, Peter Carey, Murray Bail and others. Although this mayindicate a conservative attitude to experimentation in Western Australia,it also indicates ... a healthy scepticism about prevailing fashions and aconcern that the virtues of realism should not be lost in the self-conscious game-playing that sometimes accompanies modernexperimentation in short fiction.79
Bennett summarises a common criticism of regional literature—namely, that it does not
engage with the literary fashions of the period, or is simply not experimental enough.
This is similar to Leonie J. Kramer’s warning that ‘regionalism can become
provincialism by claiming immunity from large movements of ideas in the outside
world’. If literary fashions are understood as ‘movements of ideas in the outside
world’, then the reluctance Bennett identifies marks regional writers as provincial. In
spite of this being a common criticism of literary regionalism, Bennett’s rebuttal will
not convince everyone; his rhetoric of ‘scepticism about prevailing fashions’ and
‘concern [for] the virtues of realism’ implies a conscious rejection by regional writers
without addressing the possibility that these writers are simply ignorant of ‘prevailing
fashions’.
However, dismissing literary regionalism as simply parochial appears to have
fallen out of favour in recent times, even as critics continue to dismiss it on other
grounds. It is important, nonetheless, to acknowledge this particular criticism of literary
79Bruce Bennett, ed., New Country: A Selection of Western Australian Short Stories (Fremantle:
Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1976), xi.
47
regionalism, if only because of the frequency with which it was deployed in early
conversations about regionalism and regional literature.
B. Nationalism and the region
Another frequently employed criticism of literary regionalism is that Australia
lacks the regional diversity necessary to justify such a critical framework. When this
particular criticism was first articulated (as early as the 1978 seminar organised by
Fremantle Arts Centre Press), it instigated a debate about the relative merits of
nationalism and regionalism and whether or not Australia is truly homogenous. Or, to
employ terms used elsewhere in this thesis, whether or not it is possible to draw borders
in order to distinguish regions within Australia. The relevant question is, of course,
whether Australia’s physical environment is most productively understood as a whole or
in smaller parts, and how using this understanding of the physical environment as a
critical framework bears upon the study of literature. This resonates with the
aforementioned definition of the region as a divide between the centre and the
periphery, because it is ultimately concerned with determining the centrality and, thus,
the dominance of the concept of either the region or the nation in Australian culture.
Of course, this particular criticism relies on the assumption that literary
regionalism is inextricably linked to the distinctive creative output of the region. It is
important to note these sorts of assumptions and oversights on the part of critics of
literary regionalism in Australia when and wherever they occur. It is particularly
important, however, to note them in relation to nationalism, since this is an especially
notorious subject in Australian literary discourse. Like the bush myth, nationalism is
part of a chorus of literary references commonly sung by Australian scholars. It is also
used often and to great effect as the basis for criticism of regionalism in this country.
By calling attention to the reliance of the nationalist critique on the assumption of a
48
distinctive creative output, this reveals flaws in the criticism—flaws which will
eventually lead to the dismissal of nationalism and regionalism as a valuable dichotomy.
The following excerpt, quoted in part in the Introduction to this thesis, provides
an overview of the perceived challenge regionalism presents to the cause of nationalism:
Regionalism ... means the advocacy and advancement of the interests,functions, and competence of parts of a nation-state as against thosesame aspects of the whole state. It is in certain respects a healthycondition. It can contribute to the well-being of a people and their state.On the other hand it may be harmful if it weakens a sovereign state whenthe best interests of all can be better served by the larger entity.80
Regionalism in Australia has been perceived as a challenge to the long-standing ideal of
nationalism, because it is believed ‘it may be harmful if it weakens a sovereign state’.
The importance of the ‘national construct’ in Australian culture has elsewhere been
comprehensively demonstrated, and from this it is possible to understand how literary
regionalism falls by the side. Gillian Whitlock earlier observed (in an excerpt quoted in
the Introduction to this thesis), however, that the nation can be conceived in alternative
ways, and in fact Canada has conceived of itself in a fashion that is exactly opposite to
Australia—by building itself up from the region to the nation.81
Yet, Whitlock is apparently not prepared to say that Australia could re-conceive
of itself in this manner—as a nation composed of regions. She, like so many other
Australian scholars, believes the power of the national in Australia is too great for the
regional to gain anything but the most precarious foothold in the public imagination.
However, there are those few who believe it is possible:
Writing which is strongly regional in orientation ... shows signs of anattempt to extend and modify, if not abandon, the national inventory. ...The inventory of regional epitomes ... is functioning not merely as a listof imputed Queensland characteristics, but as a source of rhetoricalfigures with which to explore and articulate a range of moral andpsychological themes, not entirely displacing the master-inventory of
80Preston, 3.81Whitlock, ‘Queensland’, 88.
49
Australian epitomes in this function, but operating as an importantsupplement to it.82
While Patrick Buckridge implies in this excerpt that he believes regionalism can make
some inroads into the public imagination, he notably refers to nationalism as the
‘master-inventory of Australian epitomes’.
In another example of this sort of qualified support of literary regionalism, Bruce
Grant turns his attention to Western Australia. Specifically, he is interested in the way
in which the state can be understood as a ‘microcosm’ of the nation:
It is the Australian dilemma in a microcosm. A small, conservativepopulation huddles in the south-west corner, a capital looks abroad fordefence and development, and the pioneering frontier life of the state’snorthern half is as remote from what the people of Perth, its suburbs andnearby towns regards as civilization as it is from the thoughts of thepeople of Melbourne and Sydney.83
In this excerpt, Grant proposes that the state of Western Australia is a ‘microcosm’ of
the nation, and yet he stops just short of proposing it as an alternative way in which to
conceive of Australia’s physical environment. In other words, it is an interesting idea
but not something upon which to act. Even in the case of scholars who are willing to
consider alternative ways in which to conceive of Australia, it seems there are very few
calling for the overthrow of nationalism from its position of prominence.
Nonetheless, there exists a perception that Australian scholars writing about
literary regionalism are interested in exactly this sort of revolutionary behaviour:
In Australia it has not been uncommon to find commentators payingmore attention to what literature should be, than to what it actually is. Itis not just that creative writers and critics take a different approach totheir tasks; it is that critics not infrequently look for something inliterature which reflects their own experience or accords with theirsympathies; while writers search their subjects for the unexpected truthsthey might reveal. So any trend one might detect towards regionalism
82Patrick Buckridge, ‘Nationality and Australian Literature’, in Australian Studies: A Survey, ed. James
Walter (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989), 153.83Bruce Grant, The Australian Dilemma: A New Kind of Western Society (Rushcutters Bay: Macdonald
Futura Australia, 1983), 126.
50
and away from nationalism in literary values, is likely to be encouragedby commentators, rather than insisted upon by writers.84
The ludicrousness of this statement should be immediately evident, as this thesis clearly
demonstrates that there are remarkably few scholars, or ‘commentators’, advocating
literary regionalism in Australia. Certainly, scholars who would supplant nationalism
with regionalism have been shown to be a rare breed.
In fact, some scholars maintain that, in Australia, writers have done more to
support the cause of literary regionalism than has ever been done by ‘commentators’:
Canadian literary critics do not have such a distaste for regionalliterature. In discussing this difference, Gillian Whitlock identifies thesuccessful construction of an Australian identity which helped to cut thecultural umbilical cord to Europe from the 1890s. This successfuldeployment of the bush myth, as Russel Ward describes it, has producedin Australia a focus on the national literary tradition to the exclusion ofregional variations in that tradition. This is, as Whitlock and SusanMcKernan note, a characteristic of Australian literary criticism, notAustralian writing. It is not that we do not have literary texts that arerichly textured by specific localities; it is that the attention of criticsfocuses on the national or universal characteristics of these texts.85
Chilla Bulbeck’s assertion directly contradicts Kramer’s earlier comment. In fact,
Kramer herself (perhaps inadvertently) provides further ammunition for the opinion that
it is Australian writers, rather than ‘commentators’ as maintained above, who are most
interested in literary regionalism:
Henry Lawson and Joseph Furphy seemed, to the architects of literarynationalism, to be writers who clearly met its aspirations. Yet both areintensely regional writers. Neither could claim to speak for the nation asa whole. ... If they seem to be representatively Australian, it is becausethe local origins of their work have been transcended by their capacityfor generalising experience; or for suggesting that the life they know islarger than itself. We are asked to accept the part for the whole.86
This excerpt reveals the ability of nationalism to usurp even the most obvious symbols
of literary regionalism. With such vast powers and influence, it is no wonder Australian
scholars have been hesitant to propose regionalism as an alternative to nationalism and a
84Kramer, 95.85Bulbeck, 73–74.86Kramer, 90.
51
new way of conceiving of Australia’s physical environment. Long before literary
regionalism appeared in the scholarly record, however, writers most likely began an
informal dialogue on the subject in forums such as the state-based Writers’ Centres and
local branches of the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW).
Clearly, the subject of nationalism holds great sway in Australian culture.
Scholars interested in literary regionalism in Australia have not presented any explicit
and comprehensive critique of its influence, but that does not mean it has gone
uncriticised:
For those who fought so very hard for the establishment of subjects inAustralian literature—the existence of which we now take for granted—arguing for the distinctiveness of Australian literature was part of abroader strategy of cultural assertion which was appropriate to itstime. ... My suggestion is that the isolationism seen as necessary to thefoundation of the discipline has been perpetuated long beyond the timeof its usefulness, a residual assumption that subtly shapes some of ourways of thinking and ‘doing’ Australian literature into the 1990s.87
Leigh Dale is, of course, alluding to the use of distinctive creative output as a necessary
justification for the drawing of borders. In this case, ‘the distinctiveness of Australian
literature’ is used to justify national borders, which are in turn used to justify ‘the
establishment of subjects in Australian literature’. Dale’s point is, however, that this
particular logic ‘has been perpetuated long beyond the time of its usefulness’. She goes
on to say that this
is the real reason why Australian literary criticism seems somewhatisolated: because the basic premises of arguments for our existence,appropriate to the circumstances when they were first introduced (asingle and clear hegemony) no longer make sense in the climate oftheoretical pluralism, the interest in interdisciplinarity, and the volatileand often productive relationships between literary and cultural studies.88
While Dale does not identify regionalism as an alternative to the nationalist model, it
seems a likely candidate, as it would most certainly ‘make sense in the climate of
theoretical pluralism’. After all, literary regionalism is premised upon a breakdown of
87Leigh Dale, ‘New Directions: Introduction’, Australian Literary Studies 19, no. 2 (Oct. 1999): 135.88Ibid.
52
the monolithic belief in ‘the nation’ into a more varied and even amorphous formulation
of ‘the region’. Also, though this idea has not yet been explored in any depth, later
articulations of literary regionalism engage with ‘the interest in interdisciplinarity’ and
the ‘often productive relationships between literary and cultural studies’.
C. The region in the world
The last two excerpts in the above section of this thesis come from an article
written by Leigh Dale, which was published in a 1999 edition of Australian Literary
Studies. However, the sort of critique of nationalism contained in these excerpts was
first heard in the late 1980s (though it did not become common until the 1990s). In the
former decade, nationalism presented a barrier to the scholarly uptake of literary
regionalism, as was detailed in ‘Nationalism and the region’. These two ways of
apprehending Australia’s physical environment—nationalism and regionalism—and
using it as a critical framework to enhance the appreciation of Australian literature did
not often come into direct conflict; nonetheless, nationalism and regionalism served as
implicit critiques of one another.
In the 1990s, however, critiques of nationalism (like Dale’s) resulted in
internationalism, universalism or globalism supplanting nationalism as the most
significant challenge to literary regionalism in Australia. These terms, like
‘parochialism’ and ‘provincialism’, are used almost interchangeably by critics. (For the
purposes of this thesis and the sake of simplicity, however, ‘internationalism’ will
hereafter be used unless the situation requires otherwise.) Furthermore, they are like
nationalism in that they do not often explicitly engage with the terms of literary
regionalism. Instead, they serve as a challenge to it by virtue of their replacement of
nationalism as arguably the most influential perspective or critical framework applied to
Australia’s physical environment by the literary and scholarly communities.
53
Perhaps the only published source that openly examines the interactions of
internationalism and regionalism in Australian literature was written by Bennett in the
late 1990s:
The shift in one generation from local to global has been astounding. Inthe culture of literary criticism and theory, this shift has been signified bya move from an interest in physical ‘place’ or ‘setting’ to notions of a‘site’, where ideologies clash and compete, to the most recently emergingconcept of a cyberspace ‘syte’, where a simultaneous interactive theatreof gossip, opinion and compared impression of what is ‘new’ occurs.89
The interest in ‘physical “place” or “setting”’ that Bennett refers to is, of course, the
interest in regionalism, while the interest in a ‘site’ is more typical of internationalism.
It would seem that ‘the shift in one generation from local to global’ has been more than
‘astounding’; it has also largely escaped the notice of the Australian scholarly
community. This fact is perhaps more indicative of just how far literary regionalism has
slipped from the minds of Australian scholars, than it is of the importance of
internationalism as a category for critical interrogation in the early 21st century.
Internationalism did not, of course, suddenly appear as a fully formed concept in
the 1990s, thus displacing the dominant nationalist critique of literary regionalism.
Rather, internationalism has always been present in one form or another in the
conversation about literary regionalism in Australia. At the unofficial inception of this
conversation in 1978, for example, there were very few instances of scholars actually
criticising literary regionalism on this basis, but speakers nonetheless made preemptive
responses to the hypothetical charges laid by internationalism. These early criticisms of
internationalism were characterised by a glib dismissal of the subject, especially as a
challenge to the values of literary regionalism:
‘Internationalism’ is generally the reflection of a dominant culture group—which, as with the art market, is constantly on the lookout for novelty.The provincial ‘internationalist’ may well find himself rejected in favourof some authentic regionalist—Mark Strand’s enthusiasm for the work of
89Bruce Bennett, ‘Home and Away: Reconciling the Local and the Global’, Salt 11 (1999): 241.
54
Les Murray, while remarking that ‘Robert Adamson would not last fiveand a half minutes in New York’ is case in point.90
Clearly, this statement does not represent careful consideration of internationalism. Part
of the reason Shapcott and his contemporary, like-minded critical brethren did not
produce any sound criticism of internationalism was that these ideas lacked a critical
structure to criticise. However, perceptions of internationalism amongst the Australian
scholarly community would soon change.
Of course, as was stated earlier, it is rare that Australian scholars invoke the
terms ‘internationalism’ and ‘regionalism’ in the same breath. After all, literary
regionalism effectively disappeared from the scholarly discourse at the end of the
1980s, just as internationalism was coming to the fore. Whether internationalism is
responsible for the decline in the currency of literary regionalism is largely a matter of
speculation, but in recent times it has certainly presented itself as an influential and
penetrating criticism of the popular 1980s critical framework. It is more common,
however, for scholars to compare examples of Australian regionalism with examples
from other parts of the world. In this way, rather than more explicitly through the
critical framework of internationalism, they examine ‘the region in the world’.
It has never been easy, however, to make a case for the relevance of regionalism
in Australia, and it is particularly difficult when making comparisons with other
countries:
There was no real comparison to be made between regionalism in India,with its strong historical and linguistic basis, and geographical orpolitical regionalism in Australia.91
If by ‘regionalism’ we mean that we can cut this country up intodivisions as historically, socially, politically and linguistically different asNorth America’s Eastern Seaboard, Deep South, Middle West and SouthFar West, then clearly we are deluding ourselves. We do not have suchdiversity in Australia.92
90Thomas Shapcott, ‘People Placed in Time, Seminar Postscript’, Westerly 23, no. 4 (Dec. 1978): 70.
91Kramer, 89.92Ward, 70.
55
Kramer and Ward clearly believe regionalism is irrelevant in Australia. Another scholar
writes, ‘Australian literature is in the process of developing regional characteristics
comparable to (say) the difference between American writing of the East and the West
Coast’, before conceding Kramer and Ward’s point: ‘We do not appear to have reached
a similarly clear distinction yet.’93 As for why a ‘similarly clear distinction’ has not yet
been reached, the lack of regional diversity is often mentioned, with particular reference
to the lack of diversity represented by regional dialects comparable to those found in the
United States:
A. G. Mitchell and his associates have identified the distinctive featuresof an Australian accent and shown that, with some nation-widedifferences in social class but very little other variation, it spans thecontinent. On the lexical side, though regional differences are greater,the position is not dissimilar.94
Of course, this just means other features are saddled with a greater responsibility for
defining regional borders.
W. H. New and Bennett suggest some possible features:
Here is possibly a point of most relevant overlap between WesternCanada and Western Australia: the function of the resistance touniformity.95
It is perhaps significant that both [Willa] Cather and [Peter] Cowan are‘Western’ writers on their respective continents, establishing an aestheticwhich they both have felt appropriate to the vast, largely unpeopledspaces they inhabited.96
W. H. New and Bennett have both identified examples of overlap between literary
regionalism in Australia and that of other countries with a more established regional
tradition—Canada and the United States, respectively. It is perhaps notable that the
cross-cultural examples that do the most to justify articulations of regionalism in
93Manfred Jurgensen, ed., Queensland: Words and All (Brisbane: Outrider/Phoenix Publications, 1993), x.94J. F. Burrows, ‘Fossicking about the Territory: Testing for Specimens of an Australian Narrative
Dialect’, in Reconnoitres: Essays in Australian Literature in Honour of G. A. Wilkes, ed. Margaret Harrisand Elizabeth Webby (Sydney: Oxford University Press and Sydney University Press, 1992), 36.95W. H. New, ‘Rearticulating West’, Westerly 35, no. 3 (1990): 15.
96Bruce Bennett, Australian Compass, 120.
56
Australia both come from so-called ‘first-world’, (predominantly) English-speaking,
Western nations, rather than from an Asian nation, for example, which it has already
been pointed out has a much stronger ‘historical and linguistic basis’ for regionalism.
Similar to the way in which the term ‘regionalism’ is used, the use of the term
‘internationalism’ in the context of this thesis does not represent a narrowly conceived
and well-defined critical framework or body of criticism. Instead, it represents a diverse
cross-section of ideas intended to position contemporary thought in relation to a certain
understanding of the physical environment. It stands as a counterpoint to nationalism,
which, as was demonstrated earlier, purports to be the most productive method of
apprehending Australia’s physical environment and employing it as a critical framework
for the study of literature. Of course, internationalism posits a different and necessarily
larger understanding of the physical environment. In order to establish the credibility of
this framework, internationalist criticisms of Australian literary regionalism do not all
hinge on comparisons to regionalism in other countries.
Some criticisms focus on the representation of minority or marginalised groups
in regional literature or within a conception of literary regionalism. In other words, they
accuse Australian literary regionalism of promoting only the majority culture’s interests
—that is, the interests of the white, Anglo-Celtic, male. In doing so, they implicitly
criticise the nationalist agenda (in addition to more explicitly criticising regionalism)
and align themselves with internationalism. For example:
The presupposed commonality of regional interests isolates writers withbroader concerns and obstructs or denies those potentially fruitful literarycrossovers, such as might be expected to occur in bi- or multi-lingualcommunities.97
While Australia is not generally thought of as a ‘bi- or multi-lingual’ nation, there are
certainly ethnic groups residing in all of its states and territories for whom English is not
97Philip Mosley, ‘“Walloon Literature”: Some Questions of Regionalism in a Bi-lingual Culture’, in The
Literature of Region and Nation, ed. R. P. Draper (London: Macmillan, 1989), 236.
57
their first language. Indeed, English was not the first language of the original
inhabitants of this land. It is possible, however, to regard the above excerpt as speaking
by implication for all marginalised cultures and communities—even those for whom
English is their first and only language—as surely they, too, have ‘broader concerns’.
Many scholars contest this idea of ‘regional interests’ obstructing or denying the
voices of minority and marginalised community members:
The general concentration of critical attention upon local or regionalliteratures is part of the centrifugal process by which the myth of a GreatNational Canon has been deconstructed. Necessarily, the process hasdrawn appreciation to the cultural works of ethnic, linguistic or racialminorities—to the words of speakers of under-languages or -dialects, tothe ideas of groups out of cultural power.98
Clearly, Mark S. Madoff believes that the ‘concentration of critical attention upon local
or regional literatures’ can benefit not only the so-called ‘majority culture’, but also
‘groups out of cultural power’. It should be noted, however, that when he writes about
the ‘general concentration of critical attention upon local or regional literatures’, he is
referring to Canadian and not Australian literature. Nonetheless, there is nothing in this
statement that would imply it is applicable only to Canadian literature, and surely this is
not the case. If regional literature is not viewed as a monolithic entity, whereby specific
traits (for example, exclusive attention to the local, stylistically less experimental) are
said to embody the regional, then it can be said that literary regionalism encourages
diversity rather than limits it.
D. The role of universities
As was previously noted, Australian writers have been among the most energetic
advocates of the various formulations of regionalism and regional literature. Australian
scholars willing to defend literary regionalism, on the other hand, are remarkably thin
98Mark S. Madoff, ‘The British Columbian History of Place’, in The Literature of Region and Nation, ed.
R. P. Draper (London: Macmillan, 1989), 220.
58
on the ground. Having already presented many scholarly criticisms of literary
regionalism in the previous sections of Part III (‘Challenging early regionalism’), this
section looks at what advocates of literary regionalism have to say about the scholarly
community more generally. This may seem like a departure from the stated purpose of
Part III, which is to present criticisms of early regionalism, and yet putting these
challenges into perspective undoubtedly assists in this aim. By giving advocates of
literary regionalism the right of reply, it becomes possible to understand how a shared
place of origin (in other words, the university) might have resulted in commonalities
between scholars’ explicit but otherwise various criticisms, as well as (and perhaps
more importantly) how it might have resulted in a generalised disinterest in the subject
amongst the scholarly community.
Bennett, as the single most vocal scholarly advocate of literary regionalism in
Australia, has some heated words on the subject:
In neglecting to give adequate attention to Australians’ understanding ofthe places, regions and communities they have inhabited, Australianuniversities have failed in an important aspect of their role as leaders ofsignificant thought. More concerned, in their humanities faculties, asleast, with a narrowly based criticism than with creativity, they havereinforced the tendencies of a colonised culture.99
Bennett’s criticism of not just a few vocal, anti-regionalist scholars, but rather the
entirety of the Australian university system, rings loudly in the empty auditorium
reserved for discussions on this subject. Undeterred, he continues:
It is clear that the wish of many academics in the humanities atAustralian universities has been to remain disengaged from localconditions and local cultural expression. More common have beenjudgementalism and a tendency to ridicule local achievements.Supporting their outlook has been a universalist view of knowledge,which remains unimpressed with relativised notions of culture-specificknowledge or beliefs.100
99Bruce Bennett, Australian Compass, 12.
100Ibid., 13.
59
According to Bennett, Australian universities have ‘reinforced the tendencies of a
colonised culture’ and ‘ridiculed local achievements’, while promoting ‘a universalist
view of knowledge’ the implications of which were charted in the previous section
(‘The region in the world’) of this chapter. He blames the universities, rather than
individuals within the system, for fostering a culture that is antithetical to the ideals of
literary regionalism.
In another article, Bennett criticises not only the Australian university system
but also the theories, such as ‘structuralism and deconstructionism’, that are so often
embraced by its humanities faculties:
One of the disappointing shortcomings of contemporary criticalmovements, including most versions of structuralism anddeconstructionism, is their neglect of place as a serious considerationeither within writers’ work or as a factor in what, and how, they write.This general lack of interest in topography, geography, climate, thespatial relations of town to cities and seas, the composition ofpopulations and their movements seems to derive from a commonacademic misconception that ideas float free of all these stimuli andconstraints. Common experience, and writers’ own accounts suggestotherwise. It will be obvious that I don’t accept the fashionable view thatthe author, outside his or her work, should be dead to the critic. Asstudents of literature I believe we should be prepared to look moreclosely at writers’ statements about place, (as about other aspects of theirwork), both as features within literary works and as factors in theirgenesis.101
Bennett appears to attribute the various criticisms of literary regionalism heard in Part
III (‘Challenging early regionalism’) of this chapter to the ‘disappointing shortcomings
of contemporary critical movements’, which have led to a ‘neglect of place as a serious
consideration’. Then, in a most damning conclusion, he observes that it was at
universities that these ‘movements’ first found fertile soil, took root and began to grow.
‘Contemporary critical movements’ and their implications for the study of literary
regionalism are further discussed in Chapter 3 in a section titled ‘Literary theory’.
101Bruce Bennett, Place, Region and Community, 2–3.
60
IV. The importance of the reader to a new understanding of regionalism
The conversation about literary regionalism in Australia died down in the early
1990s, but a few scholars and writers had previously hinted at a (largely unrealised)
future direction for the study of this subject. Perhaps in response to the criticisms
sustained by earlier formulations, the collective intellectual weight of these individuals
seemed to gravitate towards a new aspect of literary regionalism. Once again, this was
not an organised critical or scholarly movement, but rather an unspoken consensus that
appears to have developed in response to larger changes in the intellectual culture. For
the first time since literary regionalism in Australia was unofficially launched at the
1978 seminar as a subject for debate, there was a suggestion that the physical
environment was not necessarily the most important aspect of regionalism. Instead, this
new formulation of literary regionalism stressed the importance of the reader.
Some scholars were already challenging the idea of the physical region as a
source of identity in the mid-1980s, looking instead to metaphysical manifestations of
the region:
Efforts to ascribe fundamental regional differences to environmentalfactors, partly asserted on the ground that culture is based on the personalexperiences of writers, artists, and others, are not completely satisfyingbecause there is a multiplicity of local variation.
As a result, one suggestion that emerged during the debate wasthat regionalism in Canada, for instance, in the West and in theMaritimes, is based on a mythicisation about common interests, ratherthan on reality.102
The possibility of literary regionalism deriving its imaginative powers from the
metaphysical—or, as Richard Preston puts it, from ‘a mythicisation about common
interests’—rather than the physical, upsets the balance of ideas discussed up to this
point. In particular, it brings into question the emphasis placed on the role of the
physical environment as arguably the dominant concern of Australian literary
regionalism in the late 1970s and ‘80s. It is notable, however, that a majority of the
102Preston, 5.
61
conversations along these lines that have reached Australia were born and bred
overseas, usually in that hotbed of literary regionalism, Canada.
Of the few home-grown examples of this interest in the metaphysical
manifestations of literary regionalism, most of them were articulated by Bennett (who,
not coincidentally, has ties to Canada and has written articles comparing Australian and
Canadian literary regionalism):
Let me now raise some of the problems involved in analysing thequestion of literary regionalism. ... First among the problems is atemptation to swallow the physical geographer’s notion of region and tolook for unique characteristics. The term allows more flexibility thanthat. For literary and cultural purposes region may be an area, space orplace of more or less definite extent or character and, more figuratively, astate or condition of the mind, having a certain character or subject tocertain influences.103
Bennett clearly understands that the most common perception of regionalism in
Australia is the ‘geographer’s notion of regionalism’ (in other words, the physical
environment) and is looking to expand upon this perception. However, he provides no
explanation of how exactly the region may be understood ‘more figuratively [as] a state
or condition of the mind’. It is not that Bennett’s articulation of literary regionalism is
necessarily wrong, but that it has not yet been fully conceived.
Bennett has attempted to justify literary regionalism in terms of the metaphysical
on several occasions, the earliest of which were interesting and yet still insufficient. In
this excerpt, Bennett alludes to a book, Articulating West, by the Canadian literary
scholar W. H. New:
The attractive flexibility of New’s procedures is also apparent in hisinclusion of contemporary literature, which others might exclude on thegrounds that it is insufficiently place-oriented. New comments on amovement in the second half of the 20th century away from an ‘artisticlanguage out of the real landscapes among which writers moved’ to ‘thelandscape that is language itself’. In this process, the geographicalfrontier was transformed from a physical to a metaphysical space. Whileit is important that traditional definitions of a regional literature should
103Bruce Bennett, Place, Region and Community, 13.
62
be extended to accommodate such perceptions, certain questions mightalso be asked of the modernisation process. For example, have westernwriters been more conservative in matters of literary experiment thantheir eastern equivalents (as appears the case in Australia but not inCanada)? How do these different concepts of place relate to highereducation, travel, mass communications and the increasing urbanisationof writers?104
Bennett is correct in thinking that the ‘traditional definitions of regional literature
should be extended to accommodate [new] perceptions’, and yet the attitude towards
‘literary experiment’ of western versus eastern writers would seem to have little to do
with the move from a physical to a metaphysical articulation of regionalism.
Of course, it has already been noted that Australian scholars, including Bennett,
were on average not adequately equipped in the 1980s to answer questions about how
and why literary regionalism could be reconceived as something that transcends the
physical, where it had resided for so many years in both scholarly debate and the
popular imagination. Yet, Bennett has explicitly connected literary regionalism and the
role of the reader:
It is possible to make literary judgements about the value of certain kindsof writing about place; with the proviso that value should be related tofunction. Although local communities would place different valuationsupon certain work according to criteria such as its relevance to theirconcerns, its exactness of detail or the frequency with which it namesrecognisable land-marks, the literary critic may also make appropriateinterpretations of the work or works and evaluate technique in relation totheme. Discrepancies will occur: for instance, readers in a country townmay give a special accolade to ‘local colour’ while the university literarycritical community may give higher value to linguistic complexity andoverall coherence of the work. Each of these institutionalised responsescan learn from the other and thereby learn more about the function andvalue of literature. Reader-response theory encourages this kind ofanalysis.105
This excerpt from a 1985 publication reveals Bennett’s early interest in the relationship
between the reader and ‘certain kinds of writing about place’. It does not, however,
104Bruce Bennett, ‘Concepts’, 78.105Bruce Bennett, Place, Region and Community, 32.
63
explicitly and summarily prioritise the reader ahead of the physical environment in a
conception of literary regionalism, though it hints at this possibility.
It was only a few more years before Australian scholars were regularly invoking
the role of the reader. As usual, Bennett provides the most succinct overview of this
trend:
Now, at the beginning of the 1990s, I believe that readers should bebrought more firmly into this equation. For not only has reader-powerexpressed itself in an increasingly commercialised marketplace, but it hasalso made its mark theoretically in projections of readers as makers ofmeaning and even as rewriters of texts. In this process, the role projectedfor writers has, regrettably been diminished.106
While I disagree with Bennett’s last statement about the diminishing role of the writer
(for reasons that will be explained in Chapter 3), I otherwise agree wholeheartedly with
his sentiments. Of course, these sentiments are a response to recent changes of
emphasis in literary theory in Australia—changes that included ‘projections of readers
as makers of meaning’. This excerpt also recognises the role of the ‘increasingly
commercialised marketplace’ (by which Bennett presumably means developments in
book publishing, distribution, rights sales, and so forth) as it is shaped by ‘reader-
power’. In Bennett’s invocation of both contemporary critical theory and the
marketplace, for the first time, an advocate of literary regionalism in Australia has
presented the necessary justifications for a conception of regionalism that transcends the
physical. Bennett’s acknowledgement of the importance of the reader represents the
potential for significant advances in thinking on the subjects of regionalism and regional
literature. Yet, the above excerpt is from an article about Australian literary journals,
not literary regionalism. Neither Bennett nor any other Australian scholar has explicitly
made this connection between literary regionalism and the role of the reader with the
106Bruce Bennett, Australian Compass, 213.
64
full benefit of the mature understanding of reader-response theory that developed in
Australia in the 1990s.
Nonetheless, it must be acknowledged how far Bennett’s thinking on this issue
has come since literary regionalism in Australia first addressed the role of the reader:
This is also the ‘flattery of realism’—the pleasure of being written about,which can be a relationship developed between reader and writer on aregional basis which has nothing to do with literary values as weunderstand them.107
This excerpt comes from the 1978 seminar organised by Fremantle Arts Centre Press,
and in it Moorhouse summarily dismisses the idea of a relationship between the regional
writer and the regional reader as having ‘nothing to do with literary values’.
Yet, similar to Bennett’s invocation of ‘reader-power’ as a significant force in
‘an increasingly commercialised marketplace’, other Australian scholars have asserted
that the real influence of the reader can be found in her relationship with the publishing
industry, both as someone who can influence this industry and is influenced by it:
The remarks above serve to demonstrate how simplifying it would be toattempt to understand the literature of the period just in terms of so manyindividual texts or individual authors. What was published and how itwas read depended first on the sheer availability of papers like theBulletin; the forms that writing would be liable to take, and the subject-matter it would consider, would then be influenced by the styles of theparticular paper or magazine and by the kinds of audience it sought toaddress.108
While this excerpt addresses literary production in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
in Australia, it is safe to generalise the authors’ assertions to the present day and to the
effects the modern ‘paper or magazine’ (and to this I would add ‘publishing house’)
might have on the way in which a text is conceived, written, received, and read. For
example, with limited avenues for publication, a writer might be ‘influenced by the
107Moorhouse, 66.108David Carter and Gillian Whitlock, ‘Institutions of Australian Literature’, in Australian Studies: A
Survey, ed. James Walter (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989), 119.
65
styles of the particular paper or magazine’ or publishing house, and write a different text
than she might otherwise have written. David Carter and Gillian Whitlock continue:
A study of literature which concentrates merely on individual texts andindividual authors will over-simplify the literature’s social context andeffects; its relation to other, political, aesthetic and intellectual,discourses; and the degree to which its very textual details aredetermined by the options and constraints offered by available forms ofpublication and dissemination.109
This excerpt not only addresses some of the theoretical concerns alluded to in this
section of the thesis, but it also hints at the need for publishing opportunities and the
possible effects on regional literature (and on readers of this literature) if such
opportunities are lacking or absent. The ‘study of literature which concentrates merely
on individual texts and individual authors’, which Carter and Whitlock warn ‘will over-
simplify the literature’s social context and effects’, is an allusion to the strong New
Critical and Leavisite traditions in Australian literary criticism. The authors would
likely prefer ‘projections of readers as makers of meaning and even as rewriters of
texts’, or a contextualist approach.
By engaging with the reader, literary regionalism in Australia establishes ‘its
relation to other ... discourses’. In particular, literary regionalism can re-establish its
relevance in the scholarly and popular imagination by engaging with the influence on
the reader of publishing and literary theory—not forgetting the reciprocal nature of this
interaction and the reader’s potential influence on these features. Advocates of literary
regionalism in Australia, by addressing the issue of publishing, acknowledge that
regions are at least in part defined by their access to publishing opportunities, which is
to say access to readers and the public imagination. By engaging with contemporary
literary theory, they further assert that the public imagination is of utmost importance to
literary study; therefore, they cannot be limited to a definition of literary regionalism
that is exclusively grounded in the physical environment. Clearly, without an
109Ibid., 134.
66
understanding of the reader as integral to future formulations of literary regionalism in
Australia, this idea would not have survived into the 1990s, much less the 21st century.
67
68
Chapter 2
Regional anthologies: A piece of the historical context of regionalism
I. An introduction to regional anthologies
On the subject of regional anthologies, Bruce Bennett writes in his chapter on
‘Literary Culture since Vietnam: A New Dynamic’ in The Oxford Literary History of
Australia:
Regional anthologies have been more numerous in contemporaryAustralia than any other kind. Frequently published in the state or regionwhich provides their focus, these anthologies have often been designedto raise awareness of the landscapes, people and ways of living of theregion. Western Australia has been the leading contributor to a regionalliterary consciousness, but all states and territories, and a number of sub-regions have been represented, especially those from outside the ‘goldentriangle’ of Sydney–Melbourne–Canberra.110
Regional anthologies are not addressed in earlier chapters of The Oxford Literary
History of Australia, because literary regionalism does not become an Australian
preoccupation until the 1970s—the very point in time (post-Vietnam War) at which
Bennett’s chapter begins its analysis. This evidence suggests that the priorities of
Australian literature prior to the 1970s did not involve identifying borders in order to
discriminate units smaller than the nation (in other words, regions) for the purposes of
critical consideration.
While Bennett refers to the frequent publication of regional anthologies in his
chapter on Australian fiction since 1965, Dennis Haskell tackles the topic in a
subsequent chapter of The Oxford Literary History of Australia on Australian poetry. In
this chapter, titled simply, ‘Poetry since 1965’, Haskell writes:
One feature of the contemporary period has been greater awareness ofpoetry outside the mainstream, principally because of region, gender orethnicity. Regional awareness, and a refusal to be swamped by the majorpopulations centres, have resulted in the publication of a number ofanthologies concerned with a particular area of this large country.111
110Bruce Bennett, ‘Literary Culture since Vietnam: A New Dynamic’, in The Oxford Literary History of
Australia, ed. Bruce Bennett and Jennifer Strauss (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998), 258.111Dennis Haskell, ‘Poetry since 1965’, in The Oxford Literary History of Australia, ed. Bruce Bennett
69
Haskell goes on to claim that
the publication of these regional anthologies is an important phenomenonof the period, allowing some new voices to emerge, providing a fullerdepiction of Australian poetry than that of the Sydney–Melbourne basedanthologies, and reminding us that in the age of the global village peopleoften gain a sense of identity from communities (plural) smaller than thatof the nation.112
It seems Haskell believes globalisation is at least partly responsible for the renewed (or
simply new?) focus on the region in Australia. In other words, he believes globalisation
has given rise to an equal and opposite reaction—the sometimes parochial desire to
recapture a sense of community, place and region.
Other scholars have different theories about the origins of this interest in literary
regionalism in Australia. For example, David Headon writes in the introduction to an
anthology of literature from the Northern Territory, North of the Ten Commandments: A
Collection of Northern Territory Literature:
The Literature Board of the Australia Council, since its inception duringthe Whitlam Labor Government years (1972–75), has played a majorrole in the encouragement of cultural diversification. One important by-product has been the renewed interest in ‘regional’ literature.113
In Headon’s opinion, it was the establishment of the Literature Board of the Australia
Council that provided the necessary impetus to new interest in literary regionalism.
This explanation for the genesis of Australian interest in this topic will be further
explored in Chapter 3 of this thesis in a subsection titled ‘Government as an instrument
in the field of cultural production’.
Whatever the explanation for its genesis, beginning in the 1970s, regional
anthologies became much more than just an occasional or parochial endeavour, which is
what they had been prior to this date. Then, in the 1980s, there was a boom in the
and Jennifer Strauss (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998), 272.112Ibid., 273.113David Headon, ed., North of the Ten Commandments: A Collection of Northern Territory Literature
(Sydney: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991), xix.
70
production of regional anthologies that mirrored the ascendancy (outlined in Chapter 1
of this thesis) of critical and popular interest in the subject of literary regionalism.
These anthologies actively promoted ideas associated with regionalism and regional
literature and participated in a larger critical debate on the subject. This new sensibility
is perhaps attributable to the rise of the academic in Australia around this time, as
universities and those employed by them gained esteem in the larger community, both
national and international. Also, the flourishing of Australian literature as a subject of
scholarly research and teaching—the first full course in Australian literature was
introduced by A. D. Hope in 1955 at Canberra University College (later Australian
National University), but such courses did not become common for many more years—
meant there was a larger audience for this type of publication.
II. States and territories other than Western Australia
This is a summary discussion of regional anthologies produced in Australian
states and territories other than Western Australia. It is meant to provide a context for
the more comprehensive discussion of regional anthologies in Western Australia that
follows, so it contains many generalisations. I make no claims to comprehensiveness in
the following sections; many regional anthologies receive such limited distribution
outside the state or region in which they originated, that it is nearly impossible to
account for their existence unless one resides in that state or region at the time of their
release and closely attends to such matters. Nonetheless, this is an accurate portrait of
regional variation in Australia based on a careful study of the available regional
anthologies. It also identifies the various trends associated with this form that
transcended regional variation and contributed in important ways to the evolution of
literary regionalism in Australia.
71
Ken Gelder and Paul Salzman observe one of the most important among these
trends:
In the period under discussion here [1970–88] ... writers have beenparticularly interested in defining themselves against other places, andidentifying with a place that they can, however critically, identify ashome. Regional anthologies have proliferated.114
Clearly, the rising tide of interest in literary regionalism in Australia in the late 1970s
and 1980s (as outlined in Chapter 1 of this thesis) was matched by a proliferation of
regional anthologies published during this same period. Throughout this period, and
even in more recent years, it is possible to trace in the introductions to these anthologies
the growth of an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the processes involved in
identifying, defining and producing a regional literature and sense of regional identity.
This evolution is especially apparent across the breadth of Western Australian
anthologies, considering the large numbers that have been published. However, it is
also evidenced in regional anthologies published in other Australian states and
territories, in particular those with a similarly vibrant regional culture and the means to
publish books, such as South Australia and Queensland.
A. Northern Territory
Regional anthologies concerned with the Northern Territory include the
aforementioned North of the Ten Commandments: A Collection of Northern Territory
Literature, which was published in 1991 and contains a wide variety of writings, from
poetry, short stories and novel excerpts, to diaries, letters and newspaper items. It also
includes jokes, yarns and Aboriginal song cycles. Another regional anthology
concerned with the Northern Territory, Extra-territorial: Stories and Poems from the
Northern Territory Literary Awards, was published in 1996.115 The occasional (in other
114Ken Gelder and Paul Salzman, The New Diversity: Australian Fiction 1970–88 (Melbourne: McPheeGribble, 1989), 87.115Derek Wright, ed., Extra-territorial: Stories and Poems from the Northern Territory Literary Awards
72
words, created for a special occasion) aspect of Extra-territorial makes it qualitatively
different from other regional anthologies, as it implicitly redirects attention from the
region to the occasion.
This difference can best be understood by examining the approaches taken by
the two editors as expressed in their introductions. In the introduction to North of the
Ten Commandments, for example, Headon maintains that
the literature of the Northern Territory consistently confronts the readerwith paradox and contradiction, idiosyncrasy and absurdity, as some ofthe writers cited in the preliminary epigraphs suggest. Indeed, any bookon the subject purporting to be representative and historically accurate isvirtually bound to use juxtaposition as its main principle of organisation:black/white, paradise/purgatory, Christian/coloniser, church/Dreaming,spirit/flesh, civiliser/savage, Wet/Dry, oasis/desert, north/south—tomention only the most prominent. Through a rationale built on binaryopposites, North of the Ten Commandments attempts to do justice to theextraordinary diversity and grandeur of the region, and its myriadscribes. One thing is certain: the Northern Territory supplies more ofMark Twain’s ‘incredibilities’ of Australian history than any other area inthe entire country.116
In this excerpt, Headon asserts a construct that establishes ‘Northern Territory literature’
as a definite category with definite rules, specifically the characteristics of ‘paradox and
contradiction’. Of course, common sense would indicate that not all literature written in
the Northern Territory embodies these qualities, and not all literature that embodies
these qualities is written in the Northern Territory, but to make such a strong assertion of
regional particularity and inclusiveness—‘all of Northern Territory literature fits these
characteristics’—is typical both of a certain type of regional anthology and of the study
of regional literatures, more generally. Headon’s assertion of superiority—‘The
Northern Territory supplies more of Mark Twain’s “incredibilities” of Australian history
than any other area in the entire country’, and, elsewhere, ‘Northern Territory writing is
the most exciting expression of regional literature in the country for an assortment of
(Darwin: NTU Press, 1996).116Headon, xvii–xviii.
73
cultural, geographical, environmental and social reasons’117—is also typical of those
interested in literary regionalism and invested in a particular region.
In contrast, Wright’s introduction to Extra-territorial begins:
The present anthology contains a selection of winning, commended andshortlisted material from the 1994 and 1995 Northern Territory LiteraryAwards. These Awards consist of both local and national competitions,so the collection is not an anthology of Northern Territory writing and isnot intended as such. Since Territorian writers are often honoured in thenational as well as in the local competitions, however, they figureprominently in the volume and, appropriately, account for half of itscontents.118
Clearly, the emphasis of the anthology is on the competition, rather than any shared
characteristics in the works of writers from the Northern Territory. As the editor notes
near the end of his introduction, ‘if the Awards take the Territory to the nation, the
reciprocal process, by which the nation comes to the Territory, is equally important’.119
This is decidedly not the case in North of the Ten Commandments, where the emphasis
is on the region as an intrinsic and exclusionary whole. Nonetheless, Wright adds—the
impression is that he feels almost compelled to do so—that the judges of the contest
‘remarked on the strong sense of place’ and ‘the emphasis on experience peculiar to the
Northern Territory’ in the works by writers from the Northern Territory.120
It is worth noting that neither of the regional anthologies discussed here
questions the validity of equating the borders of the Northern Territory with the borders
of a literary region. Also, in spite of what the editors of these two anthologies claim is a
strong sense of place and regional identity, there does not exist an abundance of regional
anthologies originating in the Northern Territory—especially not during the period
identified above as a high water mark for the publication of such anthologies in other
Australian states and territories.121 The reasons for this are probably many and varied,
117Ibid., xix.118Derek Wright, 1.119Ibid.120Ibid.121Other anthologies of writing from the Northern Territory include: Marian Devitt, ed., True North:
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and any attempt to identify them at this point in the narrative would be largely
speculative.
B. Tasmania
Tasmania-based publishing house Twelvetrees Publishing Company published
Effects of Light: The Poetry of Tasmania, in 1985.122 Effects of Light adheres closely to
the model of North of the Ten Commandments, celebrating the region and its writers
rather than a special occasion. Also, Vivian Smith and Margaret Scott, the book’s
editors, make grand claims about the heritage and relative importance of Tasmanian
poetry: ‘Tasmania has a place in Australian literature quite out of proportion to its size
and population. More writers of interest have been born in the island than is generally
recognised.’123
Smith and Scott proceed to explicate the logic of their volume:
In this anthology we have attempted to represent the best work of poetsborn in Tasmania and of those from other parts of the world who havesettled at least temporarily in the island. We have also included anumber of poems which illustrate impressions that Tasmania and itssurrounding oceans and archipelagos have made upon poets who haveencountered these places only in brief visits or secondhand.124
In this instance, the editors of Effects of Light exceed the standard set by the Northern
Territory anthologies surveyed above—they explain the minimum requirements to be
considered for inclusion in their book, rather than taking for granted an understanding
of what it means to be a ‘Territorian’ or Tasmanian writer. This is an early attempt to
define what it takes to be included in a regional anthology.
Contemporary Writing from the Northern Territory (Darwin: CDU Press, 2004). Red on Red: ACollection of Contemporary Writing from the Northern Territory (Winnellie: Northern Territory Writers
Publishing Group, 2000). Marian Devitt, ed., Landmark (Darwin: Northern Territory Writers’ Centre andNTU Press, 1999). Bugs & Bliss: A Collection of Contemporary Northern Territory Writing (Winnellie:Northern Territory Writers Publishing Group, 1991).122Smith and Scott.123Ibid., i.124Ibid.
75
Aside from this example, Effects of Light adheres closely to the conventions
detailed above in regards to North of the Ten Commandments. These conventions,
which are typical of many regional anthologies, include a heightened sense of
importance and a belief in the distinctiveness of the region, both of which are
exemplified in the following excerpt:
The development of Tasmanian poetry can be seen as a kind ofsimplified replica, a sharper more highly-coloured version of mainlandcomplexity. The poetry of Tasmania, like that of Australia as a whole,begins with transportation ballads and includes examples of both themost nostalgic of convict songs and the most energetically rebellious.125
The comparison of Tasmanian poetry and the poetry of ‘Australia as a whole’—a
comparison that prompts the editors to reflect that the former is a ‘more highly-coloured
version’ of the latter—is a clear attempt by the editors of Effects of Light to imbue their
topic with a heightened sense of importance. Furthermore, the use of phrases such as
‘the most nostalgic’ and ‘the most energetically rebellious’ is evidence of an attempt to
establish the distinctiveness of the region. These phrases reveal the editors’ bias, since
it is surely impossible to prove levels of nostalgia and rebelliousness. Of course, in all
such statements the editors are trying to ‘sell’ their book.
Another hallmark of regional anthologies, which was found in North of the Ten
Commandments and can also be found here, is to define with great specificity and in a
limiting fashion the attributes of the regional writer:
Since the time of Louisa Anne Meredith at least, a poetry has emergedthat is specifically and characteristically Tasmanian. Its tone,customarily, is muted, pensive or intimate; its forms are often elegiac,meditative or lyrical; above all, its concern in many instances is with anouter world that is emblematic of an inner one, with the private colloquyand what Gwen Harwood has called ‘parables of fate’.126
The immense confidence with which the editors of Effects of Light make this
declaration belies an underlying uncertainty. Smith and Scott cannot possibly justify
125Ibid., ii.126Ibid., iii.
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this declaration in light of the great variety of texts contained within their selected
volume.
It is possible to understand the relatively limited output of regional anthologies
from the Northern Territory and Tasmania as a consequence of their lack of established
publishing houses.127 After all, as Bruce Bennett noted in his essay on Australian fiction
post-1965, regional anthologies are ‘frequently published in the state or region which
provides their focus’. In fact, Bennett understates the point: regional anthologies are
almost without exception published in ‘the state or region which provides their focus’.
That North of the Ten Commandments was published by Hodder & Stoughton in Sydney
is, perhaps, more indicative of the weakness of the Northern Territory’s publishing
industry than it is of any widespread success the volume might have been expected to
achieve.
Since the publication of Extra-territorial, Northern Territory University has
changed its name to Charles Darwin University; correspondingly, NTU Press has now
become CDU Press. While the name has changed, not much else has: neither CDU
Press, nor NTU Press before it, have ever been considered major Australian university
publishing houses. This list usually includes only University of Queensland Press,
University of New South Wales Press, Melbourne University Publishing, and University
of Western Australia Press. University publishing houses are subject to a unique set of
forces that will be more fully addressed in Chapter 4 in the section devoted to
University of Western Australia Press, but it is safe to say that writers from the Northern
Territory are not well served by local publishers.
Tasmanian book publishing is a similar story. Since the publication of Effects of
Light, Twelvetrees Publishing Company has ceased operation. It has been replaced by
127Other anthologies of writing from Tasmania include: Robyn Mathison and Lyn Reeves, eds., Moorilla
Mosaic: Contemporary Tasmanian Writing (Lauderdale: Bumble-bee Books, 2001). Carol Patterson andEdith Speers, eds., A Writer’s Tasmania (Dover: Esperance Press, 2000).
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numerous small presses—especially common are writer-owned presses, serving the
abundance of Tasmanian poets—but none with any far-reaching reputation (not to
mention distribution network). Few of these publishing houses enjoy a prestige
approaching even the limited amount once enjoyed by Twelvetrees. It is highly
questionable whether any of the publishing houses currently operating in Tasmania have
the necessary resources to assemble a regional anthology equal in quality to Effects of
Light. Also, considering their lack of prestige, it is unlikely they would be able to entice
a substantial number of Tasmanian writers, many of whom enjoy excellent literary
reputations in mainland Australia, to contribute to such a volume.
C. South Australia
In contrast to the relatively quiet literary cultures of the Northern Territory and
Tasmania, South Australia has been the site of numerous provocative literary
movements, most notably the Jindyworobaks and the Angry Penguins. Adelaide, in
particular, is considered by many to be a literary city, a reputation enhanced by its
longstanding Friendly Street poetry readings and the renowned biennial international
Adelaide Festival of Arts. South Australia is also home to the well-reputed Wakefield
Press, which has published three of the state’s most recent regional anthologies—of
poetry, fiction and essays. An earlier anthology, R. H. Morrison’s A Book of South
Australian Verse,128 was published in 1957 by Adelaide-based Mary Martin.129
A Book of South Australian Verse is unique as a regional anthology, because
Morrison possessed an understanding of regional literature that was unparalleled at the
time he was working. For example, he recognises that South Australian poetry exhibits
‘symptoms of insularity’ and ‘has not been entirely free from certain literary
128R. H. Morrison, ed., A Book of South Australian Verse (Adelaide: Mary Martin, 1957).
129Other anthologies of writing from South Australia include: Moya Costello and Barry Westburg, eds.,
Bringing the Water: New Writing from South Australia (Kent Town: South Australian Writers’ Centre,1993).
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indiscretions’, such as excessive pride in the local ‘indigenous stringybark, mulga,
waratah, and Sturt pea’.130 Furthermore, he is quick to note that while some critics ‘may
be able to discern all sorts of links in the work of those who have shared the background
of life in South Australia’, the ‘extent to which such things matter is a moot point’.131
Clearly, Morrison is not especially defensive of his stance or of his native state’s writers.
None of his rhetoric attempts to explain, however, why it is important to collect the
work of South Australian writers into a single volume; it is this exception that most
clearly marks the book as an early regional anthology. The most sophisticated of the
later anthologies will challenge such assumptions.
Twenty-nine years after the publication of Morrison’s anthology, South Australia
celebrated 150 years of statehood, thus inspiring the publication of a further two
regional anthologies. Both The Orange Tree: South Australian Poetry to the Present
Day132 and Unsettled Areas: Recent Short Fiction133 quietly note in their front matter that
they are ‘A South Australian Jubilee 150 publication’. However, no further mention is
made of this occasion, which means they need not be considered ‘occasional
publications’ in the manner of the Northern Territory’s Extra-territorial.
Instead, both books abide by many of the most basic precepts of the regional
anthology. To begin, the editors provide their justifications for the two books:
For a long time the discussion of Australian poetry focussed on theproblem of national identity: it worried about whether a poet should flashthe badge of Australianism or internationalism. Whilst a poetic creedmay keep a writer practising, the real poem is closer to home. It comesfrom where the poet lives, which may not be a place.134
A great deal of lively, imaginative and technically accomplished work isbeing written here by people with a wide variety of backgrounds andages. But little of it has so far been published because, as far as I can
130R. H. Morrison, 5.131Ibid.132Pearson and Churches.133Taylor, Unsettled Areas.134Pearson and Churches, xv.
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determine, this healthy and vigorous flowering of short fiction withinSouth Australia is a comparatively new phenomenon.135
The editors of both books also attempt to establish the superiority—or, at the very least,
the distinctiveness—of the texts they have anthologised. Pearson and Churches assert,
for example: ‘The growth of poetry in South Australia has reflected and often
anticipated the development of poetry within Australia.’136 Meanwhile, Taylor writes
that, though he could not identify a ‘peculiarly South Australian quality’,
certain preoccupations emerge clearly. One is childhood and the worldas seen through the eyes of a child, presented here in several cases withastonishing clarity. Another preoccupation is with age, and with theconfusions, the pathos and yet also the dignity of the very old.137
Taylor appears confused in his attempts to define a regional literature, perhaps because
he finds himself at cross-purposes. His statement about the lack of a ‘peculiarly South
Australian quality’ signals his desire to engage with and perhaps question the validity of
the burgeoning debate on this subject. Yet, he proceeds to present the anthologised
writers as sharing one or more distinctive traits, perhaps in response to pressures to
‘sell’ his book by emphasising how it is unique. Clearly, his statement about the
‘preoccupation’ of the anthologised writers with the themes of ‘childhood’ and ‘age’
could be made about almost any fiction written in any part of the world.
Published in 1995 by Wakefield Press, Southwords: Essays on South Australian
Literature examines many aspects of life and literature in South Australia and provides
an interesting perspective on the previously published regional anthologies.138 By the
mid-1990s, the conversation about literary regionalism in Australia had died down, but
Philip Butterss’s observations range across the origins and history of the movement, to
its contemporary significance:
135Taylor, Unsettled Areas, unnumbered.
136Pearson and Churches, xvi.137Taylor, Unsettled Areas, unnumbered.138Philip Butterss, ed., Southwords: Essays on South Australian Literature (Netley: Wakefield Press,
1995).
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The trend towards globalisation is itself, in part, responsible forcontinuing assertions of the importance of the regional and the local.Literary criticism has devoted increasing attention to the question ofregionalism in Australian literature over the past decade.139
It is now possible to say that the Sydney/bush opposition has been welland truly dismantled, but there remains a considerable focus on the eastcoast in the various ways that ‘Australian literature’ is constructed.140
Overlapping with this focus on regionalism is postmodernism’s interestin the local, as a counterpoint to the forces of globalisation.141
Southwords clearly exemplifies a more sophisticated notion of literary regionalism,
taking into account the problems associated with defining the region, as well as the
necessarily constructed nature of categories such as ‘Australian literature’ and ‘South
Australian literature’. This advanced perspective, seen here for the first time in this
survey of regional anthologies, can perhaps be attributed to the lateness of this
anthology’s arrival on the scene.
Butterss confirms this impression with his definition of ‘South Australian
literature’:
As with all essentialising, any attempt to find what is distinctive in SouthAustralia will necessarily ignore difference—ignore the variety inphysical characteristics from the South East to the West Coast, thediverse cultures and subcultures that thrive here, and the variationswithin those cultures and subcultures, not to mention class difference andgender difference. On a personal level, we all feel the distinctiveness ofplace—South Australia will have a particular set of associations,experiences, memories for each of us. But there are an infinite numberof possible South Australias.142
He elaborates on this point by providing a justification for the publication of an
anthology of South Australian writing:
Even if there are many South Australias, there is, to use BenedictAnderson’s phrase, an ‘imagined community’ of South Australians. Fora significant number of people who live in this state, being ‘South
139Ibid., ix.140Ibid., x.141Ibid.142Ibid., xi.
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Australian’—having horizontal bonds with other South Australians—isan important part of their personal and social identity.143
Graham Rowlands, editor of the regional anthology Dots Over Lines: Recent
Poetry in South Australia, makes a similar assertion:
Local editors want to edit, local poets want to submit to, local publisherswant to publish and local readers want to read state and regional poetryanthologies. (Most of them sell out.) Arbitrary borders and boundariesmake for state and regional presses. How fortunate for poets! Whyshould we have to be national figures or confined to the closet?144
It seems both Rowlands and Butterss believe regional anthologies are shaped by the
collective interests of editors, writers, publishers, and readers. Writers from a given
region do not need to share a certain quality or thematic interest for their work to be
regarded as regional literature or considered for inclusion in a regional anthology.
Rather, the implicated parties simply need to demonstrate an interest in seeing writers
from their region placed in proximity to one another and identified as a product of the
region. This idea is identical to many of those discussed in Part IV (‘The importance of
the reader to a new understanding of regionalism’) of Chapter 1.
Of course, a publishing house is one of the most essential parties in any such
scheme. Dots Over Lines was published by Adelaide University Union Press (AUUP)
in 1980. However, AUUP ceased operation within the year. A publishing house that has
survived (though it now publishes under a dual imprint with Wakefield Press, who also
handles all of its distribution) is the Friendly Street Poets publishing venture.
The monthly Friendly Street poetry readings, the Friendly Street Poets annual
anthology of poems read at the Friendly Street poetry readings, and the Friendly Street
Poets publishing venture, are all important institutions in the South Australian literary
scene. While many of the publishing efforts of Friendly Street Poets are intended to
sustain a regional literature (for example, the publication of works of individual South
143Ibid., xii.144Graham Rowlands, ed., Dots Over Lines: Recent Poetry in South Australia (Adelaide: Adelaide
University Union Press, 1980), 12–13.
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Australian poets), the Friendly Street poetry readings and the derivative Friendly Street
Poets annual anthology do not appear to fit this same description. The prefaces to the
latter rarely even mention South Australia, much less provide a justification for the
promotion of South Australian literature. The reason for this is that these collections, as
well as the readings from which they are derived, include poets from outside South
Australia—both national and international. In many ways, these are occasional
publications, celebrating the occasion of the poetry reading rather than the region.
To this category of occasional publications, it is useful to add the category of
‘specialised regional publications’. These are publications that deal with the region but
also have another and more specific focus, such as women’s writing or love poetry. In
the same way that the occasion can overwhelm the region in the aforementioned
occasional publications, so too can the more specific focus overwhelm the region in
specialised regional publications. I mention this because there have been several of this
type of publication in South Australia—one of which was published by the Friendly
Street Poets, while another was a one-off publishing venture by the Women’s Art
Movement.145
The impact a local publishing house can have on the publication of regional
literature—and, in particular, regional anthologies—is evident from the examples cited
above. In those states and territories where a well-reputed publishing house with
significant resources does not exist, such as the Northern Territory and Tasmania, there
is a correspondingly low output of regional anthologies. Of course, this raises the
question, ‘Is the output of regional literature, more generally, similarly affected?’ It has
previously been noted, for example, that a surprisingly large number of writers live in
Tasmania and that many of them are quite successful.
145Examples of specialised regional publications from South Australia include: Anne Brewster and Jeff
Guess, eds., The Inner Courtyard: A South Australian Anthology of Love Poetry (Kent Town: Friendly
Street Poets, 1990). Jenny Boult et al., eds., Pearls: Writing by South Australian Women (Adelaide:Women’s Art Movement, 1980).
83
An essay in Southwords addresses this very matter:
The notion of Australian ‘regional’ literature is a problematic one. Untilrecently attention has focussed on ‘national’ traits, a concept (measuredespecially against the competing claims of universalism) that has beenremarkably productive of energetic and at times acrimonious debate.Nevertheless, some regional areas have emerged: Western Australia,assisted by a lively press at both the University of Western Australia andthe Fremantle Arts Centre Press, has been able to lay claims to seriousattention. Queensland, too, has established a clear regional voice, againthrough a strong University Press. What of South Australia? There wasa time when it was reasonably represented by publishers of somesignificance but that representation has sadly diminished over recentyears. None of the three universities possesses a press (although FlindersUniversity, through its Centre for Research in the New Literatures inEnglish has made a significant contribution, as has the Friendly Streetpoetry group) and commercial publishing for adult readers has beenreduced to one press only, Wakefield Press.146
Robert Sellick clearly believes the existence of a reputable local publishing house has a
positive effect on the production of a regional literature, in the sense that more of it is
published. In the case of Queensland (discussed below), where University of
Queensland Press (UQP) is the dominant publishing force in the state—and where a
large number of regional anthologies have been published by both this and other
Queensland-based publishing houses—it is possible to assert that the example of UQP
has inspired a wider and infectious sense of literary regionalism.
D. Queensland
The first published anthology of Queensland literature was A Book of
Queensland Verse, edited by J. J. Stable and A. E. M. Kirwood and published in 1924 to
coincide with the centenary of Queensland settlement.147 Thus, it has an ‘occasional’
dimension. The next two anthologies of Queensland literature also mark a special
occasion: The Queensland Centenary Anthology 148 and Never Kill a Dolphin and Other
146Robert Sellick, ‘The Jindyworobaks and Aboriginality’, in Southwords: Essays on South Australian
Literature, ed. Philip Butterss (Netley: Wakefield Press, 1995), 102.147J. J. Stable and A. E. M. Kirwood, eds., A Book of Queensland Verse (Brisbane: Queensland Book
Depot, 1924).148R. S. Byrnes and Val Vallis, eds., The Queensland Centenary Anthology (London: Longmans, 1959).
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Short Stories149 both appeared in 1959, the centenary of ‘responsible government’ in
Queensland. The editors of these three early regional anthologies abide by many of the
same rules as those of the later anthologies examined from the Northern Territory,
Tasmania and South Australia. In other words, they justify the existence of their
anthologies by alluding to the distinctive qualities of the region’s literature—what
Stable and Kirwood term the ‘Queensland note’.150 Patrick Buckridge and Belinda
McKay much later label this an ‘attempt to define an essence, an identity, a central
tradition or an historical destiny immanent in Queensland’s literature’.151 Often, this
involves an (implicit or explicit) valuing of the region’s literary output over that
produced in other regions, or even in Australia as a whole.
In fact, Buckridge asserts in his essay ‘Queensland Literature: The Making of an
Idea’, that Stable and Kirwood may very well have been the founders of this model (at
least where Queensland literature is concerned):
What I have tried to show in this paper is that the idea of ‘Queenslandliterature’ has a history. It is a relatively short history; subject tocorrection I think it begins no earlier than the 1920s, which makes itquite a lot younger than the idea of Australian literature. J. J. Stablecertainly believed he was the first to imagine the poetry of this State as aunitary and distinctive whole, and he was probably right.152
This excerpt testifies to both the relatively early appearance of the idea of ‘Queensland
literature’ in comparison to other Australian state or regional literatures, as well as
Stable and Kirwood’s rather doubtful assertion that the literary output of a state can be
imagined as a ‘unitary and distinctive whole’. The latter is an example of what
Buckridge calls ‘an inability ... to theorise “regionality” in literature adequately’.153
149Never Kill a Dolphin and Other Short Stories: Contemporary Queensland Writing (Brisbane: Fortitude
Press, 1959).150Stable and Kirwood, xviii.151Patrick Buckridge and Belinda McKay, eds., By the Book: A Literary History of Queensland (St. Lucia:University of Queensland Press, 2007), 7.152Patrick Buckridge, ‘Queensland Literature: The Making of an Idea’, Queensland Review 2, no. 1 (Apr.
1995), 40.153Ibid., 38.
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Only time and a lively conversation about literary regionalism in Australia will enable
this ability to be properly developed.154
Buckridge discusses the manner in which this occurs:
Literary regionalities, like literary nationalities, are invented—andreinvented—if and when they are needed, and in nearly every decadesince the 1920s (the ‘60s are an odd exception) someone has produced aversion of this particular regionality, in response to an interesting varietyof political and cultural ‘needs’. The moment may have arrived at whichQueensland needs yet another, and perhaps fuller, version of itself as aliterary region; if so, those earlier versions will form an important part ofthe context.155
Perhaps the curious drought of regional anthologies in the 1960s contributed to the
renewed interest taken in the subject in the late 1970s and ‘80s. Even if this is not the
case, Buckridge’s point about the invention of literary regionalities still stands:
understandings of regional literature—and of the role of a regional anthology—change
with the passing of time and the changing needs of writers and readers. In the ‘late
1970s and the 1980s, the heyday of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s ascendancy as premier’,
for example, Buckridge and McKay identify a
vigorous academic debate ... between those who saw the ‘Queenslanddifference’ as a reality and those who regarded it as an invention ofconservative politicians and a compliant media, designed to concealQueensland’s essential continuity with the rest of Australia.156
It is impossible to ignore the similarities between the timeline Buckridge and McKay
identify and the one identified in this thesis as representative of a vibrant conversation
about literary regionalism in Australia. Clearly, during this period in Queensland,
regional anthologies would have been understood as contributing to the former debate.
The 1980s saw many regional anthologies published in Queensland that fit the
mould of their contemporaries in the Northern Territory, Tasmania and South
154Assisting in this aim were two early critical surveys of Queensland writing: Henry Arthur Kellow,
Queensland Poets (London: George G. Harrap, 1930). Cecil Hadgraft, Queensland and Its Writers: 100
Years, 100 authors (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1959).155Buckridge ‘Queensland Literature’, 40.156Buckridge and McKay, 2.
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Australia.157 However, there were also two anthologies published that offer new
insights: Sunshine Kaleidoscope158 and Beyond the Verandahs.159 Both books were
written, edited and published by writers’ groups—The Sunshine Writers’ Group and the
Ashgrove Writers, respectively. As a result, they do not fit within many of the
parameters for regional anthologies outlined above. Most notably, neither book engages
in even the most modest way with the notion of being an anthology of Queensland
literature (in spite of the former book’s subtitle, ‘A Collection of Short Stories by
Queensland Writers’) or regional literature, more generally. These anthologies are
concerned only with the writers in their writers’ group, rather than looking outside their
group to engage with the idea of literary regionalism or to apprehend their place in the
larger community.
In spite of their deficiencies as regional anthologies, I have included these two
books in this survey, because they demonstrate the implications of an active and healthy
regional literature. Books and writers’ groups such as these are inspired by the
examples around them, specifically other local writing and publishing efforts. It is no
coincidence that there are more examples of local writers’ groups in Queensland
publishing their own books than in any other state or territory in Australia. This is
related to the publication of large numbers of more traditional regional anthologies in
Queensland, as well as the prominence of University of Queensland Press, both of
which draw attention to the local literary culture that exists outside the traditional book
publishing centres of Australia. Also, it is possible Queensland’s demographics are a
157Other anthologies of writing from Queensland include: Nigel Krauth and Robyn Sheahan, eds.,
Paradise to Paranoia: New Queensland Writing (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1995).
Elizabeth Perkins and Robert Handicott, eds., North of Capricorn: An Anthology of Verse (Townsville:Foundation for Australian Literary Studies and James Cook University of North Queensland, 1988).Susan Johnson and Mary Roberts, eds., Latitudes: New Writing from the North (St. Lucia: University ofQueensland Press, 1986). Peter Putnis, ed., Downs Voices (Toowoomba: Darling Downs Institute Press,
1978).158
Sunshine Kaleidoscope: A Collection of Short Stories by Queensland Writers (Buderim: Penclaren
House, 1988).159
Beyond the Verandahs: A Book of Short Stories (Ashgrove: Ashgrove Writers, 1997).
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contributing factor; since the population is not clustered in the capital city (like other
Australian states and territories), but rather is more evenly dispersed across the state,
there is perhaps more emphasis on the need for local literary production and/or
reluctance to rely on a centralised means of production.
In 1998, three years after Buckridge published his article in Queensland Review
calling for ‘another, and perhaps fuller, version of [Queensland] as a literary region’, the
regional anthology 50 Years of Queensland Poetry, 1940s–1990s, was published by
Central Queensland University Press.160 One of the first things Philip Neilsen and Helen
Horton do that sets them apart from the editors of other regional anthologies is that they
take stock of the many and various factors contributing to the growth of interest in
Queensland literature:
The last ten years have seen a reaffirmation of vitality in Queenslandwriting, with the setting up of both the Queensland Writers’ Centre andthe Queensland literary magazine Imago: New Writing in the late 1980s,and more recently Central Queensland University Press.161
Clearly, Neilsen and Horton believe publishing opportunities represent a significant
force at work in the promotion of literary regionalism in Australia, and thus are integral
to a fuller understanding of the subject.
The editors also spell out their reasons for compiling a regional anthology:
A number of critics have argued that fostering a sense of regionalism cancounter both the hegemony of centralising literary and culturalinstitutions in the two metropolitan regions of Sydney and Melbourne,and also, the domination of the nationalist and masculinist perspectiveswhich seem insensitive to gender, spatial or other differences.162
Neilsen and Horton perceive their book as contributing to a national literary culture
through a diversification of the voices being represented. Furthermore, unlike editors of
other regional anthologies who maintain they are bringing a new geographical (or
160Philip Neilsen and Helen Horton, eds., 50 Years of Queensland Poetry, 1940s–1990s (Rockhampton:
Central Queensland University Press, 1998).161Ibid., ix.162Ibid., xi.
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‘spatial’) diversity to the national literary culture, Neilsen and Horton’s argument is
unique for its inclusion of gender and other differences. They maintain that, through a
regional literature, women and other minority writers are able to find a voice that has
been denied to them in the nationalist literary tradition, which is dominated by
masculinist and Anglophile forces.163
However, even as regionalism is established as a foil for nationalism, the editors
also compare it to internationalism or universalism. In this comparison, which has not
been addressed in any of the previously surveyed regional anthologies, regionalism
frequently loses favour—as evidenced in the ‘The region in the world’ section of
Chapter 1. An awareness of this fact is perhaps what inspired Neilsen and Horton to
launch a preemptive attack on this perspective:
‘Regionalism’ is a controversial word. Conventional literary criticismcan be critical of the ‘regional’ perspective in literature because it can beargued to neglect the ‘universal’ .... What can be pointed out is thatregionalism has had a relatively weak emphasis in Australian literaturewhen compared to cultures like that of Canada, and literary critics havebeen suspicious of the regional qualities of literature, perhaps for fear ofseeming parochial—a still-present fear in Australia, not yet free of thesense of exile from London or New York.164
Clearly, Neilsen and Horton’s introduction to 50 Years of Queensland Poetry marks a
high point in the conversation about literary regionalism that began perhaps as early as
the 1920s, but did not fully ignite until the late 1970s and into the 1980s, and then had
already died down again by the time this book was published in 1998. Neilsen and
Horton bring to their introduction an unsurpassed awareness of all that has gone before
them on the subject of literary regionalism in Australia. While the particular
163At least one other anthology of Queensland writing was published in the 1990s that exhibits a
sophisticated understanding of regionalism and addresses themes of ‘multiculturalism’: ManfredJurgensen, ed., Queensland: Words and All (Brisbane: Outrider/Phoenix Publications, 1993). This book
celebrates the tenth anniversary of the literary journal Outrider, which was based in Brisbane, though itsought to reach a national audience with its collections of ‘multicultural literature’. Queensland: Wordsand All contains prose fiction, poetry, interviews, literary criticism, reviews, artwork, and non-fictionarticles on subjects ranging from opera in Queensland to the histories of several different Queensland
publishing operations.164Neilsen and Horton, xi.
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implications of the above excerpt will only be further examined in the Conclusion to
this thesis, it is, nonetheless, testament to the fact that interest in regional literatures
remains and draws strength from its earlier articulations—especially in Queensland,
where this interest has always been strong.165
E. New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT
I do not consider the literary output of writers from New South Wales, Victoria
and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), to be examples of regional literature.
Writers from these places are writing from the cultural centres of Australia—what is
sometimes referred to as the ‘Sydney–Melbourne axis’ or ‘the “golden triangle” of
Sydney–Melbourne–Canberra’. In contrast, regional literature is something that is
created by writers located outside the cultural centres, or who, at the very least, have an
established relationship with a region and a readership located outside the cultural
centres (usually as a consequence of former residency in that region). While my
reasons for excluding writers from New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT from
consideration as regional writers will be further explicated in Chapter 3, it is extremely
telling to note that none of these regions has ever produced a regional anthology
comparable to those produced in the other states and territories of Australia.
For example, the promisingly titled collection of short stories Canberra Tales is
the work of Canberra-based writers’ group Seven Writers.166 While many of the stories
are set in Canberra, the anthology as a whole does not engage with any of the ideas
associated with literary regionalism. Most tellingly, its contributions policy is restricted
165Further evidence of this enduring interest was published in 2002: Robyn Sheahan-Bright and Stuart
Glover, eds., Hot Iron Corrugated Sky: 100 Years of Queensland Writing (St. Lucia: University of
Queensland Press, 2002). While the Cataloguing in Publication Data lists the book as ‘history andcriticism’, it is notable that the bulk of the book is made up of more than 40 substantial excerpts fromcreative works by Queensland writers. Furthermore, where there is ‘history and criticism’, it appears inthe form of 11 new essays by notable Queensland writers rather than by academics. The book was
published to mark Queensland’s centenary of federation, but it is in no other way a traditional occasional,state-based regional literature anthology.166Margaret Barbalet et al., Canberra Tales (Ringwood: Penguin, 1988).
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to a circle of seven writers, rather than being open to the work of other Canberra-based
or ACT-based writers. This is, of course, similar to the previously discussed anthologies
from Queensland, which were also produced by writers’ groups. For the same reasons
the latter anthologies were excluded from consideration as regional anthologies—they
do not engage with the terms of regional literature, nor in the promotion of regional
writers or writing, but rather in self-promotion—so too will Canberra Tales be
excluded. In fact, most literature anthologies that are presented as a product of New
South Wales, Victoria or the ACT, fit this description—they are the work of a writers’
group from the region, rather than a true regional anthology.
The collection of poetry and short stories ReCollecting Albury Writing: Poetry
and Prose from Albury and District 1859 to 2000, presents an entirely different
challenge to the categories of regional literature and the regional anthology.167 Produced
by Booranga Writers Albury, this anthology never actually tells you where Albury is
located, which suggests that the editors and publisher of the book did not expect it to be
distributed outside the region—or at least not outside the eastern states, where residents
may have more familiarity with Albury than individuals located in, for example,
Western Australia. As a result, the anthology seems more parochial than many of the
state-based anthologies discussed elsewhere in this chapter.
In the end, however, I exclude ReCollecting Albury Writing and similar efforts
from my consideration of regional anthologies, not because it is parochial, but because
it is a type of specialised regional anthology, the likes of which has been seen in Pearls:
Writing by South Australian Women and The Inner Courtyard: A South Australian
Anthology of Love Poetry. In each of these instances, the anthologisers (and, thus, the
anthologies) are more concerned with their theme—whether it be women’s writing, love
poetry, or Albury and District—than they are with exploring notions of literary
167Jane Downing and Dirk H. R. Spennemann, eds., ReCollecting Albury Writing: Poetry and Prose from
Albury and District 1859 to 2000 (Albury: Letao Publishing, 2000).
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regionalism. Jane Downing and Dirk H. R. Spennemann write in the introduction to
their anthology: ‘In making a final decision, the work that featured Albury and District
found preference.’168 Clearly, the editors are not so interested in engaging with the idea
of writers emerging from and shaped by a specific place and its corresponding culture—
the essence of the debate about literary regionalism in Australia as surveyed in Chapter
1—as they are interested in compiling a book of material about that place. Admittedly,
this is one way of apprehending the physical environment and using it to provide a
particular perspective on (or to enhance the understanding of) a body of literature, and
yet it is the narrowest sense in which this might be accomplished. Furthermore, it is not
one that the previously surveyed regional anthologies have embraced, perhaps because
the editors of these anthologies recognise its limited potential as a critical framework.
A Sydney-based anthology, In the Gutter ... Looking at the Stars: A Literary
Adventure through Kings Cross, embodies many of these same qualities.169 Mandy
Sayer and Louis Nowra, the book’s editors, are more interested in presenting ‘a vivid
picture of Kings Cross’—as stated on the back cover of their book—than in engaging
with the idea of Kings Cross as a region inhabited by writers and readers. For example,
a writer who has lived all her life in Kings Cross but chooses to set her stories elsewhere
would have no place in such an anthology. This is an ironically parochial stance for a
seemingly urban and cosmopolitan anthology. Nonetheless, I am not dismissing the
anthology on the basis of its parochial-ness, but rather its failure to engage on even the
most basic level with any of the ideas associated with the conversation about literary
regionalism in Australia.
Literature anthologies produced in New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT,
which purport to have a regional focus, invariably turn out to be either a specialised
168Ibid., xvi.169Mandy Sayer and Louis Nowra, eds., In the Gutter ... Looking at the Stars: A Literary Adventure
through Kings Cross (Milsons Point: Random House, 2000).
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regional anthology or the work of a writers’ group.170 True regional anthologies, like
those found in the other Australian states and territories, do not exist as such in the
‘golden triangle’, because a significant part of what defines a regional anthology is that
it collects the works of writers from outside the cultural centres.
III. Western Australia
The first regional anthology published in Western Australia was also the first of
its kind in Australia, preceding Stable and Kirwood’s 1924 A Book of Queensland Verse
by eight years. Westralia Gift Book: To Aid YMCA Military Work and Returned Nurses’
Fund by Writers and Artists of Western Australia was edited by four individuals,
including the formidable Walter Murdoch, and published in 1916.171 The anthology
contains 40 pages of advertisements, most of them for Perth-based businesses, at the
front and back of the book. It also contains many illustrations, some of which are
printed in colour. The black-and-white illustrations include photographs of Western
Australian scenes and also some line drawings, while the colour illustrations are
reproductions of paintings of a wide variety of subjects. Notably, the colour
illustrations are the only feature of the book that was not produced locally; the
remainder of the individuals contributing to its production—including writers, artists,
printers, and binders—were all found in Western Australia.172
In reference to the contributions of these individuals, and especially of the
writers and artists, Murdoch writes in his foreword:
Art and letters have not had much encouragement so far in WesternAustralia; perhaps the struggle for the mastery of Nature has been too
170Other anthologies of writing from New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT, that could be characterised
as specialised regional anthologies include: Patrick Morgan, ed., Shadow and Shine: An Anthology ofGippsland Literature (Churchill: Centre for Gippsland Studies and Gippsland Institute of AdvancedEducation, 1988).171Walter Murdoch et al., eds., Westralia Gift Book: To Aid YMCA Military Work and Returned Nurses’
Fund by Writers and Artists of Western Australia (Perth: V. K. Jones, 1916).172Ibid., 4.
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engrossing. But, if I am not greatly mistaken, there are things in thisvolume good enough to convince everyone—except those whoseunalterable conviction it is that no good thing can come out of WesternAustralia—that we have our share of creative talent, which only lacksencouragement and a field for its exercise.173
It seems the trends associated with regional anthologies, as evidenced in the survey of
regional anthologies produced in states and territories other than Western Australia,
were established early. These trends include championing the local talent (though
Murdoch is careful not to overstate this case) and the assertion that distance from the
centres of cultural production results in a lack of opportunities, thus contributing to the
tenuous status of the arts in the region.
However, there are also many things about the regional anthology that have
changed since the publication of Westralia Gift Book in 1916. Perhaps most notably,
Westralia Gift Book is an occasional publication intended to raise money to benefit the
YMCA and the Returned Nurses’ Fund in their efforts during World War I. The
advertisements appearing at both the front and back of the book are evidence of this
aspect of the publication. Consequently, the anthology is focussed on the occasion, and
the region becomes little more than a convenient organisational and marketing
principle; there is almost no engagement with issues of literary regionalism. This is
typical of the earliest regional anthologies. The transition to modern regional
anthologies, many of which present regionalism as an engaging critical framework for
the analysis of literature and culture, represents a significant change in attitudes towards
literary regionalism in Australia.
The second regional anthology published in Western Australia was also an
occasional publication. The impetus behind this book, West Coast Stories: An
Anthology, published in 1959 by the Sydney-based Angus & Robertson, was to raise
173Ibid.
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money and establish a trust fund.174 Henrietta Drake-Brockman, the editor of the
anthology, explains:
To honour its obligation to Mr. Samuel Furphy, who did not long survivehis wife, and to preserve the self-built home of a great Australian, theWestern Australian Fellowship of Writers has now established a trustfund. All royalties from this anthology, selected from the works of itsmembers for that purpose, will be paid to the fund.175
The house was named the Tom Collins House, ‘in honour of Furphy’s pen-name of Tom
Collins, chosen when he wrote Such is Life’.176 While the house has been renovated and
moved since the publication of this anthology, it is still home to the Western Australian
branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW [WA]). In spite of the
commendable reasons for its production, the book is otherwise unremarkable as a
commentary on regional literature. Similar to Westralia Gift Book, no one involved in
its production was interested in asking the question, ‘Why produce an anthology of
Western Australian writers?’ To them, the answer was self-evident: the anthology was
meant to benefit the FAW (WA), so Western Australians were the people most likely to
contribute writings (free-of-charge) to such an anthology, as well as the people most
likely to buy it when it was finally published.
The next effort at an anthology of Western Australian writing did not appear for
nearly fifteen years. When Sandgropers: A Western Australian Anthology was finally
published in 1973, it contained short stories, poetry and criticism, as well as a more
sophisticated understanding of regional literature.177 Dorothy Hewett, the editor, writes
in her introduction:
Western Australian writers have always been in a particularly centralposition to evaluate the virtues of physical isolation. I often have theimpression that some of our eastern brothers have an idea that writers inWestern Australia live in some kind of Arcadian innocence, archetype of
174H. Drake-Brockman, ed., West Coast Stories: An Anthology (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1959).
175Ibid., xi.176Ibid.177Dorothy Hewett, ed., Sandgropers: A Western Australian Anthology (Nedlands: University of Western
Australia Press, 1973).
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a perpetual Thoreau’s Walden, a refuge from the megalopolis of Sydneyor Melbourne.178
Hewett also writes, perhaps in an effort to dispel any illusions of undue pride conjured
up by this last statement: ‘We ... live in one of the most parochial, unsympathetic and
backward regions in Australia (second only to Queensland?)’179 Clearly, she is engaging
with the contemporary debate about literary regionalism in Australia.
However, Hewett’s interpretation of the terms of this debate is polarised and
absolutist—insisting, for example, that is possible to assess the relative parochial-ness
or backwardness of one region as compared to another. Hewett acknowledges the
problems associated with this stance, but she is not prepared to dismiss it entirely:
This anthology does not seek to parade ‘write Westralia’ deliberatelyacross its pages, but I think there are certain themes and pre-occupationsthat do engage writers living in this part of the continent. Some of ushave gone in for ancestor worship, or ancestor burying, the bush is stillreally just across the subway from the dog’s home, childhood beckons usall with the nostalgia for those romantic rituals and ceremonies madevalid by time.180
Considering Sandgropers was published in 1973, and it has been previously
demonstrated that the conversation about literary regionalism in Australia did not really
gain momentum until the late 1970s if not the 1980s, Hewett’s attitude is not surprising.
Nonetheless, it is notable, because it represents one of the earliest attempts by the editor
of a regional anthology to engage in a debate about literary regionalism in Australia. It
seems that, not only did Western Australia produce the first regional anthology in
Australia in the form of Westralia Gift Book in 1916, but it also produced the first
‘modern’ regional anthology.
In 1976, still two years in advance of the seminar organised by Fremantle Arts
Centre Press and the unofficial beginning of the conversation about literary regionalism
in Australia, another Western Australian literature anthology was published. Bruce
178Ibid., x.179Ibid.180Ibid., xii.
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Bennett was the editor of New Country: A Selection of Western Australian Short Stories,
marking his first official foray into the realm of regional literature. He made good use
of the opportunity, showcasing in the introduction his nuanced understanding of the
subject matter. This includes a detailed discussion of the contributions made by
previous Western Australian literature anthologies to the debate about literary
regionalism—a first in the history of Australian regional anthologies:
One of the justifications for a regional anthology is that it can provide‘local colour’ by recreating the sights, sounds and smells of differentlocalities within a region. If the inhabitant reads a well-writtendescription of his area, he may be moved to acknowledge, ‘That’s how itis, that’s what it’s like to live here’, while the outsider can be given avivid mental picture that enables him to ‘see’ and ‘feel’ the placeconcerned, or its people.
Although quite a number of the stories in this selection will evokethat kind of recognition, ‘local colour’ in this selection is generally lessimportant than in the earlier anthology [West Coast Stories: AnAnthology]. Without losing their sense of place, many of the stories inNew Country do serve another important function: that of increasing ourself-knowledge through an understanding of significant pressures andstrains within the private and communal lives of Western Australians.181
The progression from regional literature as ‘local colour’ to regional literature as
‘increasing our self-knowledge’ is an important one, and Bennett is right to
acknowledge its role in the production of regional anthologies. However, this
progression is in many ways incomplete: whereas the former stage includes both locals
and outsiders in its conception, the latter stage performs a wholesale elimination of the
outsiders in favour of the locals.
Of course, production of cultural value is an activity that occurs both within and
outside the cultural centres; however, there is usually a disproportionate emphasis on
those centres. One of the aims of regional literature is to rectify this balance. This
cannot be accomplished, however, by swinging the pendulum of influence in the
entirely opposite direction. Any such formulation is untenable and will likely be
discounted for its provincialism. Additionally, while ‘increasing our self-knowledge’ is
181Bruce Bennett, New Country, viii.
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an important and admirable ambition, it is still important for those dwelling in the
cultural centres to ‘“see” and “feel” the place concerned, or its people’. At the very
least, this is because they control many of the practicalities involved in the production
of cultural value—the publishing houses and literary journals, for example, but also a
critical mass of the reading population that makes commercial publishing viable.
In spite of Bennett’s surprisingly introverted assessment of the function of New
Country, he still possesses a nuanced understanding of the influence of place on people,
and specifically on writers:
The relationship between literature and the society in which it isproduced is always problematical. Perhaps not too much can be claimedabout Western Australian life from a selection of stories by six differentand quite distinctive writers of short stories. Nevertheless they do, as agroup, seem to signal a transition from the writing of an isolated, frontierstate to one which is increasingly influenced by the problems of a widerworld.182
Again, it is clear Bennett is responding to an evolving debate about literary regionalism
in Australia. He seems to want to distinguish himself as someone who does not believe
in a direct correlation between the region and a set of typical characteristics that are
embodied in the work of writers resident in that region. Writing in the mid-1970s,
Bennett would have been at the forefront of scholarly thought on this subject in Western
Australia, which was in turn leading the way for greater Australia.
The poetry anthology Soundings: A Selection of Western Australian Poetry, was
clearly intended as a companion volume to New Country.183 Not only were these two
books published in the same year (1976), but they share the same interior and cover
design. However, Soundings presents a much less nuanced and interesting version of
regional literature than the one found in Bennett’s introduction to New Country.
Whereas Bennett acknowledges that ‘the relationship between literature and the society
182Ibid., xi.183Veronica Brady, ed., Soundings: A Selection of Western Australian Poetry (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts
Centre Press, 1976).
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in which it is produced is always problematical’, Brady is convinced of a direct
correlation between the two. She is insistent that, in the poems she has selected for
inclusion in the anthology, ‘you get the flavour of life in this western third of the
continent’.184 According to Brady, this ‘flavour’ is comprised of several identifiable
characteristics: ‘a sense of space’, ‘a sense of the strange, bemused charm of Perth’, and
‘the sense of challenge and the ability to see the world as new’.185 Nonetheless, it must
be acknowledged that not every poem in this collection lives up to Brady’s assertions; in
fact, the thematic and stylistic content of the poems varies widely. The views espoused
in the introduction to Soundings, in regards to literary regionalism, are clearly those of
an earlier time—or, more likely, Bennett’s aforementioned views are simply ahead of
his time, making Brady’s seem dated by contrast.
In 1979, three years after the release of New Country and Soundings and only
one after the seminar organised by Fremantle Arts Centre Press, three additional
regional anthologies were published in Western Australia. They are Lip Service,186 Wide
Domain: Western Australian Themes & Images,187 and Summerland: A Western
Australian Sesquicentenary Anthology of Poetry and Prose.188 While the
sesquicentenary was obviously a significant factor in the publication of these three
regional anthologies, their publication also followed close on the heels of the important
series of essays on the subject published in a 1978 edition of Westerly; consequently,
1979 was marked by significantly increased interest in the debate surrounding literary
regionalism in Australia. The powder was primed for an explosive inter-book debate
184Ibid., xi.185Ibid., xi-xii.186Helen Weller, ed., Lip Service (East Perth: Nine Club, 1979).
187Bruce Bennett and William Grono, eds., Wide Domain: Western Australian Themes & Images (London:
Angus & Robertson, 1979).188Alec Choate and Barbara York Main, eds., Summerland: A Western Australian Sesquicentenary
Anthology of Poetry and Prose (Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1979).
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about regional—and especially Western Australian—literature, largely setting aside the
concerns of the occasion.
It was Alec Choate, in his introduction to the poetry section of Summerland, who
gave voice to the sentiment that the sesquicentenary was not of primary importance:
None of the poetry selected for this book is attentive to thesesquicentenary of the founding of white settlement in Western Australia,and it is doubtful if poetry could be bothered to look for any significancein such a punctuation mark of local history.189
It should be noted that Lip Service is similarly disinterested in the celebrations, though it
does not take the time to state as much. In fact, Lip Service does not engage with any of
the ideas traditionally associated with literary regionalism, because it is composed of
works performed at a poetry reading. In other words, like the Friendly Street
anthologies, Lip Service is an occasional publication, celebrating the occasion of the
poetry reading rather than the region. Consequently, it will not be discussed any further
in this thesis.
In contrast, the editors of Summerland explicitly engage with the terms of
literary regionalism and, in particular, the contributions of regional anthologies to this
discussion: ‘Although appearing in the Sesquicentenary Year this collection is
deliberately not retrospective. Five previous anthologies produced between 1916 and
1973 have partly fulfilled this role.’190 In addition to dismissing the notion that
Summerland might be an occasional publication and establishing their awareness of a
tradition of Western Australian anthologies, they add a stipulation—‘Contributors had to
be domiciled in the state continuously for at least five years prior to 1 January 1979, and
any work completed or first published also in the last five years would be favoured
189Alec Choate, ‘Poetry Introduction’, in Summerland: A Western Australian Sesquicentenary Anthology
of Poetry and Prose, ed. Alec Choate and Barbara York Main (Nedlands: University of Western AustraliaPress, 1979), xv.190Barbara York Main, ‘Prose Introduction’, in Summerland: A Western Australian Sesquicentenary
Anthology of Poetry and Prose, ed. Alec Choate and Barbara York Main (Nedlands: University ofWestern Australia Press, 1979), xix.
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wherever possible.’191 Choate and Main used highly specific conditions for inclusion to
ensure their volume was distinctive and did not repeat the work of New Country, which
was published only three years earlier. This event is indicative of the burgeoning
number of regional anthologies being produced in this period and also the growing
awareness of the editors involved in their production.
While Summerland is strictly an anthology of poetry and prose, the latter
comprising both short stories and novel excerpts, the editors of Wide Domain define the
variety of materials they considered for inclusion in much broader terms:
In selecting material for this book, we have not confined ourselves toconventional literature (poems, plays, novels, stories) but have takenfreely from letters, diaries, journals and newspapers—whatever seemedmost lively, imaginative or revealing.192
Perhaps because a regional anthology that defines ‘literature’ so liberally was still a
rarity at the time of writing, so the book was already established as distinctive, the
editors of Wide Domain do not provide a set of highly specific conditions for inclusion
similar to those provided by the editors of Summerland.
Nonetheless, the editors of these two anthologies find common ground on issues
such as the contemporary treatment of place and landscape in Western Australian
writing. For example, Bennett and Grono write:
Those who write about this part of the world have often responded to theopen spaces of the state, preferring to depict man alone in the bush ratherthan men and women living and working in the city or suburbs. Butthere are signs among some contemporary writers particularly, that amore metropolitan consciousness is forming.193
The latter part of this excerpt—‘there are signs ... that a more metropolitan
consciousness is forming’—is typical of discussions about regional literature at this
time. Advocates of literary regionalism usually conceded a dominant interest in place
191Glen Phillips, ‘Preface’, in Summerland: A Western Australian Sesquicentenary Anthology of Poetry
and Prose, ed. Alec Choate and Barbara York Main (Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press,1979), xi.192Bennett and Grono, 2.
193Ibid., 2–3.
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and landscape among the region’s writers, but then quickly proffered evidence of a
movement away from this preoccupation. They were, of course, reacting against the
common perception that regional literature is synonymous with parochialism and
writing about landscape and the bush. Main exhibits the same tendency in the
introduction to the prose section of Summerland:
Having generally outlived the pioneering phase the now largelyindigenous population of writers appears either to accept or converselyignore the natural landscape—hence at present it is not generally overtlydepicted in our regional literature.’194
According to these editors, contemporary Western Australian writers are not especially
interested in addressing themes associated with place.
In fact, Main asserts that Western Australian writers have moved, not only
beyond a preoccupation with place and landscape, but beyond any association with their
home state or region:
Recent work reveals that our writers are not necessarily preoccupied withthemes or topics pertaining to their ‘home’ state. Australians are awandering people and a composite of many former nationalities thus it isnot surprising that many choose to write about other places andcircumstances which at first appear to be only remotely connected withWestern Australia. But underneath, the influence of Western Australia(or conversely the stamp of some other place) on how a writer feelsabout Western Australia is often apparent.195
In spite of their early claim that Western Australian writers are ‘not necessarily
preoccupied with ... their “home” state’, the editors are careful not to assert that Western
Australian writers have entirely abandoned Western Australian concerns—‘underneath,
the influence of Western Australia ... on how a writer feels about Western Australia is
often apparent’. After all, this would endanger their reasons for producing a regional
anthology in the first place. Instead, they hover on the verge of declaring the
irrelevance of regional identity before recoiling in the face of the implications of such
an assertion. There is a sense of self-consciousness in this behaviour, of always having
194Main, xx.195Ibid., xix.
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to keep the uncritical impulse in check, which is even more apparent in the following
excerpt:
The tyranny of distance separating the majority of the state’s populacefrom other Australians and a certain uniqueness in the observablephysiographical and biological characteristics of this state has, however,produced, if not a crop of unique writers, a collection of prose and versewith an identifiable regional patina.196
Glen Phillips will not go so far in the preface to Summerland as to assert that Western
Australian writers are ‘unique’ as a result of their Western Australian origins, but only
that they possess ‘an identifiable regional patina’. This statement is clearly constrained
by self-consciousness.
Bennett discusses the origins of this self-consciousness in the introduction to
The Literature of Western Australia, ‘a collection of scholarly essays on a number of
important themes about Western Australia, its people and its resources’:197
Twenty-five years ago, this attitude was unforgettably dubbed the‘Cultural Cringe’, which may be applied with particular force in its twomain forms of expression to the Western Australian experience: thecringer either dismisses the local writer and his work as beneath noticecompared with the inherited storehouse of British and European or even‘eastern states’ literature (the most usual reaction to Western Australianwriters and writing), or he exalts the claims of the local above all else (ifmade in Westralia it must be good). The welfare of literary culture isthreatened by both these manifestations of the cringe.198
Bennett’s analysis of the workings of the ‘Cultural Cringe’ indicates that such an
attitude has likely informed the activities of both the advocates of literary regionalism in
Australia and its detractors. However, a time when Western Australians can be proud—
but not overly proud—of the accomplishments of Western Australian writers can not be
too far in the future, and literary regionalism just may be integral in bringing about this
development:
196Phillips, ‘Preface’, xi.197Bruce Bennett, ed., The Literature of Western Australia (Nedlands: University of Western Australia
Press, 1979), v.198Ibid., xii.
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The tendency to think in terms of national stereotypes (e.g. that a single‘tradition’ of writing predominates) is giving way to an examination ofthe varieties of writing that Australians have produced. Similarly, thestudy of Australian literature in its regional aspects—to which this bookcontributes—has emerged as a means of building an understanding ofways in which the land or local conditions may have shaped, or beenshaped by, the literary imagination.199
These last two excerpts easily represent the most sophisticated early overview of the
interest in literary regionalism in Australia. Previous discussion of Western Australian
anthologies would seem to indicate that this is no coincidence, since Western Australian
scholars and writers have always been leaders in this discourse. The publication of The
Literature of Western Australia in Western Australia’s sesquicentenary year is
symptomatic of this position—it is, after all, a rare book-length scholarly analysis of
regional literature rather than simply a regional anthology with a scholarly introduction
—as well as helping to consolidate it. At the time Bennett was writing, however, it
remained to be seen how long this interest in ‘the study of Australian literature in its
regional aspects’ would persist, and whether or not it would be allowed sufficient time
for its ambitious programme to be fully realised.
Two years later, Fay Zwicky, the editor of Quarry: A Selection of Contemporary
Western Australian Poetry, contents herself with observing that ‘much has already been
said on the subject of regional attributes’ and ‘seeking poems to bolster regional clichés
did not play a part in my selection’.200 She continues awhile in this theme before
concluding,
Clearly no single formula can do justice to the complexity of adaptationto a shifting environment, and Western Australia has been subject tosome new social and economic pressures over the last few years.Whether these are reflected in more recent poetic work can be left to thereader to assess.201
199Ibid., xiii.
200Fay Zwicky, ed., Quarry: A Selection of Contemporary Western Australian Poetry (Fremantle:
Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1981), i.201Ibid., i–ii.
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Zwicky’s conclusion is perhaps unsurprising, as the publication of her anthology
followed so closely behind that of a spate of other Western Australian anthologies that
devoted much time and attention to these issues.
Quarry seems to have established a trend that would be carried out in
subsequent anthologies of Western Australian literature published in the 1980s—in
other words, a lack of interest in issues of regionalism and regional literature. However,
its companion volume published the following year, Decade: A Selection of
Contemporary Western Australian Short Fiction, represents a rare divergence from this
trend:
Decade presents the work of twenty-one contemporary WesternAustralian writers of short fiction. ... Decade is the first open selection ofshort fiction by Western Australian writers since West Coast Stories in1959. New Country (Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1976), thisanthology’s immediate predecessor, presented the work of six writerswho were considered by the editor, Bruce Bennett, to be leadingpractitioners in the genre in Western Australia in the mid-seventies.202
Clearly, B. R. Coffey warmly embraces a dialogue on the subject of literary regionalism,
even going so far as to trace the history of its publication for the reader. He also makes
unabashed proclamations about the state of Western Australian writing and its particular
influences:
A sense of isolation has long been seen by many as a major problem forwriters in Western Australia, and it can be argued that it is only in the lastdecade that an increasing number have gained the self-confidence andthe kind of support that has enabled them to overcome this feeling.There are a number of factors that seem to have contributed to thecreation of a more supportive, encouraging environment. Some of thosewhich readily come to mind are, the increased availability of works ofserious contemporary literature, the efforts of the literary journalWesterly, the establishment of contemporary and comparative literatureand creative writing courses, and writer-in-residences, at our tertiaryinstitutions, the increased publishing opportunities that have grown fromthe establishment of Fremantle Arts Centre Press, and, of course, ageneral increase in community interest in the Arts.203
202B. R. Coffey, ed., Decade: A Selection of Contemporary Western Australian Short Fiction (Fremantle:
Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1982), v.203Ibid., vi.
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This level of engagement with the idea of literary regionalism is rare amongst
anthologies of Western Australian literature published in the 1980s. It almost appears to
be a throwback to the previously surveyed anthologies of Western Australian literature
published in the 1970s.
Four more years passed before Portrait: A West Coast Collection was published
to coincide with the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Fremantle Arts Centre Press.204
The editors (one of whom, notably, also edited Decade) felt this anthology of short
stories and poetry ‘would be an appropriate way to celebrate a decade of publishing,
since the Press opened its imprint in 1976 with the publication of two anthologies—
Soundings (Poetry) and New Country (Short Fiction)’.205 While this statement may be
true, the anthology does not provide much in the way of insight into the progression of
the debate about regional literature and instead focuses on the demands of the occasion.
In 1988, just two years after the publication of Portrait, two additional Western
Australian anthologies were published. Another two anthologies were published the
following year, 1989. In contrast to Portrait, these four books provide a wealth of
insight into the contemporary debate (or lack thereof) surrounding literary regionalism
in Australia—though not in the way of Western Australian anthologies published in the
1970s. The two anthologies published in 1988 were Celebrations: A Bicentennial
Anthology of Fifty Years of Western Australian Poetry and Prose206 and Margins: A West
Coast Selection of Poetry 1829–1988.207 Impressions: West Coast Fiction 1829–1988
was published in 1989, but its design, publication date, and publishing house all tie it
inextricably to Margins—a prose anthology to complement the earlier poetry
204Coffey and Jenkins.205Ibid., 9.
206Brian Dibble, Don Grant, and Glen Phillips, eds., Celebrations: A Bicentennial Anthology of Fifty
Years of Western Australian Poetry and Prose (Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1988).207William Grono, ed., Margins: A West Coast Selection of Poetry 1829–1988 (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts
Centre Press, 1988).
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anthology.208 Wordhord: A Critical Selection of Contemporary Western Australian
Poetry was also published in 1989.209 The reason for this sudden burgeoning of regional
anthologies in Western Australia was, of course, because 1988 marked the Australian
bicentennial. In fact, the two volumes published in 1988—Celebrations and Margins—
both received funding from the Australian Bicentennial Authority.
Yet, none of the anthologies prioritises the occasion over the region, which
means they cannot be dismissed as occasional publications. In fact, they neither discuss
the occasion, nor engage with many of the ideas taken up in the introductions to
previously discussed regional anthologies. For example, Margins is the only anthology
to specify its qualifications for inclusion and engage with the debate about what it
means to be Western Australian:
Which introduces the troublesome question: who is a Western Australianpoet? Although such factors as birthplace, schooling, reputation, andsubject matter were considered, the answer in broad terms is: anyonewho has lived in Western Australia for a significant period and has eitherbegun writing poetry or has developed as a poet while living here.210
This relatively simple answer to a complicated question does not differ noticeably from
the definitions supplied in earlier regional anthologies. Yet, it would seem that what
was once a common feature of regional anthologies has fallen by the wayside, perhaps
because it has been deemed obsolete or obvious.
The only time the editors of Celebrations even address the subject of regional
literature is to deny their book can be categorised as such:
Although this anthology is the result of an idea which originated in theFAW (WA), Celebrations is meant to represent Western Australianwriters of the past fifty years on their merits rather than their affiliations.At the same time it is meant to represent Australia’s western third, and inthat sense not to be only a ‘regional’ collection.211
208Peter Cowan, ed., Impressions: West Coast Fiction 1829–1988 (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre
Press, 1989).209Dennis Haskell and Hilary Fraser, eds., Wordhord: A Critical Selection of Contemporary Western
Australian Poetry (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1989).210Grono, Margins, 20.211Dibble, Grant, and Phillips, x.
107
Clearly, there is great unease about the role of the regional as it relates to literature. In
particular, the editors of this anthology seem concerned about the marketability of
regional literature; they appear to believe the only way they will find a readership for
their book is by emphasising its role within the context of Australia as a whole.
Similarly, Margins engages only briefly with the idea of literary regionalism and
in fact resists such discussion in favour of other concerns:
Rather than summing up the value of Western Australian poetry ... orattempting to establish a coherent Western Australian poetic tradition ...,or elucidating recurring themes and concerns ..., or proudly drawingattention to important discoveries ..., I would prefer to let the poemsspeak, clearly and sometimes movingly, across the years, forthemselves.212
This appears to be an attempt by Grono to hide the fact that he is not interested in
engaging with the terms of the debate surrounding literary regionalism. Instead, the
reader is encouraged ‘to let the poems speak ... for themselves’, as if such an injunction
could render the Western Australian origins of these works obsolete, or at least invisible.
Considering Impressions and Margins were designed by the people at Fremantle
Arts Centre Press to appear as complementary volumes of Western Australian literature,
it should come as no surprise that Impressions does not engage with the conversation
about literary regionalism. The way in which it dismisses these concerns, however, is
remarkable:
The new publishing ventures [in Western Australia during the 1970s]proved a stimulus for longer work, and writing of great variety. It wasperhaps surprising just how much there was, and how wide a range ofsubject. The need for this kind of local encouragement was clear. Morewriting began to be published, locally and elsewhere, than at any othertime.213
Notably, this excerpt is written entirely in the past tense—for example, ‘The need for
this kind of local encouragement was clear’ (emphasis mine). Consequently, Cowan
212Grono, Margins, 20.213Cowan, Impressions, 15.
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appears to be saying there no longer exists this need for ‘local encouragement’ in
Western Australia. He seems to believe it is no longer necessary to take any special
interest in regional literature; it can survive on its own merits. While this is an
encouraging idea, I will demonstrate in later chapters how this is still not the case. It is
not that regional literature is not as good as that which originates in the cultural centres
—it is just as good—but rather that writers from different regions do not enjoy equal
access to opportunities designed to facilitate the production of literature. Also, the
differing ways in which regional literature is read both within and outside its region of
origin is still a significant factor in its reception. As a result, I contend the ‘local
encouragement’ of regional literature is still very much relevant.
However, this does not seem to be the consensus among the editors of the
aforementioned three regional anthologies published in Western Australia during the
late 1980s. They appear to believe the debate is finished and that an unspecified
conclusion has been reached, which allows them to continue to publish regional
anthologies but not to overstate the importance of the region within these works.
Dennis Haskell and Hilary Fraser’s Wordhord bucks this trend, if only slightly.
At the very least, they make a strong case for the integrity of a state-based regional
identity:
It may be argued that ‘Western Australia’ is an artificial, politicallydetermined concept, which has nothing to do with literature. However,such boundaries, once formulated, become a part of people’s lives. Thebest feature of the interest in regionalism which has emerged inAustralian literary circles in recent years is the diversity it points to.Australian literature is no longer thought of as homogenous fromKalgoorlie to Cairns to Canberra.214
Still, they shy away from any definitive statements about the significance of regional
literature and settle for a more modest analysis of the significance of the region. When
214Haskell and Fraser, 13.
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the discussion turns to parochialism, the editors again give vague—if slightly more
defensive—answers:
Geographical position does matter but there is less evidence in Wordhordof parochialism or paranoia, much less purity. One measure of increasedmaturity in the state’s poetry might be found in the treatment oflandscape. For one thing, there is now little descriptive verse, andimagined landscapes are more important than literal ones.215
These examples of engagement with the issues of literary regionalism, even as they
represent advances in the level and content of the debate, should not detract from the
dominant trend away from such concerns. Certainly, the other three anthologies
published around this time show symptoms of a growing disinterest in the subject, if
only with the academics who compile such anthologies.
Since the publication of Wordhord and Impressions in 1989, however, the
prospects for regional anthologies in Western Australia have changed dramatically. In
short, not a single anthology has been published in Western Australia since 1989 that is
presented as a regional anthology. In 1993, for example, the first in what would
become a series of anthologies was launched by Janet Holmes à Court and went on to
win a ‘Special Award’ in the 1994 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards. This
anthology, Summer Shorts, was edited by well-known television journalist and
newsreader Peter Holland.216 Summer Shorts 2 was published the following year,217 with
the final volume (unsurprisingly titled Summer Shorts 3) bringing closure to the
franchise in 1995.218 The three titles are largely unremarkable, with the exception of the
following feature: it is clear only from the introduction to the first volume that these are
collections of Western Australian writing. This fact is not stated anywhere on the front
or back covers of this volume, nor is it to be found anywhere at all in the second and
215Ibid., 14.216Peter Holland, ed., Summer Shorts (South Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1993).217Peter Holland and Barbara Holland, eds., Summer Shorts 2 (South Fremantle: Fremantle Arts CentrePress, 1994).218Bill Warnock and Diana Warnock, eds., Summer Shorts 3 (South Fremantle: Fremantle Arts CentrePress, 1995).
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third volumes in the series. The decision to market these books as something other than
regional anthologies was most likely influenced by a desire to have them stocked in
interstate stores, which are typically hesitant to stock Western Australia-specific titles.
This occasion clearly marks a new phase in the conversation about literary regionalism
in Australia.
The Summer Shorts titles are significant because they represent the first time
Fremantle Arts Centre Press downplayed the Western Australian-ness of an anthology it
published. This would not be the last time, however, as evidenced by a new series of
anthologies launched just one year after the publication of the final book in the Summer
Shorts series. The anthologies in this new series—published by Fremantle Arts Centre
Press beginning in 1996 and appearing annually until 2000 (with one final, outlying
anthology published in 2004, though it retains many of the same traits as the other five
anthologies)—were all edited by B.R. Coffey, who also edited the previously mentioned
Decade and Portrait anthologies. However, in the ten-year interim between the 1986
publication of Portrait and the 1996 publication of the first of these anthologies,
Sunburnt Country: Stories of Australian Life, a great many regional anthologies were
published and a great deal changed in the conversation about literary regionalism in
Australia.219 Nonetheless, Sunburnt Country was reprinted in 1997, 1998 and 2002—a
testament to its popularity. This book does not contain an introduction or a preface, nor
does it state anywhere on the front or back covers that it is a collection of writings by
Western Australian authors. Yet, the Contributors’ Notes at the end of the book reveal
that every writer has a Western Australian connection.
The very next year, Fremantle Arts Centre Press published Golden Harvest:
Stories of Australian Women.220 The year after that it was Blokes: Stories from
219B. R. Coffey, ed., Sunburnt Country: Stories of Australian Life (South Fremantle: Fremantle Arts
Centre Press, 1996).220B. R. Coffey, ed., Golden Harvest: Stories of Australian Women (South Fremantle: Fremantle Arts
Centre Press, 1997).
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Australian Lives.221 And, unsurprisingly, the next two years saw two more books:
Summer Days: Stories from Childhood222 and Rough with the Smooth: Stories of
Australian Men.223 Like Sunburnt Country, these books contain neither an introduction
nor a preface, and it is not stated anywhere else that they are collections of writings by
Western Australian authors. Nonetheless, all the contributors lived some part of their
lives in the state. In fact, they have all been previously published by Fremantle Arts
Centre Press; these anthologies are composed entirely of excerpts from their published
works, presumably to keep costs down for the publishing house. Certain best-selling
Fremantle Arts Centre Press authors, such as Sally Morgan and A. B. Facey, have
different excerpts from their work appearing in all five anthologies. Other notable
writers, including Elizabeth Jolley and Faye Davis, appear in four of the anthologies,
with still more writers appearing in more than one anthology.
Golden Summers: Stories of Australian Lives was published in 2004, four years
after the last anthology in this series.224 As is noted on its imprint page, ‘An earlier
edition of this anthology, Golden Harvest, was published by Fremantle Arts Centre
Press in 1997.’ Golden Summers contains excerpts from the work of two additional
writers, Kim Scott and T. A. G. Hungerford, but the content is otherwise unchanged
from the 1997 publication of Golden Harvest. It still does not specify outside the
Contributors’ Notes the Western Australian connections of all the writers. Again, it
must be said that this occasion clearly marks a new phase in the conversation about
literary regionalism in Australia. However, it also signals a continued interest in
221B. R. Coffey, ed., Blokes: Stories from Australian Lives (South Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press,
1998).222B. R. Coffey, ed., Summer Days: Stories from Childhood (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press,
1999).223B. R. Coffey, ed., Rough with the Smooth: Stories of Australian Men (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre
Press, 2000).224B. R. Coffey, ed., Golden Summers: Stories of Australian Lives (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre
Press, 2004).
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Western Australian writers, even if the reader is unaware that what she is reading is
‘Western Australian’.
Other anthologies that follow a similar pattern of publishing only Western
Australian writers but not identifying them as such, and are not part of the
aforementioned two series, include Sibling Stories (1997)225 and The Child is Wise:
Stories of Childhood (2005).226 Of course, these two anthologies, as well as the series of
anthologies published between 1996 and 2000 (with one outlying anthology published
in 2004), could be said to be specialised regional publications—that is, publications that
deal with the region, but also have another and more specific focus that can overwhelm
the region (for example, siblings or childhood). The focus of the most prominent
Western Australian publishing house on this type of regional anthology in the period
since 1989, as opposed to the more traditionally conceived regional anthology
commonly published in the previous two decades, is perhaps symptomatic of a
declining interest in regional anthologies. This declining interest could be either
instigating or responding to a decline in critical and popular interest in issues related to
literary regionalism in Australia.
A total of 13 regional anthologies were published in Western Australia during the
1970s and ‘80s, whereas only two had been published in the previous 150 years of
white settlement. Since the end of the 1980s, not a single literature anthology has been
published that explicitly acknowledges it is composed of Western Australian writers.
Considering the central role Western Australian book publishing has played in the
cultivation of a regional literature in Australia, the current practices of the state’s
publishing houses raise questions about the future of Australian literary regionalism.
225Barbara Holland, ed., Sibling Stories (South Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1997).226Janet Blagg, ed., The Child is Wise: Stories of Childhood (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press,2005).
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Chapter 3
Regional literature: A new working definition
I. Preliminary definitions
The first two chapters of this thesis surveyed the history of critical interest in
literary regionalism in Australia—a feat necessarily including the contributions of many
writers and scholars. These individuals operated with more or less explicit definitions
of terms such as ‘the region’ and ‘regional literature’. Their definitions were not always
internally consistent, much less consistent with the definitions employed by other
writers and scholars, nor were they always clearly articulated. However, now it is time
to define these terms in a fashion that supersedes all previous definitions and can be
used for the remainder of the thesis.
Specifically, in this chapter I will define both ‘literature’ and ‘the region’. I will
also define my timeline, which is to say I will explain why this thesis focuses on the
period from 1970 to the present in its discussion of the production and publication of a
regional literature in Western Australia. Finally, towards the end of the chapter, I will
define the terms ‘regional literature’ and ‘regional publishing’.
A. ‘Literature’
Literary theorists such as Terry Eagleton have questioned the use of genre alone
to define ‘literature’. Instead, he suggests that ‘social ideologies’ play an integral role in
the definition of this term:
What we have uncovered ... is not only that literature does not exist inthe sense that insects do, and that value-judgements by which it isconstituted are historically variable, but that these value-judgementsthemselves have a close relation to social ideologies. They refer in theend not simply to private taste, but to the assumptions by which certaingroups exercise and maintain power over others.227
227Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction, 2d ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1996), 14.
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Eagleton, a Marxist, is interested in defining literature as something that is neither
objective, nor ‘just what people whimsically choose to call literature’.228 He
understands the application of this label as a value judgement, subject to the forces of
culture, class, gender, and myriad other factors, including contemporary fashion as
defined by the cultural elite. Or, as he expresses it elsewhere, ‘One can think of
literature less as some inherent quality or set of qualities displayed by certain kinds of
writing all the way from Beowulf to Virginia Woolf, than as a number of ways in which
people relate themselves to writing.’229
I pay due, but admittedly brief, attention to this argument and its counter-critics,
including Harold Bloom. By convention, this debate about the definition of literature is
unending; a book could be written on the subject—indeed, several have been—and still
it would not provide encompassing coverage. Nonetheless, there is at least one more
theoretical stance on the definition of literature that is deserving of attention for its
relevance to the subject matter and approach of this thesis:
The literary text is the product, first, of a writer who elects to write apoem, a drama or a prose fiction, itself a choice knowingly made withina cultural context which is also known to ascribe meaning to thesegenres. Second, it is the product of a reader who recognises, by way oftheir own ‘literary competence’, that what they are reading is indeed aliterary text. In this respect, the text is so indelibly inscribed by theseascriptive consciousnesses that we may say that one of its determinatecharacteristics is its sense of being ‘literary’.230
It is no coincidence Peter Widdowson has chosen the forms of ‘a poem, a drama or a
prose fiction’, to illustrate his definition of literature. Indeed, these are the forms a
reader most commonly ‘recognises’ as literature. Clearly, Widdowson’s and Eagleton’s
definitions of literature do not agree, as Eagleton would not tolerate the use of genre in
his definition. Nor would Eagleton abide such definitive criteria (specified as ‘first’ and
228Ibid.229Ibid., 8.230Peter Widdowson, Literature (London: Routledge, 1999), 96.
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‘second’) when discussing the production of a ‘literary text’, insisting instead that the
criteria are always subject to change with the shifting of cultural power.
To his credit, Widdowson is resistant to simplistic criteria, as well:
While accepting ... it is ‘futile’ to seek a ‘single linguistic criterion, or setof criteria’ for distinguishing ‘literary’ from ‘non-literary’ genres andtexts, I would argue that ‘literature’ as a concept retains a meaningfulcultural sense, and that is the functional one I work with here.231
Arguably, the ‘meaningful cultural sense’ of literature Widdowson alludes to is the same
one he identified earlier—‘a poem, a drama or a prose fiction’. Nonetheless, it is
notable that Widdowson’s definition remains open to the possibility of other forms
being addressed as literature. Distinctions of this sort between the ‘literary’ and ‘non-
literary’ will be ‘based principally on an assessment of the social and cultural effects of
“the literary” rather than on any attempt to locate intrinsic aesthetic or linguistic
characteristics of “literariness”’.232
In order to advance my argument about the concept of regional literature and its
production in Western Australia, I have chosen to adopt the basic tenets of Widdowson’s
definition of literature. Not coincidentally, it is one that is also embraced by many of
the most influential forces in book production—government funding bodies for the arts,
publishing houses, the ‘general reader’, and so forth. In other words, my choice of a
definition of literature is informed, at least in part, by its functional or practical
prospects.
These prospects can be illustrated using the example of Andrew Taylor’s report
when he was engaged by the Western Australian Minister for the Arts to undertake a
review of ‘the investment of [the Western Australian] Government in publishing and
literary works’.233 This review, submitted to the Government in June 1995, of necessity
231Ibid., 16.232Ibid., 94.233Andrew Taylor, ‘Review into the Investment of Government in the Publishing of Literary Works’,Report for the Government of Western Australia, June 1995, 2.
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provides highly specific definitions for the terms it employs, the most notable of which
is the term ‘literary’:
For this Review, it was decided to use the Literature Board’s definition of‘literary’ as meaning ‘fiction, drama, poetry, autobiography, biography,essays, histories, literary criticism or other expository and analyticalprose’ (Black, 1994, Evaluation of Book Subsidies Program, p. 19) withthe added conditions that these should not have a predominantlyacademic, educational, governmental, trade or business orientation orstyle, and that they should be able to participate in a broadly based, asdistinct from a narrowly specialist, cultural debate.234
This is a pragmatic definition designed to capture what might be funded by the
Government. Considering Taylor is writing about the ‘investment of Government in the
publishing of literary works’ in Western Australia, and I am writing about the
‘production of a regional literature in Western Australia’, it would seem appropriate that
we adopt the same definition of literature. The ‘investment of Government’ is, after all,
a significant factor in the production of a regional literature.
However, Taylor’s definition includes one significant inconsistency. He includes
‘essays, histories, literary criticism or other expository and analytical prose’ in his
definition of ‘literary’, and yet later stipulates that ‘these should not have a
predominantly academic, educational, governmental, trade or business orientation or
style’. Further, he states that ‘they should be able to participate in a broadly based, as
distinct from a narrowly specialist, cultural debate’. Yet, it would seem that ‘essays,
histories, literary criticism or other expository and analytical prose’ very rarely
‘participate in a broadly based ... cultural debate’. In fact, these forms are in almost
every real-life application, if not by actual definition, ‘academic’ or ‘educational’. In
Widdowson’s words, these are not the forms a reader most commonly ‘recognises’ as
literature.
Consequently, for the purposes of this study, literature will be understood as
comprising fiction, poetry, drama, and life-writing. Other forms of writing, such as
234Ibid., 3.
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‘essays, histories, literary criticism or other expository and analytical prose’, will not be
investigated within this framework, except in those rare instances when individual titles
can be shown to ‘participate in a broadly based, as distinct from a narrowly specialist,
cultural debate’. For example, Jenny Gregory’s City of Light: A History of Perth since
the 1950s, while it is quite clearly a history book, does ‘not have a predominantly
academic [or] educational ... orientation or style’ and participates ‘in a broadly based ...
cultural debate’, as testified by its robust sales figures.235 Therefore, according to my
own definition, it is considered within the scope of this thesis as a work of literature.
There are many history books, in particular, published in Western Australia that
represent exceptions of this sort, but there are many more that do not; therefore, the
above definition of literature remains a useful tool for differentiating these types of
publications.
I will discuss both book and electronic publishing of the forms that comply with
my definition of literature. Those forms that exist outside this scope will, of course,
serve as references and guideposts for my study.
B. ‘The region’
As was discussed in Chapter 1, ‘the region’ in Australia has been defined in
many different ways. An exceedingly brief review of these reveals one of the earliest to
be a dichotomy between the city and the bush. This particular way of understanding
Australia’s physical environment and identifying borders within it (that could be seen to
constitute regions) persisted strongly for many years and still, to some extent, persists
today. Yet, it was superseded (at least in the scholarly conversation) by alternative
formulations of the region, including the identification of borders along state lines and
borders within states; for example, in Western Australia there is the Kimberley, the
235Jenny Gregory, City of Light: A History of Perth since the 1950s (Perth: City of Perth, 2003).
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Wheatbelt, the Goldfields, and so forth. A later formulation posited a division between
the centre and the periphery, thereby instigating a discussion about the influence of
proximity and access to publishing houses and other such features on the development
of a regional literature.
This last formulation represented the greatest advance to date in the conversation
about literary regionalism in Australia, and yet the physical environment was still
perceived as the most important facet of literary regionalism. However, around the
same time as this was happening, a few scholars and writers hinted at a new direction
for the study of this subject. This (largely unrealised) formulation of literary
regionalism stressed the importance of the reader over that of the physical environment.
It was a response to recent changes of emphasis in literary theory, including the
increasing popularity of reader-response criticism.
The definition of ‘the region’ that will be used for the remainder of this thesis—
and that is most relevant to its discussion of the production of a regional literature in
Western Australia—takes as its starting point this emphasis on the role of the reader. In
other words, the reader’s sense of the region and its borders is privileged above other
ways in which these might be conceived, including the formulations mentioned in the
previous two paragraphs. From here, I advance the discussion by noting that it is not
only those who read who contribute to a sense of the region. Everyone associated with
the region in question, particularly past and present residents, will—as long as they can
be said to make conscious choices—participate in the conversation about what exactly
defines the region, not just the reader.
Drawing as it does on the residents’ sense of it, the region can be defined by ‘a
sense of “identification” or “consciousness of kind” which the inhabitants of a particular
regional area feel for that region and/or for their fellow inhabitants of that region’.236
236Ralph Matthews, The Creation of Regional Dependency (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983),
17–18.
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This understanding of the region as defined by a ‘sense of “identification”’ shared by
those associated with the region (and, in particular, residents of the region), forces one
to reconceive other, more commonly held notions of what defines the region. For
example, Doreen Massey cautions against ‘thinking of places as areas with boundaries
around’, and instead suggests that ‘a “place” is formed out of the particular set of social
relations which interact at a particular location’.237 Notably, Massey uses the term
‘place’ where I have chosen to use ‘region’, but she nonetheless successfully illustrates
the movement away from the notion of the region as grounded primarily in the physical
environment. She continues:
Instead then, of thinking of places as areas with boundaries around theycan be imagined as articulated moments in networks of social relationsand understandings, but where a large proportion of those relations,experiences and understandings are constructed on a far larger scale thanwhat we happen to define for that moment as the place itself, whetherthat be a street, or a region or even a continent. And this in turn allows asense of place which is extroverted, which includes a consciousness ofits links with the wider world, which integrates in a positive way theglobal and the local.238
Rather than taking its cue from and being formed out of the physical environment,
Massey claims that a definition of the region is ‘formed out of the particular set of social
relations which interact at a particular location’, a process which begins and ultimately
ends with the residents of the region in question. This is remarkably similar to the
observation that the region is defined by a ‘sense of “identification”’ shared by those
associated with it, particularly residents of the region.
Yet, Massey also observes in the above excerpt that, while the residents of the
region in question might be the ones sitting at the table where the conversation about a
definition of the region is being had, it would seem there are other parties sitting at their
elbows. National and international media, as well as creative work from writers, artists
and filmmakers, which originate outside the region in question but find their way in—as
237Doreen Massey, Space, Place and Gender (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), 154–55, 168–69.238Ibid., 154–55.
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much does in these often sparsely populated areas—can significantly impact on a
definition of the region. Of course, residents of the region in question have the final
word in all such matters, including determining which voices from outside the region
are allowed to participate in the conversation about what defines the region—although
residents might not always be aware this is what they are doing, or the implications of
their decisions.
Massey also makes the important observation that ‘the identities of places are
inevitably unfixed’:
They are unfixed in part precisely because the social relations out ofwhich they are constructed are themselves by their very nature dynamicand changing. They are also unfixed because of the continual productionof further social effects through the very juxtaposition of those socialrelations.239
Since ‘social relations’, which are so essential in a definition of the region, are by their
very nature ‘dynamic and changing’, a given definition of the region is also subject to
change. These changes can be brought about by any number of factors, including
population change (increase or decrease in the birth rate, an influx of new residents,
especially if they differ from the current population in an observable fashion); a change
in the local economy (‘boom or bust’, technological changes in the means or mode of
production); or the sudden rise to prominence of a notable or controversial figure
(politician, writer, filmmaker).
Of course, the effects of these sorts of occurrences are not limited to the bounds
of the region in which they occur. For example, a large migration of people to
Queensland will affect not only Queensland, but will also affect the states from which
these people originated (in this example, typically Victoria and New South Wales).
Another example from Queensland reveals how the election of Pauline Hanson and the
One Nation party to the House of Representatives changed the way in which
239Ibid., 168–69.
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Queensland, at least for a time, defined itself as a region, but it also changed the way
Australia as a whole thought of itself. In Western Australia, the establishment and
subsequent success of Fremantle Arts Centre Press in the promotion of Western
Australian literature has been instrumental in changing eastern state perceptions of the
arts in Western Australia from a sort of provincial backwater, to a literary and cultural
hub. It has also changed the way other regions in Australia (for example, South
Australia and Queensland) think about and approach issues of regional publishing and
regional literature, which then impacts on their definition of the region.
Clearly, it is a mistake to think of the region and regional identity as defined by a
single factor—the physical environment:
Instead of presuming organic links among people, culture, and territory—‘Texans are individualistic and bold because of the rugged, openlandscape’ or ‘Tasmanians are reserved because they are located so closeto the cold winds of Antarctica’—we must instead ask how suchcommon sense is produced. By analysing how the imagination shapesand delimits the physical world, we gain insight into the political workachieved by assumptions about environmental determinism and into howspatial practices in turn generate certain social and political orders.240
Allaine Cerwonka insists that it is the ‘imagination [which] shapes and delimits the
physical world’, rather than a direct correlation between the region, regional identity,
and the physical environment. Of course, Cerwonka is not the only person to invoke the
concept of imagination with reference to the ‘physical world’:
In his analysis of the terms by which nations originally becamesignificant political communities, Benedict Anderson notes that nationsare constructed through an imagined organic connection between people,culture, and place. Historically, this imagined organic connection wasachieved through the development of maps, museums, and the census, allof which helped delineate a ‘people’, and narrate its cultural andhistorical connection with the territory claimed by the nation-state.241
In Australia, the nation is not the only ‘imagined community’. In fact, a powerfully
‘imagined organic connection between people, culture, and place’ exists on a regional
240Allaine Cerwonka, Native to the Nation: Disciplining Landscapes and Bodies in Australia
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), 5–6.241Ibid., 2.
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level in Australia. Similar to the ‘connection’ with the nation described above, this
regional connection is ‘achieved through the development of maps, museums, and the
census’. Often, these ‘maps, museums, and the census’ are products of the state (as
opposed to the nation, or any sub-region within the state), so the state becomes a source
of regional identity. This particular sense of the region is enhanced by a variety of other
factors, including those as various as Bennett’s aforementioned ‘physical geography,
regional administration and functional land-use’. Also, sport plays a significant role in
the establishment and reinforcement of a state-based regional identity in Australia. In
fact, the state in Australia is an especially powerful source of identity, with which
residents often feel ‘a sense of “identification” or “consciousness of kind” ... for that
region and/or for their fellow inhabitants of that region’.
To put it as simply as possible: state borders are a convenient way in which ‘the
[Australian] imagination shapes and delimits the physical world’. More so than sub-
regions within the state, or any other formulation of the region in Australia, state
borders are the most commonly recognised marker of regional borders. Therefore, this
thesis uses state borders—in particular, the borders of the state of Western Australia—to
represent the region, since there is a ‘sense of “identification”’ shared by those
associated with Western Australia, particularly residents of Western Australia.
C. My timeline
This study of the production of a regional literature in Western Australia is
concentrated on the period from 1970 until the present day. There are many reasons for
this timeline, not the least of which is that there was very little book publishing in
Western Australia prior to 1970, much less publication of books that meet the
aforementioned qualifications to be considered literature. Of the three publishing
houses examined in-depth in this thesis, only one existed prior to 1970; University of
124
Western Australia Press was established in 1935 as University of Western Australia Text
Books Board.
Only a very limited amount of University of Western Australia Press’s
publishing programme prior to 1970 falls within the parameters of the definition of
literature employed in this thesis. According to this definition, only work that can be
shown to ‘participate in a broadly based, as distinct from a narrowly specialist, cultural
debate’ is considered literature, thereby exempting most ‘essays, histories, literary
criticism or other expository and analytical prose’. Jenny Gregory notes in her
introduction to A Press in Isolation: University of Western Australia Press 1935–2004,
that ‘textbooks had been an integral part of the Press’s early publishing history.
However, in the 1970s, as the Press increasingly focussed on publishing in the
humanities, the idea of the textbook gradually began to fall out of favour in that area.’242
Thus, University of Western Australia Press began publishing in the 1970s a small but
slowly increasing number of books that could be said to ‘participate in a broadly based,
as distinct from a narrowly specialist, cultural debate’.
Excepting the few works published by University of Western Australia Press that
could be considered literature, the publication of literature in Western Australia in the
period prior to 1970 was almost exclusively carried out by the literary journal Westerly
(established in 1956). Furthermore, community newspapers in the late 19th and early
20th centuries regularly published poetry and short stories, unlike most contemporary
newspapers. In other words, literature was the stuff of periodical publication, rather
than book publication, in Western Australia up until approximately the early 1970s. A
possible exception to this rule is Paterson’s Press, which was based in Perth and
published at least 75 works of literature in the period between 1916 and 1963; however,
242Gregory, introduction to A Press in Isolation: University of Western Australia Press 1935–2004, byCriena Fitzgerald (Crawley: University of Western Australia Press, 2005), 5.
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it is not known how effectively these works were distributed or how they were
received.243 Nonetheless, 1970 roughly demarcates a major shift in the production of a
regional literature in Western Australia.
Of course, as has already been detailed in Chapters 1 and 2 of this thesis, the
1980s represent the heyday of interest in the subject of literary regionalism in Australia.
This section attempts to demonstrate, however, that any consideration of these interests
must begin in the early 1970s. Changes beginning in the 1970s laid the groundwork
necessary for this later burgeoning of interest in the subject. Government initiatives at
both the state and federal levels, especially as they related to the Australia Council and
its Literature Board, as well as Western Australia’s sesquicentenary celebrations and the
Australian bicentennial, were particularly influential in determining this timeline. These
changes are charted in the ‘Government as an instrument in the field of cultural
production’ subsection of this chapter.
Another reason for beginning my timeline with this date is that it roughly marks
a significant shift in the culture of literary criticism and literary theory in Australia. I go
into greater detail on this subject in the section titled ‘Literary theory’, but for now it is
important to note that
formalism, in the guise of New Criticism as a teaching practice, wasmost strong and persuasive in the Cold War years, and ... since then, andparticularly from the latter 1970s, it’s been losing its grip on theprofession.244
The displacement of formalism made room for literary theories that are far more
amenable to literary regionalism. In fact, Sneja Gunew maintains that ‘thinking about
cultural difference in an Australian context began around 1979, when questions of
“positionality” or “perspectivism” were just beginning to stimulate a major debate in
243‘Paterson’s Press’, in Austlit: The Australian Literature Resource (20 Feb. 2008, accessed 13 July2008); available from http://www.austlit.edu.au.244John Docker, In a Critical Condition: Reading Australian Literature (Ringwood: Penguin, 1984), 210.
126
cultural studies.’245 Gunew is referring specifically to ‘[multi-]cultural difference in an
Australian context’ (emphasis mine), but the timeline she sketches is also relevant to
regional difference. After all, ‘positionality’ is of obvious importance in the study of
regionalism. Gunew inadvertently demonstrates this when she writes that
‘postmodernist and post-colonialist debates ... have undoubtedly precipitated a wide-
spread acceptance of the fact that positionality—where you stand in relation to what you
say—is central to the construction of knowledge’.246 The very essence of literary
regionalism would seem to be connected to this idea of ‘where you stand in relation to
what you say’ that found acceptance in the Australian literary critical community only in
the 1970s.
II. Cultural studies
My research into the production of a regional literature in Western Australia
draws upon many different disciplinary approaches, including book history, print culture
studies and publishing studies, as well as literary studies and cultural studies. This
variety of approaches enables a fuller understanding of the subject matter, including
aspects as various as literary criticism and theory, the history of a publishing house, the
economics of book publishing, and the role of visual elements such as cover design in
the production of a regional literature. It is possible, however, to understand these
diverse ‘genres’ of research and writing as all having a place under the interdisciplinary
banner of cultural studies. In fact, this arrangement is in many ways preferable to
conceiving of the various types of research that compose this thesis as originating in
wholly separate disciplines, thereby reducing the chances of productive exchange. It is
necessary, then, to better understand the field of cultural studies, as well as the terms
245Sneja Gunew, Framing Marginality: Multicultural Literary Studies (Carlton: Melbourne University
Press, 1994), 5.246Ibid., 1.
127
‘culture’ and ‘cultural value’, especially since these terms have already been employed
in my definitions of both ‘literature’ and ‘the region’.
The following excerpt from Chris Jenks goes a long way towards defining
‘culture’ as the word is used in this thesis:
The concept of culture implies a relationship with the accumulatedshared symbols representative of and significant within a particularcommunity, what we might describe as a context-dependant [sic]semiotic system. Culture, however, is not simply residue, it is ... inprogress; it processes and reveals as it structures and contains. Culture isthe way of life and the manner of living of a people. It is often conflatedwith the idea of high culture; this is an understanding both too restrictiveand too exclusive.247
In this excerpt, Jenks makes several important observations. First, that culture (like the
definition of ‘the region’ discussed above) is subject to change. Second, (again like the
region) it is defined according to those associated with it—the ‘way of life and manner
of living of a people’. Finally, that culture should not be confused with ‘high culture’.
Clearly, the terms ‘culture’ and ‘the region’ have a lot in common; this is because the
region is defined by the culture of its residents and those associated with it.
While this definition of culture is hardly new (T. S. Eliot, for example, used it in
Notes towards a Definition of Culture in 1948), it gained prominence alongside the
popularisation of cultural studies as a field of critical enquiry. The latter occasion
transpired ‘over no more than the past thirty years, initially in Britain and then ... North
America and Australia’.248 Since its inception (or at least its acceptance by the
academy), cultural studies has been imagined as interdisciplinary. In other words,
cultural studies ‘is best viewed as an interdisciplinary clearing house within the
humanities providing a useful interface at which the concerns of different disciplines,
and of other interdisciplinary knowledges, can enter into fruitful forms of dialogue’.249
247Chris Jenks, Culture (London: Routledge, 1993), 121.
248Ibid., 151.249Tony Bennett, ‘Cultural Studies’, in Discipline Surveys, vol. 2 in Knowing Ourselves and Others: The
Humanities in Australia into the 21st Century, ed. Reference Group for the Australian Academy of theHumanities (Canberra: Australian Research Council, 1998), 79.
128
This is, of course, the reason why cultural studies provides a useful interdisciplinary
home for the types of research undertaken in this thesis.
Yet, cultural studies has always had a particularly strong relationship with the
discipline of social anthropology. This should not be surprising, as culture has been
defined as the ‘way of life and manner of living of a people’, which is close to the
interests of social anthropology. In fact, these interests have characterised cultural
studies from its earliest days:
We can point to two features that characterised [cultural studies] when itfirst appeared in Great Britain in the 1950s. It concentrated on‘subjectivity’, which means that it studies culture in relation to individuallives, breaking with social scientific positivism or ‘objectivism’. ... Thesecond distinguishing characteristic of early cultural studies was that itwas an engaged form of analysis. Early cultural studies did not flinchfrom the fact that societies are structured unequally, that individuals arenot all born with the same access to education, money, health-care, etc.,and it worked in the interests of those who have fewest resources. ...These two defining features of early cultural studies were closelyconnected because it is at the level of the individual life that the culturaleffects of social inequality are most apparent.250
This excerpt makes it clear why cultural studies is an appropriate mode in which to
study the production of a regional literature—both cultural studies and literary
regionalism are marked by their responsiveness to ‘subjectivity’ and to instances of an
unevenly structured society. The connection between literary regionalism and the
former feature (that is, ‘subjectivity’) should be clear, given earlier discussions about
the region as ‘formed out of the particular set of social relations which interact at a
particular location’. As for the latter feature, Part III (‘Defining “regional literature”
and “regional publishing”’) of this chapter demonstrates that the producers of regional
literature examined in this thesis are (almost by definition) also ‘those who have the
fewest resources’ in an unevenly structured society. Accordingly, a cultural studies
approach should work in the interests of literary regionalism.
250Simon During, ed., The Cultural Studies Reader (London: Routledge, 1993), 1–2.
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The above excerpt also explains why cultural studies has for so long been
perceived as an advocate of popular culture—traditionally, popular culture has few
‘resources’ inside the halls of academia. However, if cultural studies has established a
clear linkage with popular culture, then the term ‘culture’ (as opposed to ‘cultural
studies’) seems to have kept its distance:
It is taken for granted that certain forms of culture are worthy ofnurturing for the sake of an imagined national cultural identity. Itdoesn’t seem to matter that very few people participate, enjoy and haveaccess to these forms, or that they exclude large numbers on account ofclass, race and ethnic cultural differences. Even those that are excludeddon’t usually question the need for national opera, ballet, theatrecompanies and symphony orchestras to be supported with public money.According to the Australia Council (1986), ‘95 per cent of Australianssay that the success of our artists and performers give Australians a senseof pride in our achievements’.251
Clearly, the terms ‘culture’ and ‘high culture’ have once again been conflated, if not by
the author of this excerpt, then by the Australia Council. When this happens, regional
interests (including regional literature) are commonly perceived as being outside the
realm of high culture, since they are regional and therefore not ‘worthy of nurturing for
the sake of an imagined national cultural identity’ (emphasis mine). It would seem
these interests need an advocate in the arts and perhaps also academia. The field of
cultural studies, as an interdisciplinary advocate of the ‘interests of those who have
fewest resources’ and of popular culture rather than high culture, is the perfect candidate
for this role.
The following sections use cultural studies as a critical and theoretical lens
through which to examine several subjects designed to build a case for a new definition
of regional literature and regional publishing. Changes in literary theory are shown to
have laid the necessary groundwork for use of the concept of a ‘field of cultural
production’ in this thesis, thereby taking into account the contributions of writers,
251Diane Powell, ‘Bunging It On: Public Manners and Private Taste’, in Australian Communications and
the Public Sphere, ed. Helen Wilson (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1989), 234–35.
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editors, publishers, government arts organisations, the media, readers, and so forth, in
the production of any cultural work including, obviously, the production of a regional
literature. Specific contributions from the field of cultural production that are examined
include government, publishing and ‘paratext’, as they influence the production of a
regional literature in Western Australia. A final section on ‘minority literature’
considers the manner in which significance is assessed (and who makes this
assessment), thus re-establishing the importance of the concepts of culture and cultural
value to this study.
A. Literary theory
It is a difficult task to trace the history of an idea or theory, and yet most literary
scholars would agree that ‘in this century, in English-speaking countries, it is text-
centric formalism which has held the institutional power, and for this reason has become
the orthodoxy, the ideologically dominant approach’.252 In Australia, ‘text-centric
formalism’ has adopted various guises, but it is most apparent in the critical vestments
of New Criticism and Leavisism. A basic summary of these two closely linked,
formalist theories goes like this:
The New Critical and Leavisite project has certainly been liberating forcriticism, particularly in its insistence on the autonomy of the text, thetext’s freedom from history and its own creator. New Criticism andLeavisism allow for the detailed inner investigation of the text’s actualworkings and modes and aesthetic shape and dramatised meanings.Further, the stress on detailed study of texts is necessary as only suchdetailed analysis can provide evidence for an argument.253
While this definition of the two literary theories is largely positive—stressing what the
theories do, rather than what they do not do—the latter is more typical. In fact, the basic
rules of New Criticism and Leavisism are frequently explained as a list of Don’ts, each
of which is called a ‘fallacy’.
252Docker, 84.253Ibid., 48.
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The ‘imitative fallacy’ states that literature is not to be understood as a reflection
of social reality or history, but rather as existing only in relation to other texts. In other
words, ‘it supposes the existence of some absolute quality in great poetry that
transcends the conditions of particular cultural contexts’.254 The ‘intentional fallacy’
states that ‘literary meaning’ is located ‘in the formal features of the text, rather than in
the author’s intention’.255 This is almost identical to Roland Barthes’s theory of the
‘death of the author’: ‘Whereas the New Critics, following Eliot, have talked of the
Intentional Fallacy, Barthes adopts the flashy phrase, the author is dead, but the meaning
is so similar it doesn’t signify.’256 This similarity is, of course, due to the fact that New
Criticism and Leavisism, as well as Barthes’s structuralism (and the later post-
structuralism and deconstructionism), are all text-based formalist criticisms.
Clearly, New Criticism and Leavisism have much in common, not the least of
which is their shared desire to isolate texts ‘from their cultural and historical
contexts’.257 It is believed these are the only circumstances in which the text’s ‘true’
meaning, or an accurate assessment of its ‘literary “greatness”’, can be determined.258
However, it is important to note that New Critics and Leavisites do not want to isolate
the text from its ‘cultural and historical contexts’ as completely as depicted by some
critics. In fact, as René Wellek observes, it would seem that as a result of these critics’
comments,
a straw man is set up: the New Critic, who supposedly denies that a workof art can be illuminated by historical knowledge at all. It is then easy toshow that poems have been misunderstood because the meaning of anobsolete word was missed or a historical or biographical allusion ignoredor misread. But I do not believe that there ever was a single reputable‘New’ critic who has taken the position imputed to him. The New Critics... have argued that a literary work of art is a verbal structure of a certaincoherence and wholeness, and that literary study had often become
254David Lodge, 20th Century Literary Criticism: A Reader (London: Longman, 1972), 291.
255David Lodge, Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader (New York: Longman, 1988), 310.
256Docker, 185.257Eagleton, 37.258Ibid.
132
completely irrelevant to this total meaning, that it had moved all toooften into external information about biography, social conditions,historical backgrounds, etc. But this argument of the New Critics did notmean and could not be conceived to mean a denial of the relevance ofhistorical information for the business of poetic interpretation.259
Even if the New Critics (and to this I would add the Leavisites, even though Wellek
does not mention them) are not interested in an absolute, all-encompassing ‘denial of
the relevance of historical information for the business of poetic interpretation’, it is fair
to say that they are interested in ‘objectivity in criticism, by eliminating as far as
possible all evidence extraneous to the text, the “words on the page”’ (emphasis
mine).260 Furthermore, they demand a high level of rigour, aspiring ‘to make literary
criticism a more precise and objective discipline’.261 This view is typical of formalist
criticism.
Other conventions of formalist criticism (a broadly defined critical category
encompassing far more than just New Criticism and Leavisism, though these arguably
form its backbone) include the view that
all these supposed explanatory contexts are just more and disguisedversions of the author, who should be dismissed from view, should be‘dead’ (the Intentional Fallacy). For the text exists not in the intentionsof the author, or as a reflection of society.262
Clearly, the formalists are not amenable to a contextualist approach to literary criticism.
Or, as Docker put it in 1984, ‘In Foucault’s terms, the textcentric, formalist Leavisites
and New Critics constitute a “regime of truth”, a regime that in the main has
successfully warded off the challenge of contextual approaches.’263
Yet, the formalist ‘regime’ has not remained entirely unchallenged:
In the 20th century, contextualism has lived on mainly in the form of theFreudian approach ..., the Marxist ..., and, in Australia, the radical
259René Wellek, ‘Literary Theory, Criticism and History’, in 20th Century Literary Criticism: A Reader,
ed. David Lodge (London: Longman, 1972), 555.260Lodge, 20th Century Literary Criticism, 70.
261Lodge, Modern Criticism and Theory, 15.
262Docker, 85.263Ibid., 83.
133
nationalist (rejected as reducing Australian literature to certain presumeddistinctive characteristics of popular consciousness and theenvironment).264
The prominence of the radical nationalist approach with regard to Australian literature is
debatable. Almost certainly, it has less influence today that it did in 1984 when Docker
authored the above excerpt. But self-apparent ‘facts’ have a history of being unable to
stymie this debate about the role of radical nationalism in Australian society:
Somehow or other—mainly by saying it so loudly and so often—theview is sustained that the literary nationalists were, are, and always willbe the critical orthodoxy in Australia, and the New Critics/Leavisites willalways be admirable and daring for taking on such a powerful orthodoxyand pointing to serious qualifications, doubts, neglected areas, and newinterpretations. What’s never explained is: how can they, themetaphysical orthodox, who occupy the positions of power and influencein university teaching, not be the orthodoxy, the ascendant group?265
One of the reasons why formalist literary theorists in Australia have been so successful
in painting themselves as the underdogs struggling for recognition against the forces of
the radical nationalist orthodoxy, is that this contextualist approach has been (until
recently) largely going it alone in the Australian literary theoretical wilderness, making
it an easy target. Other contextualist approaches, such as the Freudian approach and
Marxism (both mentioned by Docker as being the main challengers to formalism in the
20th century), have had relatively few proponents in Australia. More recent
contextualist approaches include book history, print culture studies and publishing
studies, which have already been mentioned as constituting an integral part of the
disciplinary map of the types of research that constitute this thesis. However, as was
detailed in the Introduction to this thesis, these particular scholarly methods have only
the briefest of histories in Australian academia.
Some of the features Docker identifies as ‘limitations of the radical nationalists’
contextual approach to cultural history and literary criticism’, are equally relevant to
264Ibid., 84.265Ibid., 164.
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these more recent contextualist approaches—book history, print culture studies and
publishing studies:266
The first problem is that it is contextual usually at the expense ofdetailed analyses of texts, which means also that it doesn’t usuallyprovide evidence for its assertions. It doesn’t, that is, usually combinecontextual and textual analysis in the one critical moment, and so ascriticism in particular it remains unsatisfactory. A second limitation liesprecisely in the historicist premise that a literary or cultural period canpossess a single unified essential spirit, which in turn is the reflection ofan essential spirit in the society or natural environment. ... But theaesthetic diversity, plurality, conflict, and contradictions of an age cannotbe compressed in this way.267
Clearly, if these claims are to be believed, the radical nationalist approach to literary
criticism is deeply flawed. In particular, the premise that ‘a literary or cultural period
can possess a single unified essential spirit, which in turn is the reflection of an essential
spirit in the society or natural environment’, is deeply troubling. Such attempts at
generalisation or essentialisation are frequently the downfall of contextualist literary
theory, which, as was noted above, ‘doesn’t usually provide evidence for its assertions’.
Book history, print culture studies and publishing studies do not essentialise as much as
the radical nationalist approach to literary criticism, but when poorly handled are
equally liable to provide contextual analysis ‘at the expense of detailed analyses of
texts’, thus overlooking the productive combination of ‘contextual and textual analysis
in the one critical moment’.
Nonetheless, a contextualist literary theory (though not the particular brand of
contextualism associated with radical nationalism) is better suited than a formalist
literary theory to the particular study undertaken in this thesis. After all,
formalism is very limited in its aims. It sets out to describe and evoke,rather than to explain. For the contextualists, the reverse is true: the textis to be seen in its relationship to something else, a preferred context,whatever it might be, that will help explicate a work’s character. ... Forthe formalist, history refers to the relationship between a text and allother texts—to ‘inter-textuality’—and historical time is not the
266Ibid., 37.267Ibid., 37–38.
135
relationship of a text to a specific social history since all literary texts areseen as simultaneously present.
Consequently, contextualists and formalists differ in theirapproach to the question of disciplines and degree of specialisation. ...Contextualists are more likely to try to be interdisciplinary, to desire towork with non-critics in a common attack on the problems of culturalanalysis and explanation.268
Clearly, this thesis involves a contextualist approach, since it analyses literature in
relation to regionality in a particular time period; if it assessed ‘all literary texts ... as
simultaneously present’, there would be no need for a timeline. Also, this thesis draws
upon material and approaches unique to cultural studies, which (as noted above) is an
interdisciplinary field, and a contextualist approach to literary theory is better equipped
to handle interdisciplinarity.
More specifically, my research into the production of a regional literature in
Western Australia adopts as its theoretical framework the particular contextualist
approach known as ‘reader-response criticism’. Jane P. Tompkins defines reader-
response criticism as
not a conceptually unified critical position, but a term that has come tobe associated with the work of critics who use the words reader, thereading process, and response to mark out an area for investigation. Inthe context of Anglo-American criticism, the reader-response movementarises in direct opposition to the New Critical dictum.269
In this excerpt, reader-response criticism is not defined as a ‘conceptually unified
critical position’, but rather as host to any number of related but ultimately diverse
critical opinions. Nonetheless, there is agreement within this field of diverse critical
opinions about ‘the assertion that all discourse is ‘interested”’, which
amounts to a reinsertion of literature into the stream of ordinarydiscourse from which formalism had removed it. The New Critics hadobjected to confusing the poem with its results in order to separateliterature from other kinds of discourse and to give criticism an objectivebasis for its procedures. The later reader-response critics deny thatcriticism has such an objective basis because they deny the existence of
268Ibid., 85.269Jane P. Tompkins, ed., Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), ix.
136
objective texts and indeed the possibility of objectivity altogether.Relocating meaning first in the reader’s self and then in the interpretivestrategies that constitute it, they assert that meaning is a consequence ofbeing in a particular situation in the world.270
Clearly, reader-response criticism is a contextualist criticism; there are few more
straight-forward assertions of this fact than ‘that meaning is a consequence of being in a
particular situation in the world’. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that formalist
criticism, even as here defined, is also contextual, inasmuch as individual texts are seen
in relation to other texts (that is, the literary tradition). The most significant difference
between these two sorts of contextualism, however, is that the former is concerned with
the context of an individual text ‘in a particular situation in the world’, while the latter is
concerned with context only as it relates to other texts, which is but a single aspect of
the aforementioned ‘world’.
The above excerpt also states that ‘reader-response critics deny ... the possibility
of objectivity altogether’. This is an important observation, since any hint of objectivity
would render moot the definitions used in this thesis of terms such as ‘literature’ and
‘the region’; after all, these definitions rely on the assessment of cultural value.
Consequently, they are focussed on the role of the reader as the maker of meaning. Or,
as another scholar writes, ‘In considering a literary work, one must take into account not
only the actual text but also, in equal measure, the actions involved in responding to that
text.’271 These ‘actions’ are significant, because the meaning of a text could be said to
have ‘no effective existence outside of its realization in the mind of a reader’.272
Clearly, reader-response criticism is an important idea in the context of this discussion
of literary regionalism.
270Ibid.271Wolfgang Iser, ‘The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach’, in Reader-Response Criticism:
From Formalism to Post-Structuralism, ed. Jane P. Tompkins (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1980), 50.272Tompkins, ix.
137
In fact, parallels have been drawn between an increased interest in contextualist
literary theories such as reader-response criticism and ‘an awareness of regionality in
Australian literature’:273
One of the achievements of the orthodoxy in its prime in the late 1950sand ‘60s was to create a hierarchy of Australian literature which wascentred in Sydney and Melbourne. ... In the last few years, however,studies suggesting the continuing value and importance of the regionalliteratures previously despised (like the Jindyworobaks) or largelyignored (like the literature of Western Australia) have begun to appear.Here again, then, the orthodoxy is losing its once tight grip on what‘Australian literature’ should be taken to mean and how it should beapproached.274
In this excerpt, the ‘orthodoxy’ referred to by Docker is the New Critical and Leavisite
orthodoxy. In contrast, it is the emphasis on the realisation of textual meaning in the
reader that is driving the advent of ‘studies suggesting the continuing value and
importance of the regional literatures’.
However, interest in contextualist literary theory and the role of the reader can
be taken too far, thus undermining the credibility of reader-response criticism:
The next event in the drama of the reader’s emergence into criticalprominence is that instead of being seen as instrumental to theunderstanding of the text, the reader’s activity is declared to be identicalwith the text and therefore becomes itself the source of all literary value.If literature is what happens when we read, its value depends on thevalue of the reading process.275
The problem with this particular leap from the reader ‘being seen as instrumental to the
understanding of the text’, to the reader being seen as ‘the source of all literary value’, is
that it supersedes all the other contextual factors contributing to the production and
reception of any given work of literature. Just as formalists assert the superiority of the
text over all other considerations, the above excerpt asserts the superiority of the reader
over all other considerations. Both approaches to literary theory are equally short-
sighted.
273Docker, 178–79.274Ibid.275Tompkins, xvi.
138
The assertion that the reader is ‘the source of all literary value’ does not account
for the aforementioned common sentiment among readers (and also among a particular
kind of literary theorist) ‘that “literature” as a concept retains a meaningful cultural
sense’, and this ‘sense’ is not limited to the effects of the reader on the text. Most
notably, the ‘meaningful cultural sense’ of literature still includes for the reader a
significant contribution from the author. A viable literary theory cannot claim to
identify the ‘reader’s activity’ as ‘the source of all literary value’, and yet ignore such a
fundamental component of this activity—the reader’s attribution of importance to
elements outside the reader’s influence, particularly the role of the author.
These elements, when acknowledged and respected by literary theorists, yield a
theory that maintains that
a text cannot be studied as a self-sufficient entity—we can’t be satisfiedwith merely studying its internal relations or its relationship exclusivelyto other texts. Ideally, we have to examine a text’s conditions ofproduction and consumption (or reception) as well as its specific internalreality. If we took film as our example, this kind of broad-rangingcritique would be clearly (one would think) necessary.276
Docker advocates neither a text-based formalist criticism, nor a criticism that only
accounts for a text’s ‘reception’. Instead, he proposes a more well-rounded
contextualist criticism, which examines ‘a text’s conditions of production and
consumption (or reception) as well as its specific internal reality’. With this approach
firmly in mind, the next section of this thesis considers the effects of some of these
‘conditions’ on the production of a regional literature in Western Australia.
B. Field of cultural production
My research is informed by many scholars, but notable among them is Pierre
Bourdieu, who devised the theory of a ‘field of cultural production’. In an article
276Docker, 208.
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published in the 2005 edition of Westerly, ‘Tim Winton, Cloudstreet and the
Field of Australian Literature’, Robert Dixon describes Bourdieu’s theory:
When Bourdieu talks about a field of cultural production, he means toidentify the entire set of institutions, personnel, practices and dispositionsthat work in combination to shape its possibilities and outcomes. In thecase of print culture, these include the publishing houses that produceand distribute books; the bodies that award literary prizes; thegovernment departments that give grants and frame cultural policy; theshops that sell books; the reading groups in which books are variouslydiscussed; the mass media that report on books and writers, includingnewspapers, radio and television; and the schools and universities, whichset courses, select some books and writers above others, and publishliterary criticism in scholarly journals.277
Each element of this ‘set of institutions, personnel, practices and dispositions’ can be
individually regarded as an ‘instrument’ (my term, not Bourdieu’s) of cultural
production. The aforementioned instruments are among those that work together to
shape the life of a book, from its production to reception. As a sociologist of culture,
however, Bourdieu uses case studies from the visual arts as well as literature. Yet, this
thesis concentrates almost exclusively on the application of Bourdieu’s theory to
literature and literary production.
Bourdieu’s theory of a field of cultural production necessitates the combination
of various modes of research and writing, all of which can be handled within the
framework of cultural studies. It also requires a contextualist literary theory, which
addresses literature as more than simply text existing in a social and cultural vacuum,
and instead considers the context of all the institutions that shape its production and
reception. Bennett describes both scenarios:
Literary activity is often perceived in terms of the lonely individualstruggling for self-expression. However, a more comprehensive andrealistic view includes writers, editors, publishers and readers in acontinual process of interaction—each adjusting to the demands of his orher chosen role in relation to the needs and requirements of others.278
277Robert Dixon, ‘Tim Winton, Cloudstreet and the Field of Australian Literature’, Westerly 50 (2005):
245.278Bruce Bennett, Cross Currents: Magazines and Newspapers in Australian Literature (Melbourne:
Longman Cheshire, 1981), ix.
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As argued earlier in this chapter, this particular combination of cultural studies
and contextualist literary theory is not the orthodoxy amongst Australian literary
scholars. Consequently, as was also mentioned earlier, book-length studies employing
this approach (and evidencing a nuanced understanding of the field of cultural
production as it contributes to the production and reception of literature) are rare.
Nonetheless, a few such books—all published within the last seven years—were
mentioned in the Introduction to this thesis.
It is important that literature is understood in the context of the publishing
industry and other instruments of cultural production. Of course, depending on what
they are attempting to demonstrate, some individuals will choose not to speak of
literature in these terms, and this is not necessarily wrong. Yet, it is important to bear in
mind that virtually all of the literature we receive and read today passes through and is
thus mediated by the publishing industry. To speak as if the two—literature and
publishing—were mutually exclusive is invalid, as it also would be to speak as if the
two operated in the absence of media influence, marketing campaigns, literary prizes,
writers’ festivals, and so forth. If academics, in particular, hope to have any credence in
the public sphere, they must seriously consider such practicalities when composing their
rhetoric. After serious consideration, they may then decide that coverage of these
subjects is simply not relevant to their particular study, but at least they will have
considered it; their readership is likely to notice if such matters have been summarily
discarded where they might warrant more attention.
The following excerpt helps illustrate why this approach is appropriate to the
study of a regional literature or, more specifically, Western Australian literature:
Here, in summary form, are some of the social and cultural variables thatappear to be related to the amount, quality and type of artistic andintellectual products of any particular community: the traditions of thatcommunity and those imported from other communities; the types of
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occupations pursued; the social and economic class structure; thepossibilities of moving from one class to another; the techniques ofproduction; the division of labour between classes and groups; thepresence of particular talents and skills and educational facilities.279
Clearly, the ‘types of occupations pursued’ are different in, for example, Western
Australia and New South Wales; the Western Australian economy is driven in large part
by the mining industry, whereas its role in New South Wales is not nearly as significant.
Also, there is the ‘presence of particular talents and skills and educational facilities’ in
New South Wales that do not exist in Western Australia, and vice-versa. For example,
Western Australian publishers often commission editors, designers and printers from the
eastern states, because they cannot find qualified people in Western Australia. As Taft
notes, these circumstances affect ‘the amount, quality and type of artistic and
intellectual products of any particular community’. Therefore, they must be accounted
for in any study of literature or literary culture.
However, even more important to ‘the amount, quality and type of artistic and
intellectual products of any particular community’ than the aforementioned two
examples, is access to and control of the instruments of cultural production. To briefly
illustrate what I mean by ‘control of the instruments of cultural production’, I refer to an
Australian example: As recently as 2004, 94% of all books sold in Australia that were
published by Australian publishers, came from publishing houses based in New South
Wales or Victoria.280 Furthermore, ‘40% of Literature Board grants go to writers
resident in New South Wales,’ fully 10% more than New South Wales represents as a
proportion of the Australian population.281 To argue that such factors do not have an
influence on the development of a literary culture in, for example, Western Australia,
is to display ignorance of the conditions of production of Western culturethrough history, of the financial factors involved in the production of
279Ronald Taft, ‘Mateship, Success-ship and Suburbia’, Westerly 2 (1961): 21.
280Australian Bureau of Statistics, ‘Book Publishers, 2003–04’, in Australian Bureau of Statistics (2005,
accessed 11 Feb. 2006), 6; available from http://www.abs.gov.au.281Taylor, ‘Review’, 12–13.
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both popular and ‘non-popular’ literature today, and of the productionand market factors operating within the Australian publishing industry.282
Also, such an argument would represent a retreat to the Romantic idea of the writer as a
‘lonely individual struggling for self-expression’, which was long ago discredited as a
blinkered view of the processes involved in the production of a literary work. This view
is not necessarily wrong, just incomplete. The following sub-sections aim to complete
(or, at the very least, to greatly expand) this understanding of the forces that impact on
the production of any literary work, but in particular the production of a regional
literature in Western Australia.
i. Government as an instrument in the field of cultural production
As was alluded to in the ‘My timeline’ section of this chapter, the changing
dynamics of the literary field of cultural production in Australia beginning in the 1970s
and going through the late 1980s were largely responsible for the rise to popularity of
literary regionalism in Australia. In particular, changes in governmental policies related
to the funding of literature and the arts played a significant role in shaping scholarly and
popular interest in this subject. For example,
the Literature Board of the Australia Council, since its inception duringthe Whitlam Labor Government years (1972–75), has played a majorrole in the encouragement of cultural diversification. One important by-product has been the renewed interest in ‘regional’ literature.283
The most notable change that accompanied the shift from the Commonwealth Literary
Fund (CLF) to the Literature Board in 1973, was the sudden influx of funds: ‘The CLF
in its last financial year had a budget of $250,000. The Literature Board began with a
budget increase to just over one million dollars.’284 By 1986, a mere thirteen years later,
282Ibid., 4.283Headon, xix.284Thomas Shapcott, The Literature Board: A Brief History (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press,
1988), 8.
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this amount had more than doubled to $2,882,783.285 In addition to the obvious shot in
the arm this new source of money gave more generally to Australian writers and
writing, it came with an expectation that funding would be equitably distributed among
the citizens of this vast nation.
This was no small feat in a national literary culture that had systematically
favoured writers from Sydney and Melbourne for so many years. However, the
Literature Board was assisted in their efforts by the aforementioned increase in funding
and, more specifically, the increase in the number of grants they were able to award: ‘In
two years under Whitlam the Literature Board awarded 269 fellowships to writers,
compared with a total of 207 fellowships (mostly much smaller) in the previous thirty-
four years of the existence of the board’s predecessor.’286 The equitable distribution of
funding across the breadth of the nation was further assisted by the new avenues for
publication that were opened with the help of Literature Board funds, including several
specifically devoted to the promotion of regional interests. For example, Fremantle Arts
Centre Press, a publishing house exclusively dedicated to the publication of works by
Western Australian writers, was established and published its first book in 1976 with the
expectation of Literature Board support (and, indeed, support came in the form of
publication subsidies as early as 1977). Furthermore,
within Australia, important new dimensions have been added in the1980s by the emergence of regionally based literary magazines such asIsland Magazine (from Tasmania) and Northern Perspective (fromDarwin), thus complementing a pattern of regional variation proposed byWesterly since 1956.287
As Laurie Hergenhan once observed, ‘magazines can be made or marred by the
times’.288 If the creation of the Literature Board in 1973 was excluded from
285Ibid.286Ross Terrill, The Australians: In Search of an Identity (London: Bantam Press, 1987), 309.287Bennett, Australian Compass, 216.288Laurie Hergenhan, ‘The Struggles of the Little Magazines’, Quadrant 47, nos. 7–8 (July/Aug. 2003):
85.
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consideration as part of Australia’s field of cultural production, a significant factor in
the production and reception of regional literature in this country would be missing and
any subsequent literary analysis incomplete.
Exactly how significant a factor the Literature Board has been can be illustrated
with an example:
This record of subsidies to publishers of Jolley’s early novels is ameasure of the larger impact of the new government patronage on thewriting life in Australia in the seventies. And, to the extent that therhetoric of regionalism of the early to mid-seventies was a strand of thenew nationalism of the Whitlam years that nurtured such a fundingpolicy, the existence of Fremantle Arts Centre Press can be seen to belinked to national developments not only institutionally through newlevels of arts funding, but also discursively through new sorts ofnationalism.289
Barbara H. Milech continues:
It was this conjunction of a new federal arts policy, a new rhetoric ofregionalism (related to a renewed nationalism), and a new institutionalbase for creative writing that took Jolley from the position of someonewho writes—a faculty wife, a mother, a grandmother—to the position ofa professional writer.290
Elizabeth Jolley had submitted manuscripts to many Australian publishing houses and
been rejected on every account. It is no coincidence that it was Fremantle Arts Centre
Press, a publishing house in receipt of new government arts funding, which felt it could
take a risk on just such a writer. Jolley, of course, went on to become one of the most
highly acclaimed writers (both within Australia and internationally) in Australian
literary history.
Jolley’s example is particularly compelling, since she had met with such
dismaying results under the previous federal arts policy. However, changes in
governmental arts policy beginning in the early 1970s were not limited to the federal
level, as many state governments launched new initiatives in the 1970s and ‘80s
289Barbara H. Milech, ‘Becoming “Elizabeth Jolley”: The First Twenty Years in Australia’, in Australian
Literature and the Public Sphere, ed. Alison Bartlett, Robert Dixon, and Christopher Lee (Canberra:
Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 1999), 137–38.290Ibid., 138.
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designed to encourage artistic production. After all, the majority of the money used to
establish Fremantle Arts Centre Press came from the Western Australian Government,
and it was only publishing subsidies that later came from the Literature Board of the
Australia Council. The ‘new nationalism’ of the 1970s (encouraged by changes in
federal arts funding) gave rise to an Australian audience increasingly interested in
reading literature written by Australians and concerned with Australian themes;
however, as was mentioned above, there also existed a ‘new rhetoric of regionalism
(related to a renewed nationalism)’. The latter phenomenon was, of course, especially
encouraged by state government initiatives.
This particular development will be discussed in-depth in Chapter 4, with
specific reference to Western Australia’s three major publishing houses and how state
and federal government initiatives variously affect them. Yet, it is important to note
now that literary regionalism in Australia was encouraged by the injection of further
government funding around the time of Western Australia’s sesquicentenary celebration
in 1979. Clearly, this was a Western Australia-specific event, but as has been
demonstrated countless times in this thesis, Western Australia is a trendsetter in this
area. The aforementioned funding was awarded in spite of the fact that, as Western
Australian Bruce Bennett has noted, ‘one of the features of the “cultural cringe” in
Western Australia was a general ignorance about its literature’.291 However, this was
soon to change:
Under the influence of a new cultural nationalism fostered by theWhitlam Labor government (1972–75), and the build-up to WesternAustralia’s Sesquicentenary in 1979, three books on Western Australianliterature—two anthologies and a history—were published.292
A similar thing happened around the Australian bicentennial: in Western
Australia, four state-based literature anthologies were published in the year of the
291Bruce Bennett, ‘Literary Studies’, in A Press in Isolation: University of Western Australia Press 1935–
2004, by Criena Fitzgerald (Crawley: University of Western Australia Press, 2005), 109.292Ibid.
146
bicentennial, 1988, and the following year. All of these anthologies received Literature
Board funding; two of them received additional funds from the Australian Bicentennial
Authority. Clearly, the years leading up to and including 1988 (and perhaps also 1989)
marked a high point for nationalism in Australia, but also for interest in regionalism and
regional literature.
In the 1990s, however, internationalism emerged as a significant challenge to
literary regionalism. Aspects of this challenge were detailed in Chapter 1 in the section
titled ‘The region in the world’. Yet, internationalism was not a self-generating culture,
and the ways in which it was abetted by changes in the field of cultural production
(most of which involved the government as a major instrument of change) have not
been explained. Cerwonka details one of the most significant changes that occurred
during this period:
Although Australia’s economic relationship with Britain gave way toincreased trading arrangements with the United States and Asiancountries through the 1970s and 1980s, it was during Keating’sleadership [1991–1996] that significant political rhetoric was directedtoward ‘recognising’ Australia’s geography as part of Asia .... Hepromoted the idea of Australia as a multicultural nation located in Asiaby funding cultural and economic links between Australia and Asia,promulgating liberal immigration policies, and nurturing a betterrelationship with Indonesia .... Since the racial content and civilization ofAustralian identity were defined in part by its imagined distance fromAsia, the need and desire to allow more immigration from Asia and toincrease economic ties has functioned to deterritorialise the settlerAustralian nation. Imagining Australia as part of Asia was not merely achange in economics or immigration policy; it led Australians toreconceptualise ideas like race and civilisation central to Australianidentity.293
The effects of ‘“recognising” Australia’s geography as part of Asia’ are clearly far-
reaching.294 Japan (in particular) may have been a significant trading partner for many
years prior to this, but the ‘funding [of] cultural ... links between Australia and Asia’
293Cerwonka, 16.294Other valuable contributions to this discussion include: Laksiri Jayasuriya, David Walker, and JanGothard, eds., Legacies of White Australia: Race, Culture and Nation (Crawley: University of Western
Australia Press, 2003). David Robert Walker, Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia 1850–1939(St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1999).
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(emphasis mine) contributed significantly to the rise of interest in internationalism
amongst Australian literary scholars in the 1990s. The federal government encouraged
these ‘cultural ... links’ largely through its arts funding and advisory body, the Australia
Council, which funds artist- and writer-in-residence programmes in Asia, joint exhibits
of Asian and Australian art, anthologies of Asian writing, and so forth. In the 1980s and
especially around the time of the Australian bicentennial, it was common for the
Australia Council to fund state-based literature anthologies, but this is no longer the
case.
The cultural identification of Australia with Asia is problematic for Australian
literary regionalism for a number of reasons:
The re-organisation of the international landscape from an East-Westsplit to economic regions has deterritorialised the Australian nation inprofound ways. Australia was left vulnerable as a result of thisreorganisation, in part because nationals had worked to secure theirposition as a part of the international hegemony in the past by beinghostile to the very Asian states from which they now soughtacceptance.295
One of the most remarkable outcomes of this sequence of events is that ‘senses of
difference within Australia are treated as secondary to the differences between Australia
and other places’.296 Clearly, Bennett was right to worry that internationalism could
‘obliterate local concerns and differences’.297
Nonetheless, a single event such as this cannot be said to be solely responsible
for ‘unsettling the territorialization of the Australian nation-state’.298 Indeed, Cerwonka
goes on to detail three issues that have contributed to this occasion: ‘Aboriginal land
rights, Australia’s redefined relationship with Asia, and multiculturalism’.299 He claims
that each issue ‘challenges the imagined connection between people, place, and culture
295Ibid., 229.296Tim Rowse and Albert Moran, ‘“Peculiarly Australian”—The Political Construction of CulturalIdentity’, in Australian Society: Sociological Essays, 4th ed., ed. S. Encel and L. Bryson (Melbourne:Longman Cheshire, 1984), 230.297Bruce Bennett, ‘Home and Away’, 236.298Cerwonka, 8.299Ibid.
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upon which the settler nation-state has been premised’.300 Furthermore, he urges
cautiousness in the application of his theory:
By sketching these political contexts I am not positing a neat causalrelationship or suggesting that people always self-consciously respondedto these issues in their everyday practices. My point is that people wereprompted to renarrate and reshape the nation’s geography and the linkbetween white Australians, the hegemonic culture, and the territory ofAustralia because that connection has been under significanttransformation in the past thirty years.301
As a result (either directly or indirectly) of the challenges presented by these events and
the corresponding actions taken by governments and individual organisations,
Australian literary scholars in the 1990s began to look outwards from the nation and,
thus, also from the region within the nation. It should by now be clear how the
government functions as an instrument in the literary field of cultural production, which
abetted first the rise of literary regionalism and later its fall from favour, as well as
continuing to contribute to the production of a regional literature in Western Australia.
ii. Publishing as an instrument in the field of cultural production
Of course, governmental policies and special occasions are not the only features
that comprise the literary field of cultural production, thus contributing to the
production and reception of a regional literature in Western Australia. Indeed, some
instruments of cultural production transcend state and even national borders. The
publishing industry, for example, is subject to a set of circumstances that are unique in
both the business world and the arts and culture industries. Some of these
circumstances are limited to the specific geographical or other situation of the
publishing house (for example, the aforementioned governmental policies), but most
apply equally to publishing houses around the globe. Of the latter set of circumstances,
the most pervasive is the number of people and organisations involved in the process of
300Ibid.301Ibid., 9.
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book publication, which dramatically impacts on the net profit for any one player.
Average figures for the distribution of profits are as follows: ‘The price of a book sold
for $10.00 over the counter breaks down this way: bookshop/retailer $4.25; author
$1.00; printer $2.00; distributor/wholesaler $2.00; publisher $0.75.’302 While the
publishing house assumes the greatest risk associated with the publication of a book,
this risk is poorly compensated.
A publishing house needs to sell many copies of an individual title before it
begins to make a profit on that title. However, this is complicated by yet another factor
—this time with Australia-specific connotations:
The most common explanation for the low incomes of Australian writersis the smallness of the Australian market for books and its openness tobooks from both Britain and America. This keeps the print runs low,with consequent low royalty payments for authors and little profit forpublishers. The Australian Bookseller and Publisher gives figures for1983 showing that the average print run of a new hardback fiction titlewas 3000, of poetry and drama 1000, of new non-fiction 4000.303
While this excerpt addresses the ‘low incomes of Australian authors’, it could equally
well be applied to the modest incomes of Australian publishing houses. After all, they
are also affected by the ‘smallness of the Australian market for books and its openness
to books from both Britain and America’. Using the figures given above, a publishing
house that sells an average run of 3000 copies of ‘a new hardback fiction title’ at a
Recommended Retail Price of $25.00 stands to make about $5,625. The author will
make $7,500. Considering the author may have spent several years writing this book,
and a publishing house typically devotes between six and twelve months to its
publication, neither party is being generously compensated for its labour.
A smaller potential readership, as might be the case for a book concerned with
regional themes or published by a regional publishing house unable to obtain reliable
302Judith Brett, ‘Publishing, Censorship and Writers’ Incomes, 1965–1988’, in The Penguin New Literary
History of Australia, ed. Laurie Hergenhan et al. (Ringwood: Penguin, 1988), 460.303Ibid.
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national distribution, has obvious implications for potential profit. Such implications
may cause a publishing house to reconsider its publishing programme in order to
minimise risk. This is an example of how the structure of the publishing industry
affects the production and reception of literature, thereby necessitating its inclusion in
the field of cultural production. Clearly, it is particularly important to address this issue
with respect to the production and reception of regional literature.
Yet, literary scholarship has traditionally overlooked such concerns. Janice
Radway, discussing the wilful ignorance of so many literary scholars of the various
forces comprising the literary field of cultural production, notes that, ‘because literary
critics tend to move immediately from textual interpretation to sociological explanation,
they conclude easily that changes in textual features or generic popularity must be the
simple and direct result of ideological shifts in the surrounding culture’.304 However
(she continues),
like all other commercial commodities in our industrial culture, literarytexts are the result of a complicated and lengthy process of productionthat is itself controlled by a host of material and social factors. Indeed,the modern mass-market paperback was made possible by suchtechnological innovations as the rotary magazine press and synthetic glueas well as by organisational changes in the publishing and booksellingindustries.305
Clearly, these ‘technological innovations’ are an important part of the field of cultural
production. Ironically, many literary scholars recognise the significance of this
particular example involving mass-market paperbacks, and yet remain resolutely
ignorant of other influential features of the literary field of cultural production.
One reason for this may be that these other features are not so self-apparent as
the aforementioned ‘technological innovations’. For example, another of the ‘host of
material and social factors’ that significantly impact on literary production and reception
304Janice Radway, ‘The Institutional Matrix of Romance’, in The Cultural Studies Reader, ed. Simon
During (London: Routledge, 1993), 438–39.305Ibid.
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is the unique problem of marketing books. In many respects, publishing is not as
Radway claimed it to be—‘like all other commercial commodities’—since books cannot
be marketed in the same fashion as these commodities:
Publishers have argued for years that books cannot be marketed oradvertised as are other commodities. Because every book is individualand unique, the industry has maintained, all publishers must ‘start fromscratch’ in the effort to build an audience for them. Assuming, therefore,that the discreteness of books necessitated that each be advertisedindividually, publishers concluded that the enormous expense ofadvertising an entire month’s offering ruled out the process entirely.Furthermore, they believed that the variety of books offered by each firmmade the creation of a single image of the house impossible; they alsoconcluded that potentially less expensive national advertising of thehouse imprint would do nothing for the sales of individual books.306
Instead, publishers rely on word-of-mouth for book sales, as well as the free publicity
that accompanies book reviews and the announcement of literary prizes in the pages of
newspapers and magazines.
Clearly, ‘book buying ... cannot be reduced to a simple interaction between a
book and a reader. It is an event that is affected and at least partially controlled by the
material nature of book publishing as a socially organised technology of production and
distribution.’307 In other words, the literary field of cultural production is much larger
than formalist literary critics would have one believe, and publishing is one of the most
important instruments within this field. After all, literary reception is not a function
‘only of the content of a given text and of the needs of readers’, but rather it is ‘affected
by a book’s appearance and availability as well as by potential readers’ awareness and
expectations’.308 However, since publishing houses generally cannot afford to
individually advertise their books, they cannot directly control ‘potential readers’
awareness and expectations’. This results in a highly precarious business model,
306Ibid., 445.307Ibid., 439.308Ibid.
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whereby important decisions are based on such notoriously unreliable justifications as
‘instinct’.
This precariousness has a trickle-down effect on all parties involved in the
process of literary production and reception, not least of all the writer. Judith Brett
perhaps expressed it best: ‘Financial pressures will always cause writers to look over
their shoulders, be it to the market or a funding body, and just how these backward
glances affect their writing is hard to know.’309 They could affect, for example, the type
of stories an author decides to write, including the subject matter and the forms in which
they are written. If a writer is dependent on her writing as a source of income, then it
should come as no surprise that she could be influenced by market factors and the
popularity of certain genres or styles of writing. The following excerpt provides a
practical example of one way in which the vagaries of publishing can affect a writer:
The conditions under which weekly magazines are produced ... andunder which poems are printed in them, do have a very direct bearing onpoetic forms, favouring certain kinds (sonnets, villanelles and haikus, forinstance ...), and discouraging others (anything over thirty lines becomeproblematic).310
Clearly, if a poet wants to have her work published in a weekly magazine (a format for
which the compensation is unusually generous), then it is in her best interests to write in
the favoured forms. Publishing, or indeed any feature that can be shown to have this
sort of effect, merits special notice as an instrument in the literary field of cultural
production.
iii. Paratext as an instrument in the field of cultural production
Discussion of the field of cultural production has thus far been primarily
concerned with the production of literature. And while the production of literature
309Brett, 458.310Blake Morrison, ‘Poetry and the Poetry Business’, in Granta 4: Beyond the Crisis, ed. Bill Buford
(London: Granta Publications, 1981), 106.
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necessarily impacts on its reception, this has not been explicit in the analysis of the
ways in which governments and publishing operate as instruments in the field of
cultural production. ‘Paratext’, although it has clearly undergone a process of
production involving the contributions of many and various individuals, has greater
relevance when examined with reference to literary reception. Therefore, any
respectable definition of the term ‘paratext’ begins by acknowledging that
a good deal of a book’s meaning is produced by what the French criticGérard Genette calls paratext: that is, the ‘heterogenous group ofpractices and devices’ that mediate a book to its readers, ensuring its‘presence in the world’, its ‘reception’ and ‘consumption’. Thesecomprise both peritext (the devices located inside the book, such aschapter titles, prefaces and epigraphs) and epitext (the devices located inthe physical and social space outside the book, generally with the help ofthe media and the web, such as interviews, promotional dossiers, andweblogs).311
Dixon emphasises that paratext is concerned with a book’s ‘reception’ or ‘consumption’,
and also that it is responsible for ‘a good deal of a book’s meaning’. Clearly, he
endorses the reader-response theory of literary criticism. He also acknowledges that
this response is influenced by a host of factors external (but oftentimes closely related)
to the text, which is a feature of a contextualist approach.
Of these contextual factors,
certain paratextual elements are actually addressed to (which does notmean they reach) the public in general—that is, every Tom, Dick, andHarry. This is the case ... of the title or of an interview. Otherparatextual elements are addressed (with the same reservation) morespecifically or more restrictively only to readers of the text. This istypically the case of the preface. Still others, such as the early forms ofthe please-insert [jacket copy], were addressed exclusively to critics; andothers, to booksellers.312
Clearly, those ‘paratextual elements’ that are addressed to ‘the public in general’ are
going to have a greater impact on the reception of a book than those that are addressed
‘more restrictively’. An interview published in a newspaper or magazine might, for
311Dixon, ‘Tim Winton’, 246.312Gérard Genette, Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation, trans. Jane E. Lewin (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), 9.
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example, inspire someone who would have otherwise been disinclined or entirely
ignorant of its existence to purchase a specific title. However, the impact of those
‘paratextual elements’ that are addressed ‘more restrictively’ should not be
underestimated. After all, a paratext addressed specifically to a reviewer might inspire a
positive book review, and a paratext addressed specifically to a bookseller might inspire
a prominent display of the book in question—both of which are examples of a more
restrictive paratext giving rise to a paratext addressed to ‘the public in general’. The
potential result of these paratexts is an increase in book sales, which translates to a
larger and possibly more diverse readership. Thus, the reception of the book has
changed.
It has been previously demonstrated that the particular combination of cultural
studies and contextualist literary theory exists on the fringe of academia. Yet, perhaps
the most potent challenge to the superiority of academic influence in the literary field of
production is the media in its role as sometimes-collaborator in the creation and
publication of paratexts such as author interviews, book reviews, paid advertisements,
and so forth:
The academy has lost control of the formation and establishment ofliterary reputations. They are now the concern of newspaper features andeditorials, photo profiles in glossy magazines, lifestyle interviews in thepress, on television, on Radio National’s Life Matters.313
Since taking over ‘control of the formation and establishment of literary reputations’,
the media has become the greatest proponent of a literary conversation emphasising the
role of the author.
The ‘author as celebrity’ formulation, which holds so much appeal in modern
media, as well as (apparently) among those who consume this media, is especially
313Graeme Turner, ‘Australian Literature and the Public Sphere’, in Australian Literature and the Public
Sphere, ed. Alison Bartlett, Robert Dixon, and Christopher Lee (Canberra: Association for the Study ofAustralian Literature, 1999), 9.
155
important in the case of regional literature. However, many literary scholars take issue
with this formulation:
As public celebrations of Australian literary culture, literary awards andwriters’ festivals provide a regular mechanism which focuses largeamounts of media space and public attention on Australian writers andAustralian books. However, the marketing insistence on evoking theimage of the author as celebrity can impose an artificial frameworkwhich distorts the book market, interfering with the production andreception cycle within the literary ecosystem. It threatens to influenceboth a writer’s approach to their work and a publisher’s perception ofwhat should be published and who should be promoted. There is agrowing concern that these factors are also influencing genuine criticalappraisal—what is chosen for awards, for review and criticalexamination.314
Anne Galligan’s understanding of what constitutes a distorted book market is flawed,
since there is no definition of a ‘regular’ or ‘normal’ book market. It is not that Galligan
has forgotten to include such a definition; a ‘normal’ book market is little more than a
fantasy about a time when writers’ ideas flowed uninhibited from their minds directly
into the minds of readers. There is no room for paratext in this equation.
Similarly, there is little room in this thesis for such a ‘blinkered view of the
processes involved in the production of a literary work’. The ‘literary ecosystem’ is
already full of mechanisms which ‘influence both a writer’s approach to their work and
a publisher’s perception of what should be published and who should be promoted’;
indeed, these have been dubbed the field of cultural production and discussed in great
detail above. There is no way for the processes of literary production and reception to
avoid these mechanisms, and no reason to eliminate the ‘marketing insistence on
evoking the image of the author as celebrity’ from equal critical consideration.
In fact, perhaps this phenomenon of the ‘author as celebrity’ should be given
more attention. It is imperative the literary critical community recognise that the
‘author as celebrity’ is not some fad bent on the perversion of traditional literary value,
314Anne Galligan, ‘Build the Author, Sell the Book: Marketing the Australian Author in the 1990s’, in
Australian Literature and the Public Sphere, ed. Alison Bartlett, Robert Dixon, and Christopher Lee(Canberra: Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 1999), 156–7.
156
but rather a paratext in the field of cultural production, just as they are. After all, the
‘author as celebrity’ formulation is unlikely to disappear anytime soon:
It is important to recognise that this is not simply a cyclical shift inpatterns of media consumption, a change in fashion affecting what mediaaudiences want to read in the newspapers or hear on the radio or watchon television. It is also a change in the systems of production: this meansthat we may need to reassess our assumptions about how stories get intothe media, and about how those stories which do ‘get a run’ arerepresented by the media.
A fundamental factor in this redefinition has been the importanceof stories about celebrities—and, increasingly, about Australiancelebrities.315
Clearly, if this is ‘not simply a cyclical shift in patterns of media consumption’, but
rather signals a larger ‘change in the systems of production’, then it is particularly
important for the literary critical community to address this change. Just as Gutenberg’s
invention of the first printing press using movable type increased the speed and flow of
information, thereby altering the way in which literature was conceived, so too has the
‘importance of stories about celebrities’ altered the production of literature in important
(albeit lesser) ways.
As a consequence of altering the production of literature, the ‘author as
celebrity’ formulation has also altered its reception. For example,
a survey of academic articles would indicate that [Peter] Carey’s formalattributes, the processes through which his novels make their meaning,are of paramount interest .... The characteristic interest expressed withinthe mainstream press is both personal and nationalistic .... Since this isthe way in which the engagement of Australian writers with their socialcontext will most easily be represented within the mass media, thenincreasingly this is the way in which writers will be understood.316
Turner establishes a dichotomy: the way in which ‘academic articles’ represent what is
of interest in Carey’s writing (his ‘formal attributes’), is placed in opposition to the way
in which the ‘mainstream press’ represents Carey (his ‘personal and nationalistic’
315Graeme Turner, Frances Bonner, and P. David Marshall, Fame Games: The Production of Celebrity in
Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 2.316Graeme Turner, ‘Nationalising the Author: The Celebrity of Peter Carey’, Australian Literary Studies
16, no. 2 (Oct. 1993): 137–38.
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attributes). He also makes the astute observation that most people engage with
Australian writers in the context of their representations within the mass media:
The successful writer within Australia is, at least from time to time, asmuch a product of the promotional world of celebrity as of the reviewpages or of academic journals. In April 1988, Elle magazine, forinstance, gave more space to an interview with Peter Carey (promotingOscar and Lucinda) than did the Australian Book Review.317
Consequently, contextualist literary theory and reader-response criticism would demand
that the effects of this phenomenon be examined in any literary critical response to
Oscar and Lucinda. Or, for that matter, to any work of literature, the publication of
which has catapulted the author into the public eye.
As was noted earlier, this technique sells books, which is why it has been
encouraged by publishers. However, just because it is sales-driven does not mean this
technique of marketing the author should be dismissed by the academics:
In the maintenance of national television, film, popular music and printmedia, there has been an effort through celebrities to increase theeconomic and cultural value of productions that have emerged from thesevarious industries. It is not logical to applaud the success of thesenational industries without accepting the part played in that success bythe local production of celebrity.318
Clearly, Turner is an advocate of the acceptance and recognition of celebrity as
contributing to the success of Australian industries such as ‘television, film, popular
music and print media’. This ‘success’ Turner alludes to, and to which the creation of
celebrity in Australian literature is meant to have contributed, is evidenced in the sales
figures:
The last eighteen years have seen a massive increase in the production ofAustralian fiction; they have also seen a new efficiency in the packaging,promotion and circulation of that fiction, all of which can affect areader’s response even before the text itself has been read. The benefithere is that the profile of Australian fiction, in all its manifestations, hasbeen considerably raised—so have the profiles of Australian writers.
317Ibid., 131–32.318Turner, Bonner, and Marshall, 176.
158
More than ever, the Australian writer can become (indeed, is asked tobecome) a ‘personality’, as much on display as his or her text.319
It seems it is not only Turner who believes the ‘celebritisation’ of the Australian author
has helped create ‘success’ in the field. In fact, ‘celebritisation’ is credited with
accomplishing what no amount of academic encouragement was capable of—raising the
profile of Australian fiction. ‘Celebritisation’ has perhaps not done much to raise the
profile of some other types of writing in Australia, including poetry and drama, but it
has certainly raised that of fiction and non-fiction (though the latter is not mentioned by
Gelder and Salzman because their book is concerned exclusively with fiction).
Furthermore, there are no indications the influence wielded by the media via its creation
of paratexts is on the wane.
However, it is important to discriminate (if only for the sake of clarity in future
discussion) between paratexts that affect the reception of a book and all the other factors
that do the same. For example, the manner in which governments and publishing affect
literary production was discussed above, but these instruments of cultural production
can also, through a series of cause and effect, be shown to impact on literary reception.
Nonetheless, they are not paratext, since
inasmuch as the paratext is a transitional zone between text and beyond-text, one must resist the temptation to enlarge this zone by whittlingaway in both directions. However indeterminable its boundaries, theparatext remains at its center a distinctive and undisputed territory whereits ‘properties’ are clearly manifest and which is constituted by the typesof elements I have explored in this book, plus some others. Outside ofthat, we will be wary of rashly proclaiming that ‘all is paratext’.320
It seems a more exacting definition of paratext is necessary, which explains why
governmental arts policies and the structure of the publishing industry are not
considered paratextual elements:
Almost all the paratexts I consider will themselves be of a textual, or atleast verbal, kind: titles, prefaces, interviews, all of them utterances that,
319Gelder and Salzman, 1.320Genette, 407.
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varying greatly in scope, nonetheless share the linguistic status of thetext. Most often, then, the paratext is itself a text: if it is still not the text,it is already some text. But we must at least bear in mind the paratextualvalue that may be vested in other types of manifestation: these may beiconic (illustrations), material (for example, everything that originates inthe sometimes very significant typographical choices that go into themaking of a book), or purely factual. By factual I mean the paratext thatconsists not of an explicit message (verbal or other) but of a fact whoseexistence alone, if known to the public, provides some commentary onthe text and influences how the text is received. Two examples are theage or sex of the author.321
Clearly, governments and publishing do not fit the bill of ‘utterances that ... share the
linguistic status of the text’. Nor do they belong to the ‘other types of manifestation’ the
author mentions, because they are not primarily concerned with a book’s ‘reception’ or
‘consumption’, but rather with its production.
Of course, even if ‘all is not paratext’, it can be difficult to determine what is:
The epitext is a whole whose paratextual function has no precise limitsand in which comment on the work is endlessly diffused in abiographical, critical, or other discourse whose relation to the work maybe at best indirect and at worst indiscernible. Everything a writer says orwrites about his life, about the world around him, about the works ofothers, may have paratextual relevance .... The epitext, a fringe of thefringe, gradually disappears into, among other things, the totality of theauthorial discourse.322
It is important to keep in mind the endless diffusion of the limits of the paratext, even as
it is maintained that ‘the paratext remains at its center a distinctive and undisputed
territory’. These two statements balance each other nicely, while also reflecting the
difficulties inherent in identifying the exact cause within the field of cultural production
and its effect on the production and reception of literature.
C. Minority literature and its importance in a new definition of regional literature
It is my contention that if regional literature were accorded its due attention in
academic and literary critical circles, it would assume a place alongside other literary
321Ibid., 7.322Ibid., 346.
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categories such as Aboriginal literature, women’s literature, queer literature, migrant
literature, and so forth. After all, the ‘sense of “identification” or “consciousness of
kind”’ that is the common ground for people across these diverse categories, is equally
relevant to regional literature. It can also be subjected to the same sorts of analysis. In
short, regional literature is a ‘minority literature’.
Of course, regional literature arguably benefits from a greater sense of
integration with Australian literature than other, more conventional minority literatures.
For example, the sense of Western Australian literature as part of the Australian literary
tradition is perhaps greater than that of queer or migrant literature. However, women’s
literature—a ‘more conventional’ minority literature—seem to enjoy approximately this
same sense of integration with traditional notions of Australian literature; therefore, this
is no reason to dismiss the following proposition.
Before proceeding any further with this examination of the implications of
considering regional literature as a minority literature, it is first necessary to better
understand the term ‘minority literature’. My use of the term finds its origins in Sneja
Gunew’s book on the subject of multicultural literature, Framing Marginality:
Multicultural Literary Studies: ‘The term favoured throughout this study as a way of
negotiating the local and global contradictions set up by established terms such as
“migrant”, “ethnic” or “multicultural” writers is “ethnic minority writers”.’323 Gunew
chooses the term ‘ethnic minority writers’ to describe Australian writers of non-Anglo-
Celtic extraction. Other terms ‘used to designate writing by Australians from
backgrounds other than the English and Irish mainstream’ include ‘non-Anglo-Celtic
writing’, ‘NESB (Non-English Speaking Background) writing’, and ‘diasporic
writing’.324 However, since I am not interested in dividing Australian writers into a
323Gunew, Framing Marginality, xiii.
324Wenche Ommundsen, ‘Multicultural Writing in Australia’, in A Companion to Australian Literaturesince 1900, ed. Nicholas Birns and Rebecca McNeer (Rochester: Camden House, 2007), 75.
161
catalogue of various ethnicities, but rather in discriminating between ‘regional writers’
and ‘writers from the cultural centres’, the ‘ethnic’ piece of Gunew’s ‘ethnic minority
writers’ is of little use to me. If this is removed, the chosen term emerges—‘minority
writers’—from which ‘minority literature’ is a natural derivative.
By comparing the features of ethnic minority literature (as identified by Gunew
and others) with those of regional literature, it is possible to confirm the validity of
simply adapting Gunew’s system of identifying non-Anglo-Celtic Australian writers as
‘ethnic minority writers’, to the instance of regional writers in Australia. In order to
proceed, regional literature must be shown to possess a majority of the features of ethnic
minority literature, excepting those with particular reference to ethnicity; this will
establish it as a minority literature, akin to Aboriginal literature, women’s literature,
queer literature, migrant literature, and so forth.
Gunew is a useful place to start this discussion, since she has already been used
as a reference point, and also because she asks herself similar questions to those implicit
in the above statement:
When does one start/stop being part of a minority? One is notnecessarily born into a minority. Instead, it is a question of being alert tothe positionings involved, particularly one’s own as a reader. We returnnecessarily to the issue of ‘experience’ and how it serves materialism, thedaily construction of subjectivity. And we return also to Jardine’sstatement that ‘feminism, while infinite in its variations, is finally rootedin the belief that women’s truth-in-experience-and-reality is and hasalways been different from men’s’.325
Just as ‘one is not necessarily born into a minority’, one is also not necessarily born into
a region. Rather, as was discussed earlier in this chapter, the region is defined by all the
residents of the region in question, as well as by their shared ‘sense of “identification”’;
thus, it is necessarily a product of a collective of individuals ‘alert to the positionings
325Gunew, Framing Marginality, 59, quoting Alice A. Jardine, Gynesis: Configurations of Woman and
Modernity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), 147.
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involved’. After all, it would not be possible to define the region or share a sense of
identification related to that region without such alertness.
Gunew closes the above excerpt by quoting a passage about feminism from
Alice A. Jardine’s Gynesis: Configurations of Woman and Modernity, which Gunew
uses to illustrate a larger truth about minorities: ‘Feminism ... is finally rooted in the
belief that women’s truth-in-experience-and-reality is and has always been different
from men’s.’ The implication here is that, similar to the experiences of women, all
minority people’s ‘truth-in-experience-and-reality is and has always been different from’
that of non-minority people. As was pointed out earlier in this chapter in a section titled
‘Field of cultural production’, the different circumstances of, for example, Western
Australia (minority) and New South Wales (cultural centre) affect ‘the amount, quality
and type of artistic and intellectual products of any particular community’. Clearly, the
‘truth-in-experience-and-reality’ of Western Australians is different from that of people
from New South Wales, who in this example represent a regional non-minority.
This raises a related issue: ‘One of the marks of a minority position is that it is
always under pressure to define itself against an imagined, though invisible, “universal”
one.’326 As the previous paragraph illustrates, the region is often pressured to define
itself against the cultural centres. In fact, the ‘sense of “identification” or
“consciousness of kind” which the inhabitants of a particular regional area feel for that
region and/or for their fellow inhabitants of that region’ often manifests itself as a
comparison between the region and the cultural centres. The terms ‘t’othersiders’ and
‘the eastern states’ used by Western Australians set up a dichotomy between ‘this side’
and ‘t’otherside’, as well as between a single ‘Western state’ and ‘the eastern states’.
These are but two examples of the aforementioned trend of ‘a minority position ... under
326Sneja Gunew, ‘PMT (Post Modernist Tensions): Reading for (Multi)cultural Difference’, in Striking
Chords: Multicultural Literary Interpretations, ed. Sneja Gunew and Kateryna O. Longley (NorthSydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992), 37.
163
pressure to define itself against an ... “universal” one’, thereby suggesting regional
literature has the requisite characteristics of a minority literature.
The similarities do not stop here, however, as regional literature and minority
literature also share a similar history with reference to Australian literature and literary
scholarship: ‘Looking back over the last twenty years, the shifts in the construction of
Australia and its regions parallel the historical development of many social groups
defined against the mainstream.’327 Ken Gelder and Paul Salzman use the phrase ‘social
groups defined against the mainstream’ in much the same way I employ the term
‘minority writers’, expanding upon Gunew’s use of ‘ethnic minority writers’ to include
categories such as women’s literature, queer literature and experimental literature. It
seems the development of these minority literatures in the 1970s was paralleled by
‘shifts in the construction of Australia and its regions’—in other words, the growth of
interest in literary regionalism.
In addition to regional literature appearing on the Australian scene at the same
time as the ‘new diversity’ of minority literatures, it also faced many of the same
challenges. For example, ‘At a minimum we can say that the term “postmodernism”
usually conjures up the spectres of decentred subjects and of the non- or self-
referentiality of language. Both have serious implications for promoting the claims or
the writing of any particular marginal group.’328 Of course, minority literatures
(including regional literature) belong to a ‘marginal group’. The spectre of
postmodernism poses a challenge to all such groups:
Those who are committed to emancipatory movements such as feminismor postcolonialism may have problems with postmodernist emphases ondiscursive as distinct from material reality and on the decentred subject,which apparently precludes notions of identity and agency. How can oneargue for a political change when there is no concept of material realityor of agency?329
327Gelder and Salzman, 82.328Gunew, ‘PMT’, 36–37.329Ibid., 37.
164
While initially it may be difficult to recognise regionalism as an ‘emancipatory
movement’, I contend this is a valid portrayal of the ‘sense of “identification”’ that, as
noted above, often manifests itself as a comparison between the region and the cultural
centres.
In terms of how regional literature, as well as other minority literatures, function
as an ‘emancipatory movement’,
the minority perspective involves ... not only the construction of a new orcounter-canon, but also the question of how the current ones function.Minority discourse is thus not simply an oppositional or counter-discourse: it also undoes the power of dominant discourses to representthemselves as universal.330
It is possible to understand regional literature as attempting to undo ‘the power of
dominant discourses’ as established by the cultural centres. One of these discourses
would be postmodernism, which is so often represented as ‘universal’. Clearly, then,
like the ‘emancipatory movements such as feminism or postcolonialism’ mentioned
above, regionalism has ‘problems with postmodernist emphases ... on the decentred
subject’, as well as with the lack of a concept of agency this entails and which makes
any ‘sense of “identification”’ impossible. In other words, regional literature faces the
same set of obstacles as other minority literatures in gaining access to the mainstream
for the purpose of ‘promoting the claims or the writing of any particular marginal
group’. Regionalism faces considerable obstacles in both intellectual discussions of
literature and the pragmatic world in which it is traded.
Unlike the so-called ‘mainstream’ or ‘dominant discourse’ that represents itself
as ‘universal’, regionalism and regional literature are not concerned with assigning
every person a definitive affiliation. In other words, not everyone is considered
‘regional’, just as not everyone is considered a ‘migrant’ or ‘queer’. Nor is it always
330Gunew, Framing Marginality, 42.
165
perfectly clear with which region a given person is affiliated, as she may have multiple
affiliations, again like the migrant. This is because ‘regional group membership does
not logically preclude membership in [other] minorities, but obviously some
combinations are harder to maintain than others’.331 Regionalism does not attempt to
lump the entirety of the world’s population into a set of reductive categories, as
nationalism does via the construct of the nation (almost every living person is a citizen
of one nation or another) and internationalism does by simply sweeping everyone into
one giant, amorphous bundle.
Rather, regionalism is more particular in its approach. Regional literature is
written by those individuals located outside the cultural centres and is judged to be
regional by members of the same community. This is similar to how other minority
literatures are written and appraised by those individuals in their respective minority
group. In other words,
a regional group ordinarily enlists the identification of its members. Itserves them as a reference group, to which they feel like they belong, andis not just a classification that happens to include them. ... For ageographical category to serve as the base for a regional group (indeed,for any category to give rise to a group), its label must be meaningful tomost people, and they must be able to say with some reliability whobelongs and who does not.332
Gunew agrees: ‘It is now accepted that the value of a literary work can never be fixed
once and for all. It is agreed upon by a community of readers within a specific cultural
setting.’333 Consequently, residents of certain cities and states and, perhaps, even
nations, will never be granted full speaking status in the conversation regarding literary
regionalism.
Nonetheless, these individuals will often be appealed to as an audience for
regional literature, and their readings of this literature will impact on the judgements of
331John Shelton Reed, 14.332Ibid., 16.333Sneja Gunew and Kateryna O. Longley, eds., Striking Chords: Multicultural Literary Interpretations
(North Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992), xix–xx.
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the regional community. Once again, this is similar to the construction of other minority
literatures. For example, ‘There is no doubt that the upsurge of interest in Aboriginal
writing is related to the belated recognition and respect being given to Aboriginal
cultures by the government and the media and therefore by the wider community.’334
Like a mirror, minority literatures are capable of reflecting an image of the community
in question back onto itself, as well as projecting that same image (or an ever-so-slightly
altered version of that image) out into the wider world.
This outgoing reflection is especially important but, in the past, has often been
overlooked, especially with regard to regional literature. Yet, ‘its value to the
community is immeasurable. As in the case of Aboriginal writing, we have to consider
not only the contribution of specific works but also the collective effect of the body of
multicultural writing on public awareness and national self-understanding.’335 So while
its pretence at universality is frustrated by minority literatures, the non-regional (or non-
minority) world still responds to the messages conveyed within regional literature when
it receives them; their response, in turn, influences future production of regional
literature. ‘Othering’ is impossible to avoid in these sorts of conversations and, anyway,
I believe it is not entirely desirable to avoid it when it privileges a traditionally
disempowered community.
It is for the many reasons identified above that I have chosen to exclude writers
from New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT from consideration as regional writers. In
addition to the fact that none of these regions has ever produced a regional anthology
comparable to those produced in the other Australian states and territories, residents
(including writers) of these two states and one territory do not as collectives fit the
description of a minority. In particular, they are not ‘alert to the positionings involved’
and the privileged status associated with residing in a cultural centre. Furthermore, they
334Ibid.335Ibid.
167
are the ‘dominant discourse’ against which the regional areas of Australia compare
themselves and their cultural opportunities. Writers residing in these areas do not
produce regional literature, because they are not (again, as a collective) a minority, and
regional literature is a minority literature.
III. Defining ‘regional literature’ and ‘regional publishing’
For the purposes of this thesis, ‘regional literature’ is defined as writing
possessing cultural value that is specific to a region, although the writing may also have
national and international value. In order to better appreciate this new working
definition, it is necessary to unpack the terms that constitute it, drawing upon the
definitions of these terms as specified earlier in this chapter.
‘Literature’ is comprised of fiction, poetry, drama, and life-writing. Other forms
of writing, such as ‘essays, histories, literary criticism or other expository and analytical
prose’, will not be investigated within the framework of literature, except in those rare
instances when they can be shown to ‘participate in a broadly based, as distinct from a
narrowly specialist, cultural debate’. Distinctions of this sort between the ‘literary’ and
‘non-literary’ will be ‘based principally on an assessment of the social and cultural
effects of “the literary” rather than on any attempt to locate intrinsic aesthetic or
linguistic characteristics of “literariness”’.
‘The region’ is ‘formed out of the particular set of social relations which interact
at a particular location’. This ‘particular location’ is a geographical area that, at least in
Australia, is most often understood as circumscribed along state or territory lines. All
the residents of the region in question participate in the conversation about what exactly
defines ‘the region’, which means this definition is subject to change as both internal
and external circumstances result in shifts in popular attitudes.
168
‘Cultural value’, which has already been used to define both ‘literature’ and
(more implicitly) ‘the region’, clearly plays a significant role in the definition of
‘regional literature’. ‘Culture’ is defined as the ‘way of life and manner of living of a
people’. Factors as various as sport, the creative arts, ‘physical geography, regional
administration and functional land-use’ all contribute to the culture of a given people.
However, the catalogue of items that contribute to culture is virtually interminable. In
order to refine this catalogue, those items that are seen as making a positive
contribution to culture are said to have ‘cultural value’. Tim Winton’s books, for
example, are said to have cultural value in Western Australia, since they make a positive
contribution to Western Australians’ understanding and assessment of their native state
and its natural environments—in other words, a positive contribution to their ‘way of
life and manner of living’. Of course, this attribution of cultural value cannot itself be
proved correct or incorrect, but then that is the nature of ‘value’, which is an inherently
subjective thing. Nonetheless, a consensus can usually be determined and cultural value
assessed in a reasonably reliable fashion.
Now that the terms that constitute the definition of regional literature have been
reviewed and clarified, it should be apparent what the chosen definition represents
—‘regional literature’ is defined as writing possessing cultural value that is specific to a
region, although the writing may also have national and international value. Perhaps the
only item yet to be clarified is what exactly is meant by the phrase ‘although the writing
may also have national and international value’. Therefore, it is worth noting that many
of the works that are understood as part of Australia’s national literary canon (if such a
thing can be said to exist) are also arguably works of regional literature; these include
the works of Peter Cowan, A. B. Facey, Elizabeth Jolley, John Kinsella, Sally Morgan,
Randolph Stow, Tim Winton, and many others. The aforementioned Western Australian
writers have made positive contributions not only to the ‘way of life and manner of
169
living’ of Western Australians, but also to Australians in general. A couple of these
writers have even made positive contributions to an international readership’s
understanding of Australia. That is to say, the cultural value of regional writers is not
limited to the bounds of the region in which they reside, and assessments of cultural
value can be made in multiple spaces simultaneously.
Furthermore, the cultural value of a book may be different in different contexts.
For example,
In Kinsella’s Syzygy poems, perhaps not always perceptible to UnitedStates and European readers, there are in fact myriad points of contactwith the raw landscapes of his Western Australian ‘wheatlands’. Butwhile the use of these references in the neo-pastoral poetry of his ‘other’and primary poetic trajectory, these Syzygy images and references aresecondary (if not incidental) to the methodology of the ‘languagepoetry’. Yet they are there and to those, like me, who share theintimacies of the same landscape they are a haunting presence.336
As a Western Australian, Glen Phillips finds very different significance in the ‘myriad
points of contact with the raw landscapes of [Kinsella’s] Western Australian
‘wheatlands”’, than would a non-Western Australian reader. In fact, Phillips suspects
these ‘points of contact’ might not even be ‘perceptible to United States and European
readers’. Clearly, these readers’ assessments of cultural value would necessarily differ
from Phillips’s assessment, even though they are consulting the same text. Phillips’s
reading is affected by his and the author’s shared residency in Western Australia; in
particular, the literature combined with his knowledge of this fact seem to have
positively influenced his assessment of the work.
In spite of this agreeable outcome, there are certain cautionary measures relevant
to this definition of regional literature that must be abided. The first of these is that
the assertion of identity inevitably requires the construction of an ‘other’,and political struggles over identity call for the reconstruction of outsidegroups as ‘others’. As suggested above, certain narratives of group
336Glen Phillips, ‘John Kinsella: A Phenomenon by Any Standard’, in Fairly Obsessive: Essays on the
Works of John Kinsella, ed. Rod Mengham and Glen Phillips (Nedlands: Centre for Studies in AustralianLiterature and Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2000), 22.
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identity, such as those of nationalist ideology, inevitably overstatecommonalities within a group and exaggerate differences with othersconsidered alien. The protagonists may tend towards ‘essentialism’.That is, they may invoke the essential and ineradicable cultural traits oftheir group, and denounce the culture and values of the outsiders asinherently evil or dangerous.337
Clearly, I do not intend to ‘denounce the culture and values’ of the cultural centres ‘as
inherently evil or dangerous’. Rather, as has been noted elsewhere, I believe that
‘othering’ is impossible to avoid in certain conversations, and it is not entirely desirable
to avoid it when it privileges a traditionally disempowered community. This in no way
means that it is always desirable, and all attempts will be made not to ‘exaggerate
differences with others considered alien’ and to avoid ‘essentialism’.
Another cautionary tale:
The question of ‘speaking as’ involves a distancing from oneself. Themoment I have to think of the ways in which I will speak as an Indian, oras a feminist, the ways in which I will speak as a woman, what I amdoing is trying to generalise myself, make myself representative, tryingto distance myself from some kind of inchoate speaking as such. Thereare many subject positions which one must inhabit; one is not just onething.338
In the same way that a woman or Aboriginal writer, for example, may choose to ‘speak
as’ a woman or an Aboriginal Australian in certain contexts, in order perhaps to make a
political statement, some regional writers may choose to speak as regionalists for the
same reason. However, this is not a requirement for inclusion in the categories of
women’s writing, Aboriginal writing, or regional writing. Nor does the affiliation of a
writer with any one of these categories preclude her from being affiliated with another;
indeed, there are several important regional Aboriginal women writers working in
Australia today. There are even writers, such as Robert Drewe, who have close
affiliations with both a regional area (he lived in Perth from the age of six until his early
337Geoffrey Stokes, ed., The Politics of Identity in Australia (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press,
1997), 9.338Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Sneja Gunew, ‘Questions of Multiculturalism’, in The Cultural
Studies Reader, ed. Simon During (London: Routledge, 1993), 194–95.
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twenties, and many of his works are set in Western Australia) and a cultural centre (he
currently lives on the north coast of New South Wales, and this location has increasingly
become a preoccupation of his fiction). Nonetheless, Drewe is still regarded in this
thesis as a regional writer, since he has an established relationship with a region and a
readership located outside the cultural centres.
As was argued earlier in this chapter, it is important, especially in the case of
regional literature, to revisit the question of authorship. Considering the enormous
appeal of representing the ‘author as celebrity’ both within the media and amongst
consumers of this media, it would be foolish to ignore this question. Related questions
are already being asked and answered on the radio with ABC Radio National’s ‘The
Book Show’, in the pages of Vanity Fair, and on television with First Tuesday Book
Club. To dismiss those who want answers to questions about authorship would be
equivalent to dismissing reader-response theory. Instead, by acknowledging the
significance of these questions, Drewe’s ‘established relationship with a region and a
readership located outside the cultural centres’ can be shown to contribute to an
assessment of his work as possessing cultural value that is specific to Western Australia.
In other words, he does not need to ‘speak as a regionalist’ or even set future stories in
Western Australia, since his association as a person and author with Western Australia
(not to mention the fact that he has, in the past, set many stories here) is sufficient to
inspire an assessment of his work as regional literature.
As was noted in Chapter 1, I disagree with Bennett’s statement that with the
emergence of ‘reader-power’ in the 1990s, ‘the role projected for writers has, regrettably
been diminished’. Indeed, it is under the auspices of ‘reader-power’ that the ‘author as
celebrity’ formulation has truly burgeoned. However, Bennett is not alone in his
opinion:
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I believe that the author, as Roland Barthes long ago said, is dead. Theauthor is irrelevant. What matters is the reader. When the text is written,when the text is published and presented to you, it belongs to you. It isnot the author’s. And in fact I would argue that it never actually was.339
John Kinsella overlooks the fact that, if the text truly belongs to the reader, and the
reader demands the involvement of the author (as happens in the ‘author as celebrity’
formulation), then the author is no longer irrelevant. In fact, the author is suddenly
more relevant than ever before, since she is now not only involved with the book’s
production through the act of writing, but she is also intimately involved with its
reception.
Of course, publishing houses are another entity involved in the production and
reception of a text. In the case of regional literature, it is often a regional publisher who
manages this process, though regional literature is also produced by publishing houses
located in the cultural centres and even by multinational publishing houses. For the
purposes of this thesis, ‘regional publishing’ is any publishing activity that takes place
outside the cultural centres. Not all regional publishers publish ‘regional literature’ as
defined above, but it is much less common for a regional publisher to publish work that
originated in a cultural centre, than it is for a publisher in a cultural centre to publish
work originating in a regional area. Therefore, regional publishing will continue to be
defined by the location of its activities, rather than by the type or place of origin of the
material it publishes.
IV. The importance of literary regionalism and a sense of regional identity
Of course, all this begs the question, ‘Why is creating an increased sense of
regional identity important?’ I will address the specifics of a Western Australian
identity, and how Western Australian publishing houses and writers have contributed to
339Maria Vidal and Núria Casado, ‘John Kinsella, through His Poetry’, Southerly 59, nos. 3–4
(Spring/Summer 1999): 161, quoting John Kinsella.
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the formation and growth of this identity, in Chapter 4. However, it is essential now to
address the importance of regionalism, regional literature and a sense of regional
identity in more general terms, outlining the relevance of these concerns and laying the
groundwork for future discussion.
Creating an increased sense of regional identity is important for many reasons,
though these can perhaps best be addressed in two categories. The first category
encompasses all the benefits enjoyed by the residents of that region, or what I call intra-
regional benefits. These include an increased sense of regional and local pride, which
often manifests itself in greater regional and local involvement; for example, an increase
in volunteerism and active debate in community forums. It is admittedly difficult to
identify a direct link between regional literature, an increased sense of regional identity,
and these sorts of positive outcomes, but certainly there are demonstrable links between
feelings of local and regional pride, and an involvement in local and regional activities
and organisations promoting the improvement of the local community.
The second category of reasons for the importance of creating an increased sense
of regional identity encompass what I call inter-regional benefits. In other words, these
benefits are enjoyed not only by the people inhabiting the community in question, but
also by people outside this community. An example of this is someone from outside
Western Australia who reads a book by a Western Australian author. If the reader is
sufficiently impressed with the book, the writer, or the place described, this may affect
her perception of the region. This is not a far-fetched notion; the promotion of Western
Australian literature by Fremantle Arts Centre Press has been instrumental in changing
eastern state perceptions of the arts in Western Australia from a sort of provincial
backwater, to a literary and cultural hub.
Perhaps the most famous example of regional literature contributing inter-
regional benefits is also perhaps the most famous example of regional literature—the
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works of Thomas Hardy, the bulk of which are set in the semi-imaginary county of
Wessex in the English countryside. Hardy’s novels have contributed enormously to the
tourism industry in those real counties and towns on which his imaginary locations were
based. In fact, the county of Dorset still relies on the phrase ‘Hardy’s Wessex’ or
‘Hardy Country’ in much of its current tourism literature.
Literary scholar Michael Millgate analyses this phenomenon:
Public avidity for the reassurances of the actual was soon sufficient toturn Wessex into what might perhaps be called an apparent reality....Hardy at least seems in some of his novels to have taken satisfaction inhis enhancement of the local tourist industry. But there is also a sense—an altogether more serious sense—in which regionalism is forever tryingto free itself from the trivialisation of ‘local colour’ and from thewidespread view that regionalism itself is a limiting term.340
The tourism Hardy’s novels brought (and continue to bring) to the region was a boon for
the local economy. Nonetheless, this example fits the definition of inter-regional
benefits, since the benefits also extend to those outside the region by hopefully changing
their perceptions of the regional area as parochial or provincial, and also by altering the
‘widespread view that regionalism itself is a limiting term’. Clearly, creating an
increased sense of regional identity is important, not just in Western Australia but in
every regional area.
Furthermore, as the first two chapters of this thesis demonstrated, there is an
established interest in literary regionalism in Australia, even if, as Marthe Reed insists,
‘place, in the face of so many overwhelmingly obvious signs of its importance in so
many areas of study, has until the advent of eco-criticism and the “new geography”
(cultural geography), received limited attention in literary criticism in comparison to
other issues and concerns’.341 The relatively recent introduction of regionalism to the
attention of literary scholars should not, however, discourage individuals from further
340Michael Millgate, ‘Unreal Estate: Reflections on Wessex and Yoknapatawpha’, in The Literature of
Region and Nation, ed. R. P. Draper (London: Macmillan, 1989), 77–78.341Marthe Reed, ‘The Poem as Liminal Place-moment: John Kinsella, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge,Christopher Dewdney and Eavan Boland’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Western Australia, 2008), 52.
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study of this subject. Nor should the faltering of these attentions in the 1990s. The
intra- and inter-regional benefits associated with literary regionalism should be reason
enough to continue its advocacy.
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Chapter 4
Book publishing in Western Australia:
Fremantle Press, Magabala Books and University of Western Australia Press
I. Introduction to book publishing in Western Australia
The Australian Bureau of Statistics does not have statistics that are specific to
Western Australian book publishing, but it counts 234 businesses in Australia whose
main activity is book publishing.342 This number is very close to that found in The
Australian Writer’s Marketplace, which in its 2006 edition counted 201 publishing
houses.343 Therefore, it is reasonable to use the numbers The Australian Writer’s
Marketplace has for Western Australia: 12 publishing houses in Western Australia in
2006, which is approximately 6% of the total number of publishing houses operating in
Australia.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as recently as 2004, nearly 94%
of all books sold in Australia that were published by an Australian publishing house,
came from publishing houses based in New South Wales or Victoria, two states which
are home to nearly 60% of the Australian population.344 Queensland-based publishing
houses produced a further 4.6% of Australian books sales, while South Australia yielded
0.86%. The remaining states and territories comprised 1.03% of Australian book sales;
the Australian Bureau of Statistics does not give a breakdown of this final number into
its constituent parts, namely Western Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory, and
the Australian Capital Territory. Nonetheless, even if Western Australia produced the
majority of this 1.03%, its publishing houses are selling fewer units on average than
their eastern states counterparts (since Western Australia has nearly 6% of the total
number of publishing houses operating in Australia, but produced less than 1% of
342Australian Bureau of Statistics, 3.343Queensland Writers Centre, ed., The Australian Writer’s Marketplace 2006 (Brisbane: Queensland
Writers Centre, 2006).344Australian Bureau of Statistics, 6.
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Australian book sales). Of course, this is largely due to the concentration in Sydney and
Melbourne of large, multinational publishing houses.
Not only are Western Australian publishing houses selling fewer units on
average than their eastern states counterparts, they are also producing fewer new titles
as a proportion of the number of publishing houses operating in the state. According to
the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 8,602 new Australian titles were published in 2003–
04.345 Publishing houses provide figures to The Australian Writer’s Marketplace of the
average number of new titles they publish annually, and according to these figures
Western Australian publishing houses produce between 233 and 260 new titles per year,
or approximately 3% of the total number of new Australian titles published during
2003–04.
To summarise: Western Australia represents 10% of the Australian population, is
home to approximately 6% of the total number of publishing houses operating in
Australia, publishes approximately 3% of the total number of new Australian titles, and
produced less than 1% of all book sales in Australia in which the book was produced by
an Australian publishing house. The mind boggles at the infinitesimally small
percentage Western Australian publishing houses occupy of total book sales in
Australia, including both Australian and imported titles.
Of course, the same statistics for any other Australian state or territory, excepting
New South Wales and Victoria—arguably the cultural centres of the nation and, without
a doubt, the traditional centres of book publishing in Australia—would not be all that
different. Therefore, the dire analysis found above is not a specific indictment of the
Western Australian publishing industry, but rather an indication of the difficulties
common to regional publishing houses.
345Ibid., 5.
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Nonetheless, there remain features distinctive to book publishing in Western
Australia:
In this state because of geographic and, it might be argued, psychicdistances, previous governments have made decisions to support WesternAustralian publishing. This remains a distinctive feature within culturalpolicy and planning in Western Australia, and virtually unique across thenation (certainly through its longevity and levels of support). Thisinvestment has, without question, paid off manyfold: by growing adistinctive publishing environment, developing writers who havereceived local, national and international acclaim, and supportingmanifold industries including retail bookshops, educational suppliers,printers, designers, print production houses, and the (usual) cottageindustry that writers conduct.346
In addition to the ‘longevity and levels of support’ that distinguish the Western
Australian Government’s support of book publishing, there are the Western Australian
Premier’s Book Awards. These are open only to writers who meet at least one of the
following criteria:
1. Born in Western Australia 2. Usual place of residence is Western Australia 3. Has been resident in Western Australia for a minimum of 10years at some stage, although not currently resident in WA. 4. Whose work has Western Australia as its primary focus.347
No other Australian state government has analogous criteria for its premier’s award.
This chapter examines the ‘distinctive publishing environment’ of Western
Australia and, in particular, its three best-known publishing houses—Fremantle Press,
Magabala Books and University of Western Australia Press. These three publishing
houses have been more successful in establishing a profile for Western Australian
writers and writing than any other publishing house in the state, and one of them, at
least, ‘is seen in other states as a model for a regional publisher which is achieving
national prominence’.348 For this reason, the largest part of Chapter 4 is devoted to the
346Terri-ann White, ‘An Independent Evaluation of State Funding to Publishing of Literary Works inWestern Australia’, Report for the Government of Western Australia, Aug. 2001, 4–5.347‘Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards—Guidelines’, in State Library of Western Australia (1
Nov. 2007, accessed 16 Apr. 2008); available from http://www.liswa.wa.gov.au/pbkgdlines.html.348Taylor, ‘Review’, 3.
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history and current work of Fremantle Press. This is followed by a close look at
Magabala Books, an Indigenous publishing house based in the small town of Broome in
the far north of Western Australia, including an analysis of its contribution to a regional
literature in Western Australia. Both publishing houses receive substantial subsidies
from the Western Australian Government, an important aspect of their history that has
been justified on the basis of ‘Western Australia’s relatively small population, its
distance from large markets and the attendant difficulties in marketing and promotion—
all of which contribute to high unit costs and difficulties in market penetration’.349
University of Western Australia Press, on the other hand, receives no government
subsidy but is supported in various ways by its namesake university. The analysis of
this third Western Australian publishing house is shorter than the others, since a book-
length history of University of Western Australia Press was published in 2005.
The final section of this chapter (‘Other Western Australian publishing houses’)
briefly surveys some of the other publishing houses currently operating in Western
Australia, in addition to explaining why these publishing houses are not the subject of
greater attention in this thesis. In short, they are mostly hobby or ‘vanity’ publishing
houses, or they publish titles that do not fit the definition of ‘literature’ employed in this
thesis.
Nonetheless, nearly all of the publishing houses mentioned in this chapter—and
certainly the three publishing houses that comprise its primary focus—share a common
concern: ‘It is as important a writer now feel free to conceive work in terms of a local
environment as it once was to feel able to conceive it in terms of an Australian
environment.’350 The author of this excerpt, Western Australian writer Peter Cowan,
goes on to say that ‘the day of orientation to English or American publishers has not
349Ibid., 5.350Peter Cowan, ‘“A Two Book Wonder”: A Decade of Publishing—Fremantle Arts Centre Press—1976–1986’, Westerly 31, no. 1 (Mar. 1986): 86.
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gone, but it has been lessened, and if it is passing for West Australians it is because of
the existence of the Fremantle Arts Centre Press’.351 And so, it is only natural that this
chapter continues with an in-depth exploration of this most significant Western
Australian publishing house.
II. Fremantle Press
In 1972, the Fremantle Arts Centre was established by Fremantle City Council,
and Ian Templeman was appointed its inaugural Director. The newly renovated
Fremantle Lunatic Asylum, a colonial gothic structure built using convict labour and
opened in July 1865, was chosen as the Centre’s home. This imposing historic
landmark building in the port city of Fremantle, Western Australia, had served many
different purposes in the intervening years between the closure of the Asylum in 1900
and the opening of Fremantle Arts Centre (in 1973, the year after it was established), but
it was particularly well-suited to the latter organisation’s needs; it is still the Centre’s
home after more than 35 years.
One of the earliest developments at the Fremantle Arts Centre was the
establishment of a Community Arts programme, through which it offered practical,
hands-on classes to the public in painting, sculpture and various crafts. The Centre also
offered creative writing and literature appreciation classes. In addition to the
Community Arts programme, the Fremantle Arts Centre exhibited the work of Western
Australian painters, sculptors and craftspeople in specially designed galleries on the
premises. The Centre did not, however, have an established means of ‘exhibiting’ the
work of the writers participating in its Community Arts programme, nor indeed the
‘wealth of writing activity in W.A.’ then perceived by staff at the Centre.352
351Ibid.352Phillip Winn, ‘The Fremantle Arts Centre Press: A Case Study of a Smaller West Australian Publishing
House’, i Mots Pluriels 5 (Jan. 1998, accessed 15 Aug. 2007), quoting Clive Newman; available fromhttp://motspluriels.arts.uwa.edu.au/MP598pwClive.html.
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The Fremantle Arts Centre began to publish Patterns, a poetry magazine, and
Pinup, which Templeman described as an ‘experimental project aimed at making more
widely known the work of Western Australian writers’; it was a poster ‘devoted to the
work of a single writer, either in poetry or prose’ and ‘designed with accompanying
graphics to ensure that the poster is attractive and could be pinned up on a school notice
board, kitchen door, or in a public place’.353 Perhaps unsurprisingly, Pinup was phased
out of existence, while Patterns, which had attracted ‘a small guarantee against loss for
the first three issues ... from the Literature Board of the Australia Council’, became a
regular feature of the Centre.354 Patterns was published quarterly and ‘distributed in a
limited way through retail outlets, mainly in Western Australia’.355 In 1981, the format
was changed to include short stories; this continued until the end of 1985, after which
Patterns ceased to be a separate publication and appeared as a section of Fremantle Arts
Review.
Even in the early days of Patterns, however, Templeman felt the magazine
presented insufficient opportunities to Western Australian writers. More generally, ‘in
Western Australia it was felt that there was limited publishing access for local writers,
with markets also concentrated in the eastern states’.356 Consequently, Templeman
‘seized on an election promise [in 1974] by [Western Australian Premier] Sir Charles
Court that, if re-elected, a West Australian Literary Fund would be established to help
local writers get published’.357 Indeed, Court was re-elected and just such a fund was
established, and it was an important early contributor to what would become known as
Fremantle Arts Centre Press.
353Ian Templeman, ‘The Fremantle Arts Centre’, Westerly 3 (Sept. 1975): 44.354Ibid.355Ian Templeman, ‘“A Two Book Wonder”: A Decade of Publishing—Fremantle Arts Centre Press—1976–1986’, Westerly 31, no. 1 (Mar. 1986): 78.356Ron Blaber, ‘Case-study: Fremantle Arts Centre Press’, in Paper Empires: A History of the Book inAustralia, 1946–2005, ed. Craig Munro and Robyn Sheahan-Bright (St. Lucia: University of Queensland
Press, 2006), 76.357Vickie Laurie, ‘The Story So Far ...’, Western Outlook 1, no. 2 (July–Sept. 1990): 24.
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Before any of this could happen, however, a feasibility study into the
establishment of a publishing unit within the Centre had to be conducted. Terry Owen
was commissioned for the job, and after she returned with positive results, she also
played an integral role in the drafting of a Constitution for the proposed press. This
included the following Mission Statement:
To publish and promote to the widest possible audience the works ofWestern Australian writers and artists who may otherwise not bepublished by commercial publishing houses, and to record the culturalheritage of the State in a form that is easily accessible to the widestpossible audience.358
The idea of a publishing house exclusively devoted to publishing and promoting the
works of writers from the region in which the publishing house was based was a novel
one, the first of its kind that anyone involved was aware of, certainly in Australia. The
Constitution ‘was put together and submitted to the Department of Corporate Affairs for
approval as a non-profit distributing organisation’.359 Owen had recommended that the
organisation be called Centre Press, and so this was what was submitted to the
Department of Corporate Affairs. However, the application was rejected as Centre
Press. Brian Raymond Coffey (also known as Ray Coffey, or B. R. Coffey), who would
be hired in 1978 as Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s Managing Editor, recalled in an
interview in 2001:
From memory ... it was too close to the name of something else that wasaround in Western Australia at the time and they rejected it. One of the ...problems was there was an expectation that it was going to go throughand some letterheads and materials were printed that had ‘Centre Press’written on it, and which had a little bit of life beyond that point, becausefinances were so short that the materials were used anyway.360
This confusion over the name of the press was reflected in the first newspaper article to
mention its formation:
358Taylor, ‘Review’, 22.359Templeman, ‘Two Book Wonder’, 79.360Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by Margaret McPherson, tape recording, 16 Oct. 2001, FremantleCity Library Oral History Project.
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The City of Fremantle through its Arts Centre is about to publish poetryand short stories. A publishing unit, called Centrepress, has been formed,a typesetting composer bought and a manager commissioned to producethe first book of poems by next March.361
This short article was printed on 26 October 1975 in Sunday Times, a Western
Australian newspaper. The press was not actually referred to in the media as Fremantle
Arts Centre Press until its first book (published in March 1976, as predicted above) was
reviewed in The West Australian on 24 April 1976.
In the meantime, the name on the application to the Department of Corporate
Affairs was changed from ‘Centre Press’ to ‘Fremantle Arts Centre Press’ and the
application subsequently accepted. Owen was named General Manager of the Press,
with Templeman, who was still the Director of the Fremantle Arts Centre, appointed to
the role of Chief Executive of the Press. The Fremantle Arts Centre functioned as a host
organisation and provided limited use of its staff, including Clive Newman, who was
Deputy Director of the Centre and offered accounting and financial support to the Press.
However, the vision was always for Fremantle Arts Centre Press to have as much
financial and managerial independence as possible, and so a Board of Management was
formed, consisting of ‘representation from the literary community of Western Australia,
the Fremantle City Council and people with publishing and business experience’.362 The
members of that first Board included Ian Templeman, Terry Owen, Clive Newman,
Bruce Bennett, Ronald Warren, Anthony Evans and John Birch.
The Western Australian Arts Council provided a grant (the Western Australian
Literary Fund would not start distributing funds until 1977) of $11,500 to cover Owen’s
initial salary, as well as to purchase a typesetting composer. They also promised a
further $3,500 in working capital. It was expected that the Literature Board of the
Australia Council would provide further funding in the form of publication subsidies for
361‘Fremantle Goes Into Publishing’, Sunday Times (Perth), 26 Oct. 1975.362Templeman, ‘Two Book Wonder’, 79.
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selected titles, as well as subsidise book production operations through the Book Bounty
scheme it operated with the Department of Customs. An important distinction between
funding received from the Literature Board of the Australia Council and state
government funding, is that ‘the states often provided general subsidies towards the
operations of ... publishers, as well as project grants offered towards a single title or a
group of titles’.363 Of course, all ‘state-subsidised presses were located outside Sydney,
Melbourne and Canberra’.364
Fremantle Arts Centre Press, established in 1975, published its first book in
March 1976. The book, Soundings, an anthology of Western Australian poetry edited by
Veronica Brady, literally fell apart as a result of poor binding and had to be returned to
the printers, where it was stapled through the cover and spine to hold it together.
Nonetheless, it was received positively by The West Australian:
For present trends in West Australian poetry Soundings, from theFremantle Arts Centre, provides a catholic selection (including full-pagephotos of the poets). ... In general, the book is one of the best offered tolovers of poetry for some time. Perhaps our isolation and our emptinessare spurs to poetic achievement.365
Its positive reception in the press did not, however, signal an end to Fremantle Arts
Centre Press’s trouble with Soundings. Lloyd Davies, solicitor and ex-husband of
writer Dorothy Hewett, whose poems were included in the volume, threatened to sue the
publishers for allegedly libellous material contained in one of Hewett’s poems.
Fremantle Arts Centre Press received a letter from a law firm citing action pending, and
Soundings was subsequently withdrawn from the trade. Happily for the fledgling
publishers, however, most copies of the book had already been sold.
Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s second publishing venture was a companion
volume to Soundings, an anthology of short fiction by Western Australian writers titled
363Stuart Glover, ‘Publishing and the State’, in Making Books: Contemporary Australian Publishing, ed.David Carter and Anne Galligan (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2007), 88.364Ibid.365‘No Ecstasy’, West Australian, 24 Apr. 1976.
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New Country. Local artist Guy Grey-Smith provided the woodcuts that adorned the
covers of both books, a feature of the Press’s commitment not only to Western
Australian writers, but also to Western Australian artists. However, unlike the poetry
anthology, which contained a few poems from each of a large number of Western
Australian poets, New Country presented the work of only six Western Australian short
story writers, with each writer contributing between two and four stories. Fremantle
Arts Centre Press went on to publish stand-alone collections of short stories by all but
two of the contributors (Iris Milutinovic and Hal Colebatch) to this early anthology, and
single-author books by all but Milutinovic.
New Country was fittingly edited by the single most vocal proponent of a
regional conception of Australia, University of Western Australia academic and
Fremantle Arts Centre Press Board member, Bruce Bennett. In his introduction to the
book, Bennett notes that ‘this is the first book devoted to short stories by Western
Australians since Henrietta Drake-Brockman’s anthology West Coast Stories was
published in 1959’.366
The two books that rounded out the first year of publishing at Fremantle Arts
Centre Press were Nicholas Hasluck’s Anchor and Other Poems and Elizabeth Jolley’s
Five Acre Virgin and Other Stories. These two titles marked the beginnings of the West
Coast Writing series, ‘a paperback series from Fremantle Arts Centre Press devoted to
the work of Western Australian writers whose work has appeared in journals and
anthologies but who have not yet had a collection of their work published. Each
volume in the series is devoted to the work of one writer.’ This passage appears on the
back covers of both volumes, where it also notes that the Press ‘receives financial
assistance from the Literature Committee of the Western Australian Arts Council and is
supported by the City of Fremantle’. The support the Press received from the City of
366Bruce Bennett, New Country, viii.
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Fremantle did not come in the form of a direct subsidy, but rather in access to some of
the resources (including staff) at the City-funded Fremantle Arts Centre. This same
acknowledgement appeared in Soundings and New Country.
Another point of similarity with Soundings and New Country is that the early
volumes in the West Coast Writing series all feature cover and interior illustrations or
photographs by Western Australian artists.
Hasluck’s Anchor and Other Poems was not a great sales success. Nonetheless,
it marked the beginning of a distinguished literary career. Hasluck had published
individual poems in leading Australian newspapers and journals, as well as had his
poems featured in Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s Soundings, but Anchor and Other
Poems was his first book. He would go on to publish four more books with Fremantle
Arts Centre Press, including a volume of short fiction and a novel. Eventually, he left
the Press’s ranks and took up with Penguin, who published his The Bellarmine Jug: A
Novel, which won The Age Book of the Year Award in 1984. Adding to Hasluck’s
remarkable literary career, he served as Deputy Chair of the Australia Council from
1978 until 1982, and Chair of the Literature Board from 1999 until 2002. Clearly,
Fremantle Arts Centre Press had backed—and, moreover, helped to create—a winner.
At the time Five Acre Virgin and Other Stories was published, Jolley had a much
more limited publishing record than Hasluck. Stories from this book had previously
appeared in Westerly and Sandgropers, and she had also, of course, been featured in the
Press’s second volume, New Country. Notably, all of these publications were produced
in Western Australia, so Jolley had had very little exposure in the eastern states of
Australia. In fact, Jolley had been writing for a long time and sending her manuscripts
to publishing houses in Melbourne and Sydney, but she had received rejection letters
from nearly every publisher in Australia prior to her first book being taken up by
Fremantle Arts Centre Press.
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Clive Newman, Deputy Director of the Fremantle Arts Centre at the time Five
Acre Virgin and Other Stories was published, recalled the event on the occasion of the
Press’s 20th anniversary:
Elizabeth Jolley, in the mid-seventies, was not yet published in bookform. Her Five Acre Virgin and Other Stories, provided our first rush ofadrenaline when enthusiastic reviews prompted strong sales in Perth. Weboldly sent review copies of the book to literary editors around Australia,most of whom responded by running prompt and positive reviews, anddiscovered what was to be a major problem for the Press for many years—how to effectively and efficiently distribute our titles on a nationalbasis. Discerning readers outside WA had to demonstrate remarkablepersistence in order to acquire a copy of the book. Not many storesoutside WA responded to our telephone promotion of a new Australianwriter from an unheard of publisher, and those that did tended to order inminimum quantities. Many copies of Five Acre Virgin found their wayinterstate in single book parcels and we spent an inordinate amount oftime chasing up outstanding invoices for ridiculously small amounts ofmoney.367
As Newman says, distribution was a continual problem for the Press, as indeed it is for
most Australian publishers, but particularly for those located outside the traditional
centres of book publishing. As Ron Blaber notes in his ‘case-study’ of Fremantle Arts
Centre Press, ‘Western Australia provided good support, but in the eastern states the
press was limited to independent booksellers such as Gleebooks [in Sydney] and
Readings [in Melbourne].’368 The problem of distribution would be a recurring theme in
the Press’s early development. However, the sorts of distribution difficulties Newman
discusses here are symptomatic of a successful publishing endeavour, as they are a sign
of demand for a given title. Jolley’s first book, published in the latter half of 1976, had
to be reprinted the following year to meet this demand.
Another theme in the development of Fremantle Arts Centre Press—this theme,
unfortunately, not restricted only to the Press’s early years—is the loss of writers to
larger, mostly multinational publishing houses based in the eastern states. Jolley is a
367Clive Newman, ‘Fremantle Arts Centre Press ... Twenty Years On’, Australian Book Review, Feb./Mar.
1996, 53.368Blaber, 77.
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prominent example of this trend. In total, she published seven books with Fremantle
Arts Centre Press, including three collections of short stories, three novels, and a final
book—a slim volume of poetry and personal observation in diary form. This last book,
Diary of a Weekend Farmer, was published in 1993, but Jolley had long since moved
away from Fremantle Arts Centre Press, publishing her last work of prose fiction with
them (The Sugar Mother) in 1988. Diary of a Weekend Farmer is, likely, a book that a
publisher with more commercial concerns would have rejected as unviable, given its
enigmatic quality and brevity. In contrast, Fremantle Arts Centre Press published it as a
hardcover book with full-colour reproductions of paintings by Western Australian artist
Evelyn Kotai sprinkled throughout the text.
After publishing two collections of short stories and a novel with Fremantle Arts
Centre Press, Jolley placed a book with a different publisher for the first time in 1980.
The novel Palomino was published by Outback Press, a small Melbourne-based outfit.
The following year, Jolley published The Newspaper of Claremont Street with
Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Jolley then published three books in 1983: Mr. Scobie’s
Riddle (novel) and Woman in a Lampshade (short stories) with Penguin, and Miss
Peabody’s Inheritance (novel) with University of Queensland Press. Mr. Scobie’s
Riddle and Miss Peabody’s Inheritance are the two books that established Jolley’s
reputation as an Australian writer of extraordinary merit; the former won The Age Book
of the Year Award and the Western Australia Week Literary Award for Prose Fiction,
while the latter was shortlisted for the National Book Council Award for Australian
Literature.
Jolley would publish a novel and a collection of short stories with Fremantle
Arts Centre Press in 1984, the aforementioned The Sugar Mother in 1988, and Diary of
a Weekend Farmer in 1993, but from 1983 onwards, her star had been set to rise far
beyond the reach of the small Western Australian publishing house that had given her a
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start. Jolley published one more book with University of Queensland Press, but the
remainder of her books were issued by the multinational company Penguin or its sister
company Viking. When Jolley died in 2007, obituaries appeared in Australian and
international newspapers such as The New York Times and The Times (UK), capping a
career of high-profile reviews of her books in the most internationally acclaimed
magazines, journals and newspapers, including the lead story in an issue of The New
York Times Book Review. In these articles, ‘Penguin’ was mentioned with much greater
frequency than ‘Fremantle Arts Centre Press’.
Even allowing for the commercial success of Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s first
Jolley book, Five Acre Virgin, the Press recorded sales of only $3,058 in its first year of
publishing.369 This figure amounted to 17.6% of the Press’s costs in 1976, the remainder
of which was made up for by the aforementioned ‘financial assistance from the
Literature Committee of the Western Australian Arts Council’. The following year,
Fremantle Arts Centre Press improved on this figure: a recorded $8,985 in sales made
up 26.4% of costs.370 In this year, 1977, the Press published five new titles.
The Press’s publishing programme in this year resembled in many ways the
programme of the previous year. The first three books it produced in 1977 were single-
author volumes in the West Coast Writing series by writers featured in either Soundings
or New Country. These were presented in the same black-and-white format as earlier
Fremantle Arts Centre Press books, with artwork by local artists featured both on their
covers and in the interior. The most significant of these three books is a collection of
short stories by T. A. G. Hungerford, Wong Chu and the Queen’s Letterbox, since
Hungerford would go on to be a major author for the Press and in Australian literature,
more generally. Wong Chu and the Queen’s Letterbox was also the first book from
369Derrick Tomlinson, Chairman, Fremantle Arts Centre Press Board of Management, letter to HaydnWilliams, Chairman, Western Australian Arts Council, 29 Mar. 1983, State Records Office of Western
Australia.370Ibid.
190
Fremantle Arts Centre Press to receive its funding from the newly established Western
Australian Literary Fund, rather than from the Literature Committee of the Western
Australian Arts Council.
However, Fremantle Arts Centre Press in 1977 also published two books that
deviated noticeably from its previous publishing programme. The first of these, Other
Earth: Four Greek-Australian Stories by Vasso Kalamaras, is a bilingual edition in
Greek and English, which was translated from the original Greek by Reg Durack in
collaboration with the author. This was only the second book published by the Press
that was supported by a publication subsidy from the Literature Board of the Australia
Council (the first was Lee Knowles’s collection of poems, Cool Summer, published
earlier in 1977). More significantly, however, the publication of Other Earth should
finally discredit any assumptions leftover from the discussion in Chapter 1 about how
some critics accuse regional literature of only promoting the majority culture’s interests
—the white, Anglo-Celtic, male viewpoint.
The second, and perhaps more remarkable, development in the Press’s
publishing programme involved its decision to accept non-fiction manuscripts. This
move was initiated when Peter Cowan presented Fremantle Arts Centre Press with a
collection of his great-great-grandmother’s letters, which were eventually published as
A Faithful Picture: The Letters of Eliza and Thomas Brown at York in the Swan River
Colony 1841–1852, edited by Peter Cowan and with an introduction by Alexandra
Hasluck. Although it was not the case with A Faithful Picture in 1977, non-fiction
publishing would eventually prove to be one of Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s most
lucrative publishing areas.
In March of the following year, Fremantle Arts Centre Press effectively
announced its presence on the Australian publishing scene in a way that even Jolley’s
Five Acre Virgin and the attendant positive critical reception had been unable to. The
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Weekend Australian Magazine announced that Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s ‘public
“coming out” was really Writers’ Week in Adelaide earlier this year. They arrived
armed with their catalogue and their books ... both amazing and being amazed by the
interest they generated.’371 The Press still did not have an efficient mechanism in place
for national distribution of its titles, but at least its presence at the Adelaide Writers’
Week ensured that from 1978 onwards most Australian booksellers knew Fremantle
Arts Centre Press by name and, with increasing frequency, by reputation, as well.
By the time this article appeared in July 1978, Fremantle Arts Centre Press had
published ten books under its own imprint and ‘five more as “vanity jobs” merely using
the facilities of the Press without following up distribution’.372 The latter books
included titles such as, Woodline: Five Years with the Woodcutters of the Western
Australian Goldfields by L.R.M. Hunter, and Let Me Learn the Steps: Poems from a
Psychiatric Ward by Mary Morris and Bill Hart-Smith. These publications did not
contribute to the establishment of Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s reputation as a
publisher of fine books, but the income they generated through the hiring of the Press
machines and on-staff expertise provided a valuable, though modest, source of income
for the Press. This arrangement would continue for several more years before tapering
off (though it would be briefly reinvigorated following the 1995 ‘Review into the
Investment of Government in the Publishing of Literary Works’ as a way of reducing the
Press’s reliance on Government subsidy).
One arrangement that came to an end in 1978, however, was Terry Owen’s
appointment as General Manager of Fremantle Arts Centre Press. She was replaced by
Coffey, though the role’s title was changed to Managing Editor. At the time of his
appointment, Coffey was the only full-time employee of the Press, as Templeman
remained Director of the Fremantle Arts Centre in addition to his role as Chief
371Geraldine Doogue, ‘Literary View’, Weekend Australian Magazine, 1–2 July 1978.372Ibid.
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Executive of the Press. Furthermore, the Press’s accounting and financial support
continued to come from Newman as Deputy Director of the Centre.
In 1978, the Press published five books: two more titles in its West Coast
Writing series (Alec Choate’s book of poetry, Gifts Upon the Water, and Nicholas
Hasluck’s short story collection, The Hat on the Letter O and Other Stories), an
anthology of autobiographical writing about childhood by Western Australian writers
(Memories of Childhood: A Collection of Reminiscences, edited by Lee White and
featuring drawings by children of White Gum Valley Primary School), the Press’s first
natural history book (Grasstrees of Western Australia, by Hal Missingham), and
Westerly 21: An Anniversary Selection (edited by Westerly’s long-standing editors,
Bruce Bennett and Peter Cowan).
However, Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s most significant achievement of 1978
was not a book, but rather a seminar it organised. In October, the Press convened a
three-day gathering of Australia’s literary stars and interested locals to explore the
theme of ‘Time, Place and People: Regionalism in Contemporary Australian Literature’.
As was mentioned in Chapter 1 of this thesis, the seminar featured speeches by well-
known writers such as Frank Moorhouse, Thomas Shapcott, Elizabeth Jolley, Peter
Cowan, and T. A. G. Hungerford. These speeches were later reprinted in an edition of
the literary journal Westerly, which gave them greater circulation and cultural currency.
The conversation about literary regionalism in Australia did not begin to take
shape until the late 1970s and into the 1980s, and Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s first
seminar was of unparalleled importance in this development. The Press would host
further seminars in 1980 (‘Writers and their Audience’), 1982 (concerning biography
and autobiography), and 1984 (‘The Writer’s Voice’), but none would replicate the
influence of this first seminar.
193
After publishing four books in its first year in operation, and five books in its
second and third years, Fremantle Arts Centre Press took the large step of publishing ten
new titles in 1979. Most notable among these publications were the Press’s first book
by Peter Cowan (although he had edited A Faithful Picture in 1977), a collection of
short stories titled Mobiles and Other Stories, as well as The Travelling Entertainer and
Other Stories by Elizabeth Jolley. Both writers had published collections of short
stories on previous occasions (Jolley with Fremantle Arts Centre Press, and Cowan with
several different publishers); therefore, the publication of these particular titles by
Fremantle Arts Centre Press marks a shift in the emphasis of the West Coast Writing
series. The series was originally conceived as ‘a paperback series devoted primarily to
the work of Western Australian writers whose work has appeared in journals and
anthologies but who have not yet had a collection published’. In fact, this statement still
appears on the back covers of Cowan’s and Jolley’s books, though it would be removed
from books in the series beginning with those published the following year. This event,
coupled with a new cover design for books in the West Coast Writing series (trading the
old black-and-white format for a four-colour, full-bleed image), seems to signal a shift
in the Press’s self-understanding: it clearly no longer sees itself as merely an amateur
outfit servicing new writers and a small local readership, but rather a publishing house
with significant commercial concerns, providing a service that is valuable to a broader
community of both writers and readers.
Several more important publishing events happened at Fremantle Arts Centre
Press in 1979. First, the Press published Dorothy Hewett’s play The Man from
Mukinupin in conjunction with Currency Press, the Sydney-based publisher of play and
film scripts. The script had been commissioned by Perth’s National Theatre at the
Playhouse to mark Western Australia’s sesquicentennial celebrations, and the first
edition of the book was published to coincide with the premiere of the play. (A second
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edition of the book was published in 1980, again by Fremantle Arts Centre Press in
conjunction with Currency Press, incorporating the revisions Hewett made to the script
during the rehearsal process for the first season.) In the foreword to this first edition,
Katharine Brisbane of Currency Press writes that ‘this book ... is the first fruit of what
we hope will be a rewarding partnership between Fremantle Arts Centre Press and
Currency Press in the publication of West Australian playwrights’.373 While the two
presses would publish a few more books together, including Rod Ansell’s and Rachel
Percy’s To Fight the Wild in 1980 (published to coincide with the release of a film by
the same name), this venture never gained traction. Whether this failure resulted in, or
was the result of, a lack of play and film scripts being written in Western Australia, it is
difficult to say.
Another important publishing event at Fremantle Arts Centre Press in 1979 was
the publication of Fremantle: Landscapes and People, a photography book with text by
T. A. G. Hungerford and photographs by Roger Garwood. This black-and-white
production is the first of many photography books published by the Press, undertaken in
many cases for their potential commercial appeal; the profits from these books were
typically intended to subsidise other, less commercial projects.
The final book in Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s 1979 publishing programme was
Out of Water into Light, a collection of poems by Wendy Jenkins. This title was the first
in the short-lived Shoreline Poetry series, which the back cover of the book describes as
‘a paperback series devoted primarily to the work of new Western Australian poets
whose work has appeared in journals and anthologies but who have not yet had a
collection published’. Clearly, this series was taking over from the West Coast Writing
series, which (as mentioned above) in 1980 switched its focus from Western Australian
writers ‘who have not yet had a collection published’, to simply ‘poetry and short
373Katharine Brisbane, foreword to The Man from Mukinupin, by Dorothy Hewett (Fremantle: FremantleArts Centre Press and Currency Press, 1979), iii.
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stories by Western Australian writers’. Furthermore, the design of the Shoreline Poetry
series is simpler and, therefore, less costly; the books are so short they resemble
chapbooks, and the bindings consist of staples through the spine, rather than the
‘perfect’ binding used for books in the West Coast Writing series. It is clear that even in
this early chapter of its history, the Press was taking actions expressly designed to
maintain the delicate balance between commercial sustainability and ‘publishing those
titles which they believed needed to be produced’.374 It is worth noting that titles in the
Shoreline Poetry series were nonetheless attractively produced and could be purchased
for a small sum, all of which accorded with Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s hopes for the
series—‘to bring new poets to a wider audience’.375
The following year, 1980, saw the publication of a further three titles in the
Shoreline Poetry series. However, a collection of poems by Philip Salom, The Silent
Piano, was also published in the West Coast Writing series. Salom had not previously
published a book of poetry, and his work had not been anthologised in any collection of
Western Australian poetry, such as Soundings and Sandgropers; in fact, prior to the
publication of The Silent Piano, Salom had only ever had two poems published, both of
which appeared in the Press’s Patterns magazine. Nonetheless, the book went on to win
the prestigious 1981 Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Best First Collection of Poetry
—arguably the Press’s biggest critical success up to this point.
In addition to expanding its programme of poetry publishing, Fremantle Arts
Centre Press published its first novel in 1980. Reflecting on this event in a 1996
magazine interview, Clive Newman had this to say:
‘There seemed to be a certain novelty value in short stories by newAustralian writers. It was not for some years that a novel came alongdeemed strong enough to publish’ [said Newman]. That novel wasSouthfalia, a complex satire by Antonio Casella, chosen, said Mr.Newman, because it suited the sort of publisher Fremantle Arts Centre
374Templeman, ‘Two Book Wonder’, 81.375Ibid.
196
then wanted to become, producing quality books that wouldn’t have got asecond glance from mainstream publishers. Southfalia seemed aworthwhile challenge and all copies were sold—eventually.376
The publication of Southfalia is exemplary of something Newman discussed in a 1998
interview:
There’s no question that in our early career we were seen as elitist insome quarters because we were doing works of literature, not commercialworks. That comes from the charter that said ‘books that mightn’t bepublished by commercial publishers’. We didn’t ever see it quite likethat, we certainly didn’t consider ourselves elitist, although we did somespecialist books along the way. We published Elizabeth Jolley forinstance and she is undoubtedly a literary writer, but she has a widereadership.377
From the way all the copies of Southfalia are described as selling ‘eventually’, it is clear
this was not a book that enjoyed the ‘wide readership’ of, for example, Elizabeth
Jolley’s The Newspaper of Claremont Street, which after its 1981 publication became
‘one of the Press’s five all time best-sellers’.378 The description of Southfalia on the flap
inside its front cover perhaps sheds some light on why this might be, as well as giving
credence to the observation that Fremantle Arts Centre Press was ‘seen as elitist in some
quarters’:
Southfalia is a burlesque novel in the manner of Voltaire’s Candide,Johnson’s Rasselas and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels that concerns itselfwith Australia’s contemporary social, political and intellectual life. Andin the larger context it is a satiric parable which examines what the authorsees as the social and spiritual dilemma in modern western civilization.
Clearly, the book is couched in high literary terms, as were many of the Press’s early
publications. This would change with time, both as the Press grew more savvy about
the way in which it presented its books to a reading public, and as the Press’s publishing
programme shifted to include more ‘popular’ titles.
Though certainly not ‘commercial’, titles in Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s
Community Publishing Project were not ‘literary’, either. The first of these titles
376Graham Nowland, ‘Fremantle Arts Centre Press’, Western Review 30 (Aug. 1996): 9.377Winn, quoting Newman.378Nowland, 9.
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published under the Fremantle Arts Centre Press imprint, Yeera-muk-a-doo by Nancy E.
Withnell Taylor, was a social history of northwestern Australia examined through the
lens of the author’s ancestors in the late 19th century. In fact, this was the fourth book
published under the auspices of the Community Publishing Project, a special funding
initiative of the Western Australian Literary Fund; the first three titles, however, had
been handled by the production unit of Fremantle Arts Centre Press, without ascribing
the Press’s imprint to the books. The Project produced its first title in 1979, and
proceeded to produce a further ten titles before the Western Australian Literary Fund
was dissolved in 1982, putting an end to the Fund’s Community Publishing Project.
Following the dissolution of the Western Australian Literary Fund, Fremantle
Arts Centre Press (which had continued to ascribe its imprint to each of the titles in the
Community Publishing Project following on from Yeera-muk-a-doo) attempted to
perpetuate the legacy of local and social histories, usually with a very limited
geographical or industry-based scope, first made possible under the auspices of the
Project. In 1983, the Press published Selected Lives, ‘a collection of reminiscences by
four Western Australians’, which it explicitly linked (by way of an introduction written
by Coffey) to the Community Publishing Project and its ‘aim ... to make available, to
both the general public and historians, books of local and family history, written from
first-hand experience, which contributed to the understanding and recording of the
social history of Western Australia’.379 Coffey also notes in the introduction that ‘from
its inception, the Project aroused considerable interest and support, both in terms of the
number and variety of manuscripts submitted for consideration for publication and the
reception the books enjoyed as they appeared’.380 (It has been noted elsewhere,
however, that titles in the Community Publishing Project had a ‘smaller print run’ than
379B. R. Coffey, introduction to Selected Lives (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1983), 3.380Ibid.
198
other Fremantle Arts Centre Press titles, and that ‘the best biographies or social histories
are promoted into the FAC[P] lists’.)381
The new format of Selected Lives was meant to allow more writers to be
published than was previously possible, as gathering together multiple writers in a
single volume reduced the costs associated with publication. The Press would publish
another book in this format, Working Lives in 1984, before abandoning the project.
While there may be an element of truth to Coffey’s observation that ‘these “selected
lives” are living, personal reminiscences which are an important contribution to the life
story of Western Australia’, the books were too poorly written and their scope too
narrow to attract an audience large enough to justify their publication based on
economic or even social terms. In fact, Coffey says in a 2006 interview, speaking of the
Community Publishing Project, that ‘we perhaps wouldn’t now publish some of those
early things simply because the quality of work in that area has improved markedly’.382
Several important events occurred at Fremantle Arts Centre Press in 1981,
including the publication of Quarry: A Selection of Contemporary Western Australian
Poetry, which was mentioned in Chapter 2 of this thesis, as well as Elizabeth Jolley’s
The Newspaper of Claremont Street. Publication of the former led David Brooks to
write in The Canberra Times, ‘the range and quality of the work being done is
impressive. The book [Quarry] throws out a challenge to other states that I, for one,
would be glad to see them take up.’383 Furthermore, Thomas Shapcott wrote in a 1981
issue of Australian Book Review, ‘The phenomenon of the Fremantle Arts Centre Press
in Western Australia is one of the instructive publishing success stories of the last
decade.’384 Clearly, even at this early stage in its history, the Press was seen as playing
381Miranda Sadka, ‘An Increasing Band with an Urge to Write’, West Australian, 5 Oct. 1982, 66.382Brian Raymond Coffey, ‘“I Can’t Go On ... I’ll Go On”: Interview with Ray Coffey, Fremantle ArtsCentre Press, 22 December 2004; 24 May 2006’, interview by Noel King, Westerly 51 (2006): 32.383Cited in Templeman, ‘Two Book Wonder’, 80.384Ibid.
199
an important role in the cultivation of a regional literature in Australia, as well as being
a good model for experiments in book and journal publishing outside the traditional
publishing centres of Sydney and Melbourne. Fremantle Arts Centre Press benefited
from these mentions in the national media, since it brought the Press and its publications
to the attention of an audience outside Western Australia.
Fremantle Arts Centre Press would soon be in a position to better capitalise on
this growing interest with its first successful national distribution arrangement, but
before this could happen, the Press published A. B. Facey’s A Fortunate Life. This
memoir of the classic ‘Aussie battler’ growing up in the early part of the 20th century
was published in April 1981, but this was the result of a long period of collaboration
between the author and staff at the Press. As Templeman notes regarding this process,
‘In many cases a staff member works closely with a writer over several years with the
hope that the final result will be a published manuscript. This is a high risk way to
operate as in some cases publication has not resulted from such consultative process.’385
In the case of A Fortunate Life, the humble ‘partly typed, partly handwritten’,386
unpunctuated manuscript was first presented to them by Facey’s daughter, requesting
that the Press print a small number of copies for friends and family. Wendy Jenkins
began work on the manuscript, as well beginning her employment at the Press, in 1979
—the same year her book of poetry was published by the Press. She collaborated with
Facey to substantially revise the original manuscript leading up to its 1981 publication.
Due to ‘the limited financial resources of the Press the initial print run of the
book was only 2,000 copies. The profit on the sale of this first printing, after production
costs and the author’s royalty were met, was little and certainly went nowhere towards
the cost of reprinting.’387 Consequently, the Press was forced to take out a low-interest
385Templeman, ‘Two Book Wonder’, 80.386Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 32.387Tomlinson.
200
loan to meet the cost of a reprint, after the first print run sold out within days of its
release.388 The Literature Board of the Australia Council also contributed money
towards the cost of the first reprint, which is unusual for them, but they took into
account Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s status as a regional publishing house when
making this decision.389 However, ‘within weeks of those copies arriving from the
printer we had to reprint again’.390
A Fortunate Life is a close relation of the less commercially successful
Community Publishing Project titles and shares many of the same characteristics (for
example, first-person narrative, focus on social history and the life of ‘ordinary’
Australians), and yet Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s handling of A Fortunate Life was
markedly different from its treatment of these earlier publications. The Press had no
marketing budget for the book, so they approached well-known figures such as former
Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, and renowned historians Humphrey McQueen and
Geoffrey Dutton.391 These endorsements, as well as a particularly strong endorsement
from the host of a books segment on a high-rating Sydney radio station, drove a national
demand for A Fortunate Life.392 Furthermore, the Press had ‘negotiated extract rights
for Perth’s morning newspaper and a national paper’.393 Newman notes in a
retrospective article that ‘Facey’s personality was instrumental in capturing the media’s
attention’, presumably including this newspaper coverage.394
Such initiatives intensified an interest that the people at Fremantle Arts Centre
Press associated with Western Australia’s recent sesquicentenary and the impending
Australian bicentenary—‘in the lead-up to that there was, quite properly, an increased
388Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 33.389Ian Templeman, interview by author, 10 June 2008.390Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 33.391Ibid., 32.392Newman, ‘Twenty Years On’, 54.393Ibid.394Ibid.
201
interest in our own narratives, our own stories’.395 In fact, in an interview with Coffey
in 2001, he speculates that ‘we would have substantially more difficulty with something
like A Fortunate Life, in finding a market for it, if it didn’t come out around the year of
sesquicentenary, building into the bicentenary, that kind of upsurge of interest in the
national and so forth and those sorts of stories’.396
Apprehension accompanied the excitement of a successful publication in equal
measure, as Fremantle Arts Centre Press only had three full-time employees in 1981,
and all of these (in addition to a few employees of the Fremantle Arts Centre) were soon
occupied by the demands of packing and shipping copies of A Fortune Life to fill
incoming orders. After the second reprint, with no signs of interest in the book abating,
the multinational publisher Penguin approached Fremantle Arts Centre Press and
inquired if it would be interested in selling the rights to A Fortunate Life. Reprints of
the book by the Press had been in small quantities, since ‘to cover the cost of printing
larger runs the Press would have had to suspend the publication of a number of other
titles’.397 As the Chairman of the Fremantle Arts Centre Press Board of Management
later explained to the Chairman of the Western Australian Arts Council, ‘It was partly
for this reason that the Fremantle Arts Centre Press Board of Management made the
decision ... to sell the licence in the paperback edition to Penguin for an eight-year
period.’398 Penguin had asked for a sale, rather than a lease of the rights to A Fortunate
Life, but they accepted the Press’s offer near the end of 1981.399
Penguin has renewed its lease of the title three times, in addition to leasing the
hardcover rights, which were not part of the original lease agreement.400 As a condition
of these agreements, Fremantle Arts Centre Press is ‘on a percentage of earnings, with
395Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 32.396Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by McPherson.397Tomlinson.398Ibid.399Newman, ‘Twenty Years On’, 54.400Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 33.
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the author-estate, for every copy sold’.401 A Fortunate Life has now sold ‘around a
million’ copies, and yet it was not from book sales that the Press saw the most
memorable return on its investment.402 Instead, it was from the sale of the television
rights (which the Press did not share with Penguin, but rather maintained with the
author) to A Fortunate Life, which netted the Press $54,073.403 This sum was used to
purchase a warehouse near Fremantle and ‘give to the Press for the first time in its
existence a capital asset’,404 ‘against which the Press has been able to negotiate
overdrafts with their bankers from time to time’.405 A Fortunate Life was eventually
produced as a television miniseries on Channel 9. The success of this series, and even
more so the choice of A Fortunate Life as a set text in many Australian high schools and
universities, has ensured the continued sales success of the print version of the title.406
The book has also appeared in audio book, illustrated, condensed and large-print
editions. Some sources report that the only Australian-originated books to have sold
more copies than A Fortunate Life are Murray Ball’s Footrot Flats and the BP Touring
Guide.407
The success of A Fortunate Life is largely responsible for the significant
improvement in sales figures at Fremantle Arts Centre Press in 1981; it also contributed
to an improvement in the percentage sales represent of the total annual operating costs
of the Press (see Table 1).
401Ibid.402Ibid., 35.403Clive Newman, Deputy Director, Fremantle Arts Centre, letter to Frank Wee, Finance Officer, WesternAustralian Arts Council, 17 May 1985, State Records Office of Western Australia.404Ibid.405Templeman, ‘Two Book Wonder’, 81.406Blaber, 77.407Vickie Laurie, 24.
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Table 1: Comparison of Annual Sales Values with Total Annual Operating Costs408
Year Sales Costs % Sales to Costs
1976 $3,058 $17,339 17.6
1977 $8,985 $34,037 26.4
1978 $17,988 $44,510 40.4
1979 $26,618 $78,064 34.1
1980 $45,576 $120,037 38.0
1981 $60,095 $127,344 47.2
1982 $117,470 $182,995 64.2
However, the Press saw an even greater improvement in sales figures in 1982, after it
had already leased the rights to the Facey book. The cause of this increase was largely
due to the ‘reciprocal distribution arrangements the Press [had] with Sydney publisher
Hale & Iremonger’.409 According to the terms of this arrangement established in late
1981, Hale & Iremonger represented Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s books in all
Australian states and territories except Western Australia, where the Press distributed its
own titles, in addition to representing Hale & Iremonger’s books.
In 1983, ‘Melbourne University Press [MUP, since renamed Melbourne
University Publishing], believing that the [University of Western Australia] Press would
close, transferred its agency to Fremantle Arts Centre Press ... causing a further loss of
revenue, for the [University of Western Australia] Press had previously distributed
MUP’s books in Western Australia’.410 The former arrangement (with Hale &
Iremonger) vastly improved Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s national distribution, while
the latter (with Melbourne University Press) was a modest source of income for the
Press. Furthermore, the movement of responsibility for Melbourne University Press’s
distribution in Western Australia from University of Western Australia Press to
408Tomlinson.409Templeman, ‘Two Book Wonder’, 80.410Criena Fitzgerald, A Press in Isolation: University of Western Australia Press 1935–2004 (Crawley:University of Western Australia Press, 2005), 66–67.
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Fremantle Arts Centre Press, foreshadowed an increasing encroachment by Fremantle
Arts Centre Press into publishing areas formerly the exclusive domain of the university
press. As Criena Fitzgerald notes in her history of University of Western Australia
Press, ‘Fremantle Arts Centre Press ... gained in strength as the [University of Western
Australia] Press was besieged by financial and staffing cuts.’411
In 1982, one of the earliest examples of this phenomenon, Fremantle Arts Centre
Press published Lords of Death: A People, a Place, a Legend, which was a joint winner
in the non-fiction category of the 1983 Western Australia Week Literary Awards (since
renamed the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards). This book by Suzanne
Welborn examines the relationship between the pioneer and Anzac experiences; it is
based on a thesis for a Masters degree undertaken at The University of Western
Australia, and with its extended footnotes, appendices, indexes, and bibliography, could
have been comfortably placed on the publishing list of a university press. And yet it
was the trade publisher Fremantle Arts Centre Press that published Lords of Death,
rather than the more obvious choice of University of Western Australia Press, since the
latter publisher was weathering a particularly difficult period in its history. In fact,
Templeman maintains that as early as 1975, when Fremantle Arts Centre Press first
entered the Western Australian publishing scene, the Press profited from a gap left by a
university that ‘kept a lid on publishing’ and a university press that was under siege
following the resignation of its Executive Officer in 1972.412
The 1982/83 financial year saw the Western Australian Arts Council inherit
responsibility for literature from the Western Australian Literary Fund, after the latter
organisation was disbanded. This shift was accompanied by a restructuring of policies
and financial arrangements, including most significantly the introduction of a new
source of Government funding for the arts and culture—the Lotteries Commission of
411Ibid., 67.412Ibid., 51, quoting Ian Templeman.
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Western Australia, which donates a percentage of its proceeds to Western Australian
charities and community groups, including arts organisations like the Western
Australian Arts Council. Fremantle Arts Centre Press changed the acknowledgements
in its books to reflect the new source of funding beginning with titles published in 1983.
Aside from this small amendment, however, very little changed for Fremantle Arts
Centre Press as a result of the new financial arrangements. The Press received $62,315
in funding from the Western Australian Arts Council in the 1982/83 financial year, and
while the Lotteries Commission contributed $37,000 to literature in this period, the
Press did not see any of these new funds.413 (In fact, the Lotteries Commission did not
contribute any funding to Fremantle Arts Centre Press until 1998.) In total, including
funding from both the Western Australian Arts Council and the Lotteries Commission,
the Western Australian Government spent $112,000 on literature in the 1982/83
financial year, ‘well ahead of the other States, especially when population differences
are taken into account’.414
Nonetheless, at a time when ‘the major theatre companies, the opera company,
ballet company, orchestra, and Fremantle Arts Centre received considerable funding
increases’, Fremantle Arts Centre Press was quickly ‘fall[ing] far behind the funding
ratio which existed between them prior to 1983’.415 The funding increases mentioned
above were part of
a dramatic change in the pattern of Federal and State arts funding over aperiod of seven years. In 1975/76, the States contributed only 29% ($8million) of arts grants, while the Australia Council’s contribution was71% ($19.6 million). In 1982/83 the percentage figures were 51 for theStates and 49 for the Federal body.416
413Michael E. Costigan, Director, Western Australian Arts Council,‘Government Support for Literature:
Policy and Practice in the Australian States’, Address at the first national Writing in the CommunityConference, Melbourne, 22–23 Sept. 1984, State Records Office of Western Australia.414Ibid.415John Hooper, Chairman, Fremantle Arts Centre Press Board of Management, letter to Harry Bluck,
Chairman, Western Australian Arts Council, 31 July 1985, State Records Office of Western Australia.416Costigan.
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This period saw ‘dramatic growth (almost a quadrupling in dollar terms) of support for
the arts at State level’, and yet ‘literature was not a significant beneficiary’.417
Fremantle Arts Centre Press published its first books on Aboriginal issues in
1983. Two of these titles were written by white observers of Aboriginal society: The
Last of the Nomads by W.J. Peasley and Desert School by Neville Green. The Last of
the Nomads tells the story of the author’s search, along with an Aboriginal elder,
Mudjon, for the last two members of the Mandildjara tribe to live in the traditional way
in the Gibson Desert of Western Australia. Mudjon asked Peasley in 1977 to assist him
in the search for the two individuals, who had decades earlier been exiled from
Mudjon’s tribe for flaunting tribal law and marrying outside their skin group, as Mudjon
feared for their wellbeing after the worst drought in memory. The book ‘went into a
second printing after only two months’ (and was again reprinted in 1990, 1997 and
2002), and it was subsequently used as the basis of a documentary that won the New
York Film Festival Gold Medal.418 Desert School is about the author’s experiences
teaching at an Aboriginal school in the central desert area of Western Australia.
The third and final book concerned with Aboriginal issues that Fremantle Arts
Centre Press published in 1983, was Gularabulu: Stories from the West Kimberley by
Aboriginal author Paddy Roe. This book was ‘edited’ by the white academic Stephen
Muecke, the dynamic of which process Muecke explains in his introduction to the book:
This book attempts to transcribe the stories, from tape recordings, asclosely as possible. Other aspects of the book’s organization obviouslybelong to Western culture: the way the storytelling event is represented inwriting, the organization of the book as object (editing which unifiesstories and gives them titles, notes, introductions), the modes ofpublishing and distribution which create a certain (largely non-Aboriginal) readership, and so on.419
417Ibid.418Ian Templeman, Chief Executive, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, letter to Bruce Lawson, MinisterialAdvisor, Office of the Minister for the Arts, 11 Jan. 1984, State Records Office of Western Australia.419Stephen Muecke, ed., Gularabulu: Stories from the West Kimberley, by Paddy Roe (Fremantle:Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1983), iii.
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Muecke elaborates on the role of the editor in assembling the book, as well as the
significance of this approach, later in the introduction:
The stories as they are presented here are word for word transcriptionsfrom tape recordings. Hesitations and the occasional intervention from alistener are included. I have edited the texts to the extent of normalizingspellings (the few variations that do exist represent variations in PaddyRoe’s pronunciation) and creating unitary texts by closing thetranscription at what I consider to be the appropriate point. I believe thatthis is the first time that Aboriginal texts intended as narrative art havebeen presented in this way. Most editions of Aboriginal stories(originally told orally) have been written by Europeans. The translationfrom speech to writing, especially writing considered suitable for publicconsumption, involved editing which is massive in its proportions andimplications. Presenting the stories as a narrative art is a way ofjustifying a writing which tries to imitate the spoken word.420
Clearly, the publication of Gularabulu represents a milestone in Indigenous publishing
in Australia, as well as being a significant event in the history of Fremantle Arts Centre
Press. Gularabulu was shortlisted for the National Book Council Book of the Year
Award, but perhaps even more significantly, it marks the beginning of the Press’s
substantial and continuing efforts to build a list of Aboriginal writers. Furthermore,
1983 represents the earliest stage of development in Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s
reputation as one of Australia’s foremost publishers on Indigenous issues, even though
this was not part of the original charter.
In this same year, two more significant publishing events occurred at the Press.
The first of these events was the publication of the phenomenally successful first book
in the T. A. G. Hungerford trilogy, Stories from Suburban Road. With this book,
Fremantle Arts Centre Press tried ‘to match up the title with the locale’ in which the
action of the book is set, and so succeeded in getting ‘a lot of sales ... from
newsagencies in South Perth who normally would not have taken FACP books’.421 The
second significant publishing event was the release of a book, A Place of Consequence:
420Ibid., v.421Fremantle Arts Centre Press, minutes for a meeting, 30 Mar. 1984, State Records Office of WesternAustralia.
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A Pictorial History of Fremantle by R. Reece and R. Pascoe, for which the Press was
successful in recruiting sponsors (including Fremantle Credit Union, John Cattalini of
the Fremantle Drive-In Pharmacy, the Town of East Fremantle, and a half-dozen others)
to contribute funds towards publication costs. The Press continues this sort of
arrangement today:
Occasionally, with a big art book or something like that, we’ll go to acorporation or institution because they have an established interest in thesubject. Sometimes we can attract outright sponsorship. Or sometimesthey’ll pre-buy presentation copies for clients. ... But opportunities arelimited.422
Nonetheless, the most remarkable development of 1983 remains the introduction
of Indigenous issues to Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s publishing programme; the impact
of this development would continue to be felt for many years to come. The year 1984
was not, however, marked by this legacy. Instead, the year is better known for the
publication of Elizabeth Jolley’s novel Milk and Honey, which won the New South
Wales Premier’s Prize for Fiction, as well as the reissue, in a single volume titled
Stories, of Jolley’s first two books of short stories (Five Acre Virgin and Other Stories
and The Travelling Entertainer and Other Stories). In spite of these two popular
publications, the year was a bust for Fremantle Arts Centre Press, as sales figures were
$47,201 or 31% short of their estimates.423 If it were not for the windfall the Press
received from the sale of the television rights to A Fortunate Life, 1984 could have
marked the end of Fremantle Arts Centre Press. With the proceeds from the sale of the
television rights, however, the Press’s self-generated income comprised 64% of its total
expenditure, much the same as the previous couple years.424
422Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 42.423Francis A. Jones & Associates, Certified Practicing Accountants, Financial statements for FremantleArts Centre Press, 1982–1987, State Records Office of Western Australia.424Frank Wee, Finance Officer, Western Australian Arts Council, ‘Fremantle Arts Centre Press: 1985General Grant Application’, 15 Aug. 1984, State Records Office of Western Australia, 3.
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In 1985, the Press renewed its commitments to both books by Aboriginal writers
and on Indigenous issues, and its own financial security. Templeman reflects on the
initiative necessary to make the latter a reality:
A difficult 1984 had determined that a very tight timetable for publicationwould need to be adhered to and an increase in sales achieved if the Presswas going to have a long-term viability. Extra care in productionsupervision and financial monitoring resulted in a record sales year for1985.425
As a further cost-saving measure, the Press scrapped its Shoreline Poetry series, which
had proven incapable of breaking even, much less turning a profit. Phantoms by
Patricia Avery, published in 1984, was the eighth and last title in the series.
This ‘record sales year’ was helped in no small part by the publication of
Reading the Country, a groundbreaking work by the pair that produced Gularabulu only
two years earlier, Stephen Muecke and Paddy Roe, along with Morocco-born painter
Krim Benterrak. Muecke explains what the book is about:
What we are mainly interested in doing is bringing together words andimages—Paddy’s voice, my texts, Krim’s paintings, my photographs. Allthese things represent in different ways, from different positions, the oneconstant—Roebuck Plains—this is the country we will be ‘reading’.426
Muecke also explains the structure of the book:
The book became an attempt to repeat the experience of the Plains in itsown structure. This structure seeks to maintain the separate identities ofthe three authors; their three strands are woven together in a loose kind ofway but each remains forever partially ignorant of the purposes andeffects of the other’s work. We are all ‘foreigners’. Krim and I areforeign to the Plains, Paddy is foreign to the book as a European artifact,Paddy and I are foreign to painting, Krim and Paddy are foreign to thesort of writing and philosophy I have adopted to construct a unity orgeneral direction of the book.427
From Muecke’s explanations, it is clear that Reading the Country is much more than a
collection of traditional Aboriginal stories or a tourist brochure for a remote and
425Templeman, ‘Two Book Wonder’, 82.426Krim Benterrak, Stephen Muecke, and Paddy Roe, Reading the Country (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts
Centre Press, 1984), 24.427Ibid., 19.
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beautiful region, though it contains elements of both. In fact, Reading the Country
defies any attempt at categorisation; it is in many ways a ‘scholarly’ book, but the full-
colour reproductions of Benterrak’s paintings give it the functionality of a ‘coffee table’
book, while the transcriptions of Roe’s stories are both fascinating reading as well as
being valuable pieces of anthropological evidence.
Another ‘difficult’ book further contributed to Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s
financial success in 1985: the publication of Marion Campbell’s first novel, Lines of
Flight. The reasons for the Press’s success with this type of book are explained in
greater detail later in this section of the thesis, but for now it is worth noting that much
of Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s early success was attributable to its decision to publish
books that other publishers would not consider. Also, it was publishing a type of book
that, when done well, had the potential to attract a lot of attention in the form of book
reviews, literary prizes, academic journal articles and conference papers, and being
chosen as a set text for secondary- and tertiary-level courses.
By the time the Press celebrated its tenth anniversary in 1986, it had published
nearly 100 titles. A review of this output reveals many well-established trends in its
publishing programme, as well as a few trends that were only just beginning to emerge
in 1986. Among the more well-established trends was the publication of short stories
and poetry (the latter would continue in spite of the closure of the Shoreline Poetry
series), especially in the Press’s West Coast Writing series. More generally, by 1986
Fremantle Arts Centre Press had established a reputation for publishing ‘literary’
writing, including the aforementioned forms, but also a growing number of ‘literary’
novels. Other long-standing trends at the Press included the publication of photography
books featuring Western Australian locations, and books about local history, including
both social and individual histories. The publication of natural history and art books
constituted a small but consistent part of Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s early publishing
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programme, while the publication of scholarly books and writing on Indigenous issues
(by both white and Aboriginal writers) represented a more recent segment of the Press’s
programme that would continue to grow in the coming years.
In order to celebrate a decade in the publishing business, Fremantle Arts Centre
Press planned ‘a week-long programme of activities’, including ‘the launching of a
specifically commissioned anthology of prose and poetry from Western Australia
[Portrait: A West Coast Collection, edited by members of the Press staff, B.R. Coffey
and Wendy Jenkins], a weekend literary seminar, a writers’ dinner, and the opening of
an exhibition covering the history, writers and artists of the Fremantle Arts Centre
Press’. The Australia Council and the Western Australian Arts Council both contributed
$8,000 towards the costs of creating the exhibition and an accompanying exhibition
catalogue.
The funds received from the Western Australian Arts Council for the purposes of
the Press’s tenth anniversary exhibition, supplemented an increase in the Press’s funding
for 1986. The Press had made its case to the Arts Council for just such an increase the
previous year:
We would suggest that an annual operating grant of $130,000 is modestindeed for the return it provides. The product assists the individual artistand author, is more readily exportable than the products of theatre, danceor opera companies, and gives a public face to Western Australian artswhich cannot be matched by any other state organisation. Its operationsand product are quite different from any other company the Arts Councilmay fund and, therefore, we believe Fremantle Arts Centre Press requiresa different approach to funding and a very special need for developmentfunds.428
The root of Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s complaint was really that, ‘as there was no
capital base on which to operate, income from sales of its titles early in the year had to
finance publications later the same year’; there is no analogous predicament for other
arts organisations.429 In 1986, the Western Australian Arts Council (renamed later that
428Hooper, 3.429Templeman, ‘Two Book Wonder’, 79.
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same year the Western Australian Department for the Arts) heard the Press’s concerns
and issued it with its first triennial funding agreement with an annual grant of $127,000
that was to be indexed annually in 1987 and 1988. The Arts Council believed that this
new funding arrangement would ‘allow the company to consolidate its programming
and management and pre-plan more effectively’.430
The Press’s strong financial result in 1985, ‘together with an increase of funds
for 1986 from the Western Australian Arts Council, enabled the employment of another
editor to ease the extraordinary workload of the present staff’.431 This brought staff
levels at the Press to ‘five full-time people: managing editor, assistant editor, designer,
secretary and salesperson’.432 The Press continued to share with the Arts Centre ‘the
services of people in the areas of finance and promotion, and Fremantle Arts Centre
staff also provide other support services from time to time’.433 In an article
commemorating the Press’s tenth anniversary, Templeman commented on staffing levels
at the Press:
There has been a deliberate policy to keep the Press a reasonably smallorganisation to enable maximum attention to be given to each title andauthor and to allow wide and extensive consultation between the staff asproduction proceeds. In 1986 the publication lists of new titles will totaleleven, with four reprints. A more ambitious list would have meantincreasing the staff and risking a breakdown in the homogenous mannerin which the Press and Arts Centre staff work together.434
While the small size of the Press may have prevented some problems, as Templeman
observes, it undoubtedly contributed to others. Templeman noted in the same article
that ‘the balance between sales interstate against those of local sales, has been reversed,
and now eighty percent of all sales are outside Western Australia. The opposite was true
430Harry Bluck, Chairman, Western Australian Arts Council, letter to John Hooper, Chairman, Fremantle
Arts Centre Press Board of Management, undated (ca. 1986), State Records Office of Western Australia,2.431Templeman, ‘Two Book Wonder’, 82.432Ibid.433Ibid.434Ibid., 79.
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in the 1970s.’435 Clearly, shifts of this nature would make it increasingly difficult for
Fremantle Arts Centre Press to function as a small publishing house in the years ahead.
Even after ten years in the business, Fremantle Arts Centre Press was still
sourcing 80% of its titles from unsolicited manuscripts; ‘each year the Press receive[d]
over two hundred unsolicited manuscripts’.436 One such manuscript came from the
young writer Joan London and was eventually published under the title Sister Ships and
Other Stories. This 1986 publication went on to win the overall prize in The Age Book
of the Year Awards, as well as the Western Australia Week Literary Award for Prose
Fiction.
At the awards ceremony for the former prize, ‘Brian Johns, publisher at Penguin
made an immediate offer for the title (gracefully declined) followed by an offer to enter
into a co-publishing agreement (also gracefully declined) and finally an offer to
negotiate a national distribution agreement’.437 Fremantle Arts Centre Press accepted
this final offer, since in their distribution arrangement with Hale & Iremonger they
‘struggled to match the results of NSW and WA in other states’.438 Thus, Penguin
represented the Fremantle Arts Centre Press list to the trade outside Western Australia
(where the Press would represent itself with a sales force of one full-time and one part-
time representative) from July 1987.439 Penguin would later sign other publishers to a
similar deal, but their agreement with Fremantle Arts Centre Press was the first time
Penguin agreed to distribute books for a publisher ‘outside their own stable of
imprints’.440
The first two titles to be distributed under the new agreement were Philip
Salom’s Sky Poems and Sally Morgan’s My Place. It was an auspicious start to the
435Ibid., 80.436Ibid., 79–80.437Newman, ‘Twenty Years On’, 54.438Ibid.439Winn.440Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 34.
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association between the two publishing houses: Sky Poems won Salom his second
Commonwealth Poetry Prize, but whereas in 1981 he had won Best First Collection of
Poetry for The Silent Piano, this time he won Best Collection of Poetry. Furthermore,
My Place sold 35,000 copies before Christmas of that year, far exceeding the (already
much larger than usual) estimate that had spurred the Press to an initial printing of
20,000 copies.441 The title was reprinted three times in 1987 in its ‘pocket paperback’
form, before a mass-market paperback edition was issued in February 1988; the latter
edition has been reprinted more than 36 times. Fremantle Arts Centre Press released a
special edition of My Place in 1999 to celebrate the sale of one-half million copies. My
Place has sold more than 600,000 copies to date.442
When discussing book sales in Australia, it is important to bear in mind that
Australia’s population is only a little over 20 million, whereas the United States, for
example, has a population in excess of 300 million. Therefore, ‘in Australia, sales of
roughly 2,500+ in trade paperback are respectable and 5,000+ are good. In ... mass-
market paperback ... the approximate figures are 4,000+ and 10,000+. Less than 200
books (in all formats, non-fiction as well as fiction) would sell more than 20,000 copies
in a year. ... In the US ... for mass-market paperback, the approximate figures would be
15,000+ and 40,000+.’443 According to these figures, selling 600,000 copies in Australia
is comparable to selling 2.4 million copies of a book in the United States. In fact, in
terms of market penetration, the figure of 2.4 million does not even come close to
representing the ubiquity of this Fremantle Arts Centre Press title in Australia. Of
course, not all of those 600,000 copies were sold in Australia, but the vast majority
were, since even though My Place enjoyed international success, most international
sales were the result of the Press selling rights to overseas publishers and so are not
441Newman, ‘Twenty Years On’, 54.442Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 35.443Ian Irvine, ‘The Truth About Publishing’, rev. and exp. ed., in Ian Irvine (Jan. 2005, accessed 30 Oct.2006); available from http://www.ian-irvine.com.
215
included in this total. Thus, 600,000 copies sold to a population of 20 million means
that approximately one in every 33 people owns a copy of My Place. To have the same
level of saturation of the American market, a publisher would have to sell nine million
copies of a given title.
Sales of My Place are even more extraordinary in light of the average print runs
for Fremantle Arts Centre Press publications:
First-up literary fiction would be about 1,500. For a writer who’s startedto get an audience you’d do 3,000 and for someone you thought would doreally well, 5,000. With a general non-fiction book, especially if it haspictorial stuff in it, you’re looking at a minimum of 3,000. Anythingunder 1,500, unless it’s poetry, is not really viable.444
For other categories of books, ‘FACP would see a 500 print run for poetry as small and
1000 as large, with general non-fiction and adolescent fiction small at 3,000 and large at
5,000 copies. Children’s picture books however would be small at 5,000 and large at
10,000 copies.’445 Clearly, My Place is an exceptional title.
In addition to being a huge sales success, My Place, in which Morgan writes of
her quest to discover her hidden Aboriginal heritage, has become a milestone in
Indigenous writing in Australia. My Place ‘made publishers realise that there was a
mainstream domestic and overseas market for Indigenous writing’.446 Coffey comments
on its significance as an early work in a couple different fields:
People forget that, at that time, in terms of fiction, women’s experiencewas starting to be noticed, a market for it was developing, and to a lesserextent, it was the same with non-fiction. And there had been some workby Aboriginal writers, but not a great deal.
In fact, so great is the influence of My Place as an early example in the fields of
women’s writing, life writing and Aboriginal writing, that it has been criticised for
‘colonis[ing] the literary landscape’—in other words, for monopolising the conversation
444Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 39.445Anita M. Heiss, Dhuuluu-Yala (To Talk Straight): Publishing Indigenous Literature (Canberra:Aboriginal Studies Press, 2003), 92.446Craig Munro, ‘In Black and White: Indigenous Australian Writers and their Publishers’, Logos 12, no. 2(2001): 105.
216
on these topics.447 Many Aboriginal writers object to ‘her construction (by the book-
reading public as much as by the media) as the archetypal Indigenous writer’.448 There
are also those, such as Anita M. Heiss in her study Dhuuluu-Yala (To Talk Straight):
Publishing Indigenous Literature, who speculate on the reasons ‘it was Morgan’s story
—and not some other, more hard-hitting Aboriginal life story—which achieved this
bestselling status: “My Place ... was not confrontational to the white-mainstream way of
perceiving Aboriginal Australia, [highlighting instead] one family’s denial of their
Aboriginal heritage”.’449
Some comparisons between My Place and A Fortunate Life are obvious: Brian
de Garis in the history of University of Western Australia Press remarked that
‘Fremantle Arts Centre Press were responsible for the two books bearing on Western
Australian history which have made the biggest national impact, Bert Facey’s A
Fortunate Life and Sally Morgan’s My Place’.450 However, there are other similarities
that are less obvious, such as that the two books were promoted in a similar fashion, by
getting ‘key people’ to endorse them.451 Furthermore,
as a number of commentators have observed, the narrative of My Place
has a generic relationship with certain other Australian texts such as A. B.Facey’s A Fortunate Life ... which ... was produced by the same editor,B.R. Coffey, and publisher, the Fremantle Arts Centre Press.452
Clearly, the author of this excerpt is alluding to the power of both the editor and
publishing house to influence the life and texture of a book, a concept discussed in
Chapter 3 of this thesis. As was quoted in that context,
447Gillian Whitlock, ‘Recent Australian Autobiography: A Review Essay’, Australian Literary Studies 15,no. 4 (Oct. 1992): 261.448Adam Shoemaker, ‘Tracking Black Australian Stories: Contemporary Indigenous Literature’, in The
Oxford Literary History of Australia, ed. Bruce Bennett and Jennifer Strauss (Melbourne: OxfordUniversity Press, 1998), 342.449Craig Munro, ‘Case-study: Indigenous Writers’, in Paper Empires: A History of the Book in Australia,1946–2005, ed. Craig Munro and Robyn Sheahan-Bright (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press,
2006), 152, quoting Anita M. Heiss, Dhuuluu-Yala (To Talk Straight): Publishing Indigenous Literature(Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2003), 102.450Brian de Garis, ‘History’, in A Press in Isolation: University of Western Australia Press 1935–2004, byCriena Fitzgerald (Crawley: University of Western Australia Press, 2005), 127.451Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 34.452Shoemaker, 342.
217
Literary activity is often perceived in terms of the lonely individualstruggling for self-expression. However, a more comprehensive andrealistic view includes writers, editors, publishers and readers in acontinual process of interaction—each adjusting to the demands of his orher chosen role in relation to the needs and requirements of others.453
Staff at Fremantle Arts Centre Press spent a considerable amount of time advising and
assisting Morgan with revisions of the manuscript that would eventually become My
Place, just as they had done with Facey and the manuscript for A Fortunate Life.
Even as the Press had another bestseller on its hands, it managed to keep up with
its regular publishing programme, releasing ten new titles in 1987. Among these was
Deep-Sea Diver, a collection of poetry by Shane McCauley, which was the 25th and final
title in the West Coast Writing series. The Press also published Collage, with prose
sections written by Nicholas Hasluck and photographs by Tania Young, to
commemorate The University of Western Australia’s 75th anniversary. The book was
produced with the financial assistance of the University, thereby signalling an even
more pronounced incursion by Fremantle Arts Centre Press into territory formerly the
exclusive domain of the ailing University of Western Australia Press. Other notable
titles fitting this description include the 1986 publication of A City and Its Setting by
renowned historian and environmentalist George Seddon (with David Ravine) and The
Factory Floor (1988) by Carolyn Polizzotto.
The year 1987 also marked the holding of the America’s Cup in Fremantle, after
Australia II defeated the American yacht in the 1983 race, thereby becoming the first
successful challenger in the competition’s 132-year history. The lead-up to the 1987
competition saw many changes in Fremantle, as the city prepared itself to be in the
world’s eye for the first time, but the event had only a minimal impact on Fremantle
Arts Centre Press. The Fremantle City Council asked the Press to ‘reproduce in
improved form printed material of proven usefulness’ pertaining to the city.454 The four
453Bruce Bennett, Cross Currents, ix.454D. A. Berry, Deputy Executive Director, America’s Cup Office, Government of Western Australia,
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titles proposed by the City Council for reprinting—including three originally published
by Fremantle Arts Centre Press, ‘whose limited financial resources prevent reprinting’,
and one by University of Western Australia Press, which ‘should be revised and
published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press’—were meant to be ‘popular with visitors and
local people’.455 The Fremantle City Council subsidised initial print runs of 3,000 for
each title being reprinted.456
A final noteworthy event in a busy year for Fremantle Arts Centre Press, was the
introduction in 1987 of the Fremantle Arts Centre Press logo featuring a black-and-
white line drawing of a three-story building (the Fremantle Arts Centre). Prior to this,
there had been no logo on the Press’s publications, just ‘Fremantle Arts Centre Press’
written in a single line in a rather plain font on the back of each book.
Following the Press’s poor financial performance in 1986—in which its total
income was more than $80,000 short of its expenditures, in spite of receiving an
approximately $60,000 boost in its funding from the state government under its new
triennial agreement—the strong performance of 1987 came as a relief.457 Back in 1986,
a relatively strong performance in 1985 was all that helped them weather the storm. In
1987, however, Fremantle Arts Centre Press attributed much of its new success to its
national distribution arrangement with Penguin (though of course the publication of My
Place helped in no small measure), and consequently revised upwards the estimated
sales figures for 1988.458 The fluctuating financial fortunes of Fremantle Arts Centre
Press—attributable to a combination of factors including shifts in state and federal
funding initiatives, the state of the economy, and in-house decisions about its publishing
programme—are a theme throughout the Press’s history, from its very earliest days as a
‘Federal Government Funding—City of Fremantle’, 5 Feb. 1985, State Records Office of Western
Australia.455Ibid.456Ibid.457Francis A. Jones & Associates.458Fremantle Arts Centre Press, ‘Discussions: Fremantle Arts Centre Press/Department for the Arts’, 19Oct. 1988, State Records Office of Western Australia, 1.
219
publisher of four titles per year, to its present programme, more than 30 years later, of
35 titles per year.
Fortunately, Fremantle Arts Centre Press was entering a run of a few good years
beginning in 1987. The occasion of the Australian bicentenary in 1988 did not hurt the
Press’s cause, and in fact probably contributed to its financial success in this period:
‘The Press successfully negotiated with both the National Office and the State Council
of the Australian Bicentennial Authority to obtain funding assistance towards a number
of projects specifically for this year.’459 These projects included the publication of
Margins: A West Coast Selection 1829–1988 edited by William Grono, The Sugar
Mother by Elizabeth Jolley, Maitland Brown: A View of Nineteenth Century Western
Australia by Peter Cowan, The Artist’s Rottnest by Ted Snell, and The Fields: The
Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie Goldfields, 1892–1912 by Ian Templeman and Bernadette
McDonald. The Press was also ‘successful in attracting a $5,000 award from B.P.
[British Petroleoum Australia, a mining company] towards specific research for The
Fields’.460 Overall, 1988 was a very lucrative year for Fremantle Arts Centre Press, as it
was for many Australian arts organisations.
The bicentenary year also marked the Press’s first foray into publishing for a
school-aged audience. A number of the Press’s publications had previously been used
as set texts for secondary and tertiary students—most notably A Fortunate Life and My
Place—but never before had Fremantle Arts Centre Press designed a text with the
specific intention of appealing to this audience. In 1988, the Press released
Autobiography: The Writer’s Story, ‘a student journal based on three autobiographies
published under the Press imprint: My Place, Stories from Suburban Road and The
Divided Kingdom’.461 The publication was the result of the collective efforts of ‘three
459Ibid.460Ibid., 3.461Ibid., 2.
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highly experienced educationalists from W.A.’, Derryn Hammond, Marnie O’Neill and
Jo-anne Reid.462 It was ‘designed in an attractive magazine style layout specifically
aimed at secondary school students’ and incorporated interviews with the authors of the
three autobiographies in question, suggested activities and discussion questions, and a
general introduction to the autobiographical form.463 The success of this publication laid
some of the necessary groundwork for Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s later venture, in
1991, into the world of children’s book publishing. The early 1990s also ‘saw
Aboriginal texts enter the education market’.464 For example, ‘in a striking red, black
and yellow pamphlet, Fremantle Arts Centre Press promoted “eight titles that should be
in your library”’, including My Place and Steve Hawke’s Noonkanbah (1989), which
was ‘perhaps the first “community text” in Australia, ... written collaboratively by a
non-Indigenous author and an Indigenous community’.465
In 1989, Ian Templeman resigned as Director of Fremantle Arts Centre and
Chief Executive of Fremantle Arts Centre Press. As the inaugural Director of the
former organisation and founder of the latter, Templeman had been instrumental in the
development of both organisations. Two long-standing Fremantle Arts Centre Press
employees were promoted to fill the absence created by his departure: Clive Newman,
who had some years previously formally relinquished his ties to Fremantle Arts Centre
in favour of a position as Business Manager at Fremantle Arts Centre Press, was now
appointed General Manager of the Press; and Brian Raymond Coffey, formerly Editorial
and Production Director, was appointed to the newly created position of Publisher.
The reasons behind Templeman’s resignation from Fremantle Arts Centre Press
are not a matter of the public record. The individuals most implicated in the events—
462Ibid.463Ibid.464Louise Poland, ‘An Enduring Record: Aboriginal Publishing in Australia 1988–1998’, Australian
Studies 16, no. 2 (Winter 2001): 91.465Ibid., 91, 97.
221
Templeman, Newman and Coffey—are hesitant to discuss the matter. However, in an
interview for the Fremantle City Library Oral History Project, perhaps it was the
expectation that this particular conversation would not travel far, that prompted Coffey
to discuss Templeman’s departure in unusually candid terms:
Fremantle Arts Centre up to that point [1987, the year the America’s Cupwas held in Fremantle] had operated, although it was part of the city, hadalways had a great degree of independence from the city. And as Iunderstand it, in with those political changes, they were as a result ofsuccessful moves at a city level to bring the Arts Centre more under thedirect control of the city. This is my understanding. As a result of that,one of the things that influenced Ian Templeman, who was then Directorof the Arts Centre and our Chief Executive, to resign and subsequentlymove to Canberra, were those very changes.466
Coffey’s statement, while there is perhaps some truth behind it, is unconvincing as an
explanation of the reasons informing Templeman’s decision to resign from his role at
Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Certainly there is very little evidence to suggest that the
City of Fremantle was successful in asserting its control over Fremantle Arts Centre,
much less Fremantle Arts Centre Press, if it even attempted this. Furthermore,
Templeman’s resignation has been framed elsewhere—both in published interviews and
articles, as well as in my conversations with the individuals involved—as a reaction to
events at Fremantle Arts Centre Press rather than the Arts Centre.
Perhaps the closest thing to a published explanation of Templeman’s reasons for
leaving Fremantle Arts Centre Press appears almost incidentally in a 2005 newspaper
article celebrating Coffey’s and Newman’s receipt of the Order of Australia for services
to literature:
Templeman, who left FACP in 1989, believes the key to survival for thepress and other independents is to look to international readership andless parochial stories. ‘In the period when FACP grew up—at the sametime as McPhee Gribble—they were at the forefront of stimulating thebigger publishers [to promote Australian writers]’, he says. ‘But I thinkthe great days of Australian nationalism are over, the story of growing upin Kalgoorlie or as a teenage wonder in Carlton. I’m not saying those
466Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by McPherson.
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books shouldn’t happen but that Australian writers are looking globallyrather than just [to their] neighbourhood.’
Newman says 50 of its 400 titles are licensed to publishersoverseas. But he says FACP will stick to its regional mandate that, attimes, requires it to publish books with limited appeal. ‘I believe ourfuture is a mix of WA-oriented and national and international books’, hesays.467
Clearly, Templeman and Newman have different ideas about the direction Fremantle
Arts Centre Press (and other independent publishers, at least according to Templeman)
should take in the future. It is perhaps presumptuous to conclude that 16 years earlier
they might have disagreed on similar grounds, but then Templeman said much the same
thing to me in an interview in August 2005. Templeman claimed he left Fremantle Arts
Centre Press because Coffey and Newman wanted to take over operations after it had
been decided the Press would split from the Arts Centre (the Press moved out of the
Arts Centre into its own premises in 1990), leaving Templeman to manage the latter
organisation. Furthermore, Templeman said he had a different vision for the future of
the Press, which included new features such as a list of children’s books and an imprint
within Fremantle Arts Centre Press under which it could publish books by Australian
writers from outside Western Australia. In contrast, Templeman claimed Coffey and
Newman wanted only to keep the status quo at the Press. Templeman labelled himself a
‘risk-taker’, while he said neither Coffey nor Newman fit this description.468
When asked for his reaction to these statements, Newman responded in an e-
mail: ‘Ray and I have chosen since Ian’s departure from the Press to “keep our counsel”
because we saw no benefit in making a difficult issue public. As importantly, we were
specifically directed by our then Chairperson not to speak publicly about the matter.’469
Newman did, however, wish to make it known that he disagrees with the statement that
467Victoria Laurie, ‘Masters of the House’, Australian, 3 Sept. 2005.468Ian Templeman, interview by author, 22 Aug. 2005.469Clive Newman, e-mail to author, 11 June 2008.
223
Templeman ‘left Fremantle Arts Centre Press because Coffey and Newman wanted to
take over operations’.470
Whatever his reasons for resigning, Templeman left Fremantle Arts Centre Press
on a high note. In 1989, he was awarded the Order of Australia for services to art and
literature. In the same year, Fremantle Arts Centre Press exceeded one million dollars
in sales for the first time, achieved 75% of those sales outside Western Australia, and
reduced government funding to a new low of 12% as a proportion of total income.471
Much of this success was attributable to the release of a hardcover edition of My Place,
as well as Morgan’s new book, Wanamurraganya. The latter title had a first print run of
20,000 copies, nearly all of which were subscribed by bookstores prior to its release,
thus spurring a reprint.472 Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s gross profit from trading was
more than $200,000 over its budgeted amount; after increased production expenses had
been accounted for, the Press still turned a profit of $54,190 in 1989.473
While it did not have a particularly profound impact on Fremantle Arts Centre
Press’s bottom line in 1989, the release of John Kinsella’s first volume of poetry, Night
Parrots, would nonetheless prove significant, as it launched the career of a poet and
critic who would eventually achieve much international acclaim.
In July 1990, the separation occurred that Coffey credited as contributing to
Templeman’s decision to resign from his post at Fremantle Arts Centre Press—the Press
established its own premises outside the Arts Centre, ‘in an eight-room house in South
Terrace’, South Fremantle.474 At the same time, Fremantle Arts Centre Press increased
its output from publishing 15 new titles in 1989 to 20 new titles in 1990. The larger
number was composed primarily of titles fitting the publication trends described above
470Ibid.471David Britton, ‘The Press from the West’, Editions, Sept. 1989, 10.472Clive Newman, fax to Nick Mayman, Department for the Arts, 5 Sept. 1989, State Records Office ofWestern Australia.473Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Trading statement for the year ended 31 Dec. 1989, State Records Office
of Western Australia.474‘Arts Centre Press moves’, Fremantle Herald, 28 June 1990.
224
—for example, both short and novel-length literary fiction, poetry, autobiography, local
history, photography, and so forth. However, there was one notable addition to the
Press’s 1990 publishing programme: the 1991 Sally Morgan Calendar.
Clearly, the Press was capitalising on the success of Morgan’s My Place, but this
was not a one-off undertaking. In every subsequent year, with the exception of 1991,
Fremantle Arts Centre Press released a publication meant to claim a market share
similar to that claimed by the Sally Morgan Calendar. For example, in 1992 the Press
published a Wildflower Diary, while the following year it was a Native Bird Diary.
Beginning in 1994, Fremantle Arts Centre Press released a string of Wildflower Diaries
that lasted five years. More recently, the Press has begun publishing cookbooks,
gardening books and other titles meant to ‘improve our earnings whilst at the same time,
not dropping the quality of the book, but finding that general audience’.475 In a 2003
lecture, Coffey described the role of these publications in the context of Fremantle Arts
Centre Press’s overall publishing programme: ‘We do publish a number of more
“commercially” orientated titles—usually three or four annually—to help subsidise the
publication of those titles which are more risky sales-wise.’476 Clearly, by 2003 the
Press published an increased number of such titles over its 1990 figure, and yet it
persists in viewing them as separate from its main publishing programme and its
mandate as a regional publisher.
Coffey and Newman, speaking on behalf of Fremantle Arts Centre Press in
numerous interviews, have also been curiously insistent that it was only with the
introduction of such publications as the Wildflower Diary and later the cookbooks and
gardening books that the Press engaged in such ‘commercial’ pursuits. They imply that
an idyllic environment for literary publishing existed at some point prior to the arrival
475Winn, quoting Newman.476Ray Coffey, ‘Some Thoughts on the Cultural and Political Power of Literature’, New Norcia Studies 12(2004): 55.
225
of these publications—one in which the forces of the marketplace and commercial
interests had no place. This environment is typically located ‘in the lead up to the
State’s Sesquicentenary, and Australia’s Centenary which followed soon after’, when
‘we were encouraged as individuals and as a community to begin to think more
seriously than we had before about the kinds of stories we wished to tell about
ourselves, and what it is that we should value in these stories’.477 In contrast to Coffey’s
and Newman’s representations of the period from 1976 until 1990, the history of
Fremantle Arts Centre Press as outlined in this thesis has demonstrated just how much
commercial interests have dictated Press decisions to this point. For example, the Press
decided to anthologise works that formerly appeared in stand-alone volumes as part of
the Community Publishing Project as a way of saving money, and the short-lived
Shoreline Poetry series was an attempt at reducing the costs associated with producing
poetry books. Rather than a sharp break from past traditions at the Press, the decision in
1990 to publish the Sally Morgan Calendar was an outgrowth of perhaps the most well-
established tradition of all: the desire to keep the publishing house afloat.
Even as in 1990 Fremantle Arts Centre Press seemed to be wavering in its
commitment to the publication of works that might not be considered by a more
commercial publishing house, the Press affirmed other aspects of its mandate. This was
the year the Press announced the inaugural winner of its T. A. G. Hungerford Award.
The Award, established in 1988 (but without a winner being selected from amongst the
first year’s entrants in 1989), recognises an unpublished work of fiction by a Western
Australian writer. The writer must not have previously been published in book form;
thus, a fitting reward is a publishing contract with Fremantle Arts Centre Press along
with a cash prize. The winning manuscript, Crush by Brenda Walker, was published in
1991 and subsequently shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards.
477Ibid.
226
The next two winners of the T. A. G. Hungerford Award were Gail Jones for The
House of Breathing in 1991 (published in 1992) and Simone Lazaroo for The World
Waiting to Be Made in 1993 (published in 1994). All three of the writers mentioned—
Walker, Jones and Lazaroo—have gone on to considerable reputations as writers both in
Australia and overseas. The prizes awarded to this trio are too many to name, as are the
countries into which publication and translation rights for their books have been sold.
In addition to the aforementioned similarities, Walker, Jones and Lazaroo also share the
experience of having produced their most acclaimed, highest selling titles since leaving
the ranks of Fremantle Arts Centre Press and signing contracts with multinational
publishers based on Australia’s east coast.
This is not necessarily an indictment of those responsible for marketing and
sales at Fremantle Arts Centre Press, nor does it necessarily reflect a failure on the part
of Penguin’s distribution efforts on behalf of the Press. It is nigh impossible to attain
accurate sales figures for any given title, but Coffey insists that
based on trade figures for the kinds of literary, historical, art,autobiographical works we publish, there really is, on average, nodifference between the actual sales we achieve and those the largerpublishers archive on these titles. It is towards the blockbuster and mass-market end of the trade that huge differences can occur.478
What Coffey says makes sense, and yet one suspects there is a slightly larger
discrepancy than he is willing to admit. Nonetheless, it is doubtful that such a
discrepancy could solely account for the radically different receptions of, for example,
Brenda Walker’s One More River (her second book, which was published by Fremantle
Arts Centre Press in 1993) and the 2005 publication of The Wing of Night by
multinational Viking. A likely explanation for the more enthusiastic reception of The
Wing of Night is that Walker had established a reputation for herself as a writer over
several books, and Fremantle Arts Centre Press was instrumental in constructing that
478Ibid., 54.
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reputation. It would have been impossible for any publisher, multinational publishers
notwithstanding, to achieve the same sales results from One More River in 1993 as
Viking achieved from The Wing of Night in 2005; Walker simply did not have the name
recognition in 1993. Also, in this particular example, at least, there is the issue of
Walker writing an arguably more ‘popular’ book in 2005, a novel about the Gallipoli
experience and the lives of the women left behind when their men went to war.
In 1983, the Chairman of the Fremantle Arts Centre Press Board of
Management, Derrick Tomlinson, wrote a letter to the Chairman of the Western
Australian Arts Council, Haydn Williams, reflecting on the decisions of some of the
Press’s earliest authors to sign contracts with other publishing houses: ‘The Press is
delighted when authors it has introduced to the Australian public are taken up by other
publishers with international contacts, greater financial resources, more sophisticated
marketing operations and a wide distribution network.’479 Clearly, Coffey was of a
different mind in his 2003 New Norcia Library Lecture, quoted above, as well as in a
2005 newspaper article: ‘Publishing new local writers is risky .... We nurture and
develop but cannot hold onto authors who attract large advances .... We understand
that.’480 The movement is from feelings of ‘delight’ in 1983 when an author decides to
sign with another publisher, to ‘acceptance’ in 2005. This change is understandable, as
in the interim the Press’s marketing, sales and distribution strategies and arrangements
improved considerably, and the Press became a much more professional operation.
One aspect of the Press’s operations that did not change in all this time, however,
was the typical book contract: ‘We do one-book deals. It’s never really been part of our
thinking to try to do anything other than that.’481 At a time when many, if not most,
publishers sign authors to multiple-book deals—or, at the very least, request first option
479Tomlinson.480Victoria Laurie, quoting Coffey.481Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 49.
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on the author’s next book—Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s commitment to ‘one-book
deals’ might seem naive. Considering the financial risks undertaken by the Press each
time it decides to publish a new writer, multiple-book contracts should not be a
particularly difficult measure to sell to prospective authors.
In 1991, Fremantle Arts Centre Press embarked on yet another initiative spurred
on by the hope of commercial success: the Press ‘began building a list of titles for
younger readers’.482 The first two titles to appear under the Press’s new children’s books
imprint, Sandcastle Books, were Little Piggies by Paul Morgan and Sally Morgan, and
A Sausage Went for a Walk by Ellisha Majid and Peter Kendall. Ashton Scholastic
ordered a substantial number of copies for their children’s book club prior to printing,
enabling the Press to keep costs down, and both titles sold extremely well.483 When the
‘interest in Australian literature within the secondary and tertiary education sectors’,
which had ‘underpinned’ Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s success in the 1980s, began to
evaporate later in the 1990s as high schools and universities moved from set to
recommended texts, the Press’s list of children’s books would enable it to continue
placing titles in schools.484 One of the most successful examples in this genre is Tim
Winton’s The Deep (1998), illustrated by Karen Louise.
The inclusion of children’s and young adult books in its regular publishing
programme from 1991 onwards would not, however, insulate Fremantle Arts Centre
Press from further financial troubles. In fact, the Press failed to return a profit in that
very first year, in spite of the commercial success of Little Piggies and A Sausage Went
for a Walk.485 Clearly, children’s books were no magic cure for the wide variety of
factors that impacted on the Press’s fortunes, including rising interest rates in 1991, but
482Brian Raymond Coffey, ‘Interview with Ray Coffey’, interview by Andrew Burke, Western Word 22,no. 7 (Aug. 1998): 4.483Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Press release, undated (ca. 28 June 1991), Fremantle City Library.484Blaber, 77.485Mick Paskos, ‘A Fortunate Story’, West Australian, 27 Apr. 1996.
229
they have on more than one occasion been responsible for slowing the bleeding, as
demonstrated by these first two titles.
Fremantle Arts Centre Press published seven children’s books in the following
year, nearly one-third of its 22-book output. Four of these titles were written by a single
author, May O’Brien; these titles re-worked traditional Aboriginal oral stories in a
picture book form, complete with a Pronunciation Guide for the Aboriginal words
sprinkled throughout the text. In 1993, the Press published 12 children’s books, five of
which were by the team of Anne Evans, Alwyn Davis and Joanna Capelle, with a further
five titles by Evans and Davis. From a total of 33 titles published by Fremantle Arts
Centre Press in 1993—a 50% increase on the previous year’s output, which was already
greater than any year previous to it—more than one-third were children’s books.
Also in 1993, Fremantle Arts Centre Press published the first novel, True
Country, by Aboriginal writer Kim Scott, who has since published two more books with
the Press. Benang: From the Heart, the second of these titles, was the joint winner of
the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2000, making Scott the first Indigenous writer
(and Benang the first Fremantle Arts Centre Press publication) to win this award. The
publication in 1993 of True Country marked the beginning of a distinguished literary
career, in the same way that the aforementioned publication of Simone Lazaroo’s The
World Waiting to Be Made in 1994 signalled the appearance of an important Australian
writer.
A confluence of events, many of which have been noted in the last few pages, begat a
distinctly new phase in Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s development beginning in the
early to mid-1990s. Among the most significant of these events were the following: the
1990 publication of the Sally Morgan Calendar, which gave rise in the following year to
a decision to publish diaries; the introduction of children’s literature to the publishing
230
programme in 1991, and then young adult fiction three years later; and, perhaps most
significantly, an exponential increase in the number of titles published each year (from
15 titles in 1989 to 33 in 1993) by Fremantle Arts Centre Press. These few events
inaugurated a change of direction for the Press that would define the latter half of its
history. Nearly all of the most important developments witnessed during this period at
Fremantle Arts Centre Press—for example, the introduction of lifestyle titles to the
publishing programme, or the inclusion of non-Western Australian writers in the Press’s
anthologies—are symptoms of this new direction.
Kim Scott’s True Country and Simone Lazaroo’s The World Waiting to Be Made
—published in 1993 and 1994 respectively—act as convenient markers, for the
purposes of this thesis, of the end of the first half of Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s
history. These two novels inaugurated highly acclaimed writing careers, while
coincidentally marking the beginning of a sharp decline in such careers at Fremantle
Arts Centre Press. Starting a few years after the introduction of children’s books and
Wildflower Diaries and their ilk, there are noticeably fewer writers whose early
publications with Fremantle Arts Centre Press herald the beginning of a writing career
in which they will establish reputations comparable to those enjoyed by some of the
writers to emerge from the Press in its first 15 or 20 years.
The shift at Fremantle Arts Centre Press away from publishing writers and titles
whose singular importance is clearly evident a decade or more on from the publication
date, means that a chronological, ‘best of’ 1993, 1994, et cetera, approach is no longer
appropriate. The Press up until this time was characterised by rapid change and
development, innovation and experimentation that lent itself to a chronological timeline
as the only manageable way to contain this activity. From the early to mid-1990s
onwards, however, the Press entered a new phase that is more readily characterised in
thematic terms, since there are very few larger developments across this span of time.
231
Instead, a single development defines this period: an increasing concern for the bottom
line.
Of course, it is natural for a publishing house to be concerned with the bottom
line; a publishing house is a business, after all, and attending to the bottom line is
essential for the survival of any business—even one responsible for the production and
dissemination of culture, and supported in these efforts by various governmental
agencies. Furthermore, financial concerns dictated many of Fremantle Arts Centre
Press’s decisions in the first half of its history, so this is not a wholly new development.
Rather, it is the intensity of the Press’s focus on the bottom line, and the sometimes
startling implications of this focus for the publishing programme, that is notable in the
latter half of its history. This description of the latter half of Fremantle Arts Centre
Press’s history focuses on these implications, rather than the financial specifics, as the
latter is not half so remarkable as the former.
One of the most notable effects of the Press’s increasing concern for the bottom
line, was the emergence in the early to mid-1990s of a new attitude to the processes of
canon formation. Early examples of this trend include two of the most notable additions
to the Press’s stable of writers during this period, Dorothy Hewett and Randolph Stow,
both of whom already had well-established reputations when they published their first
books with Fremantle Arts Centre Press in 1991 and 1993 respectively. While this was
not typical of the period, Hewett’s and Stow’s books represent a second, even more
notable exception at Fremantle Arts Centre Press: they had been previously published
elsewhere. Hewett’s Selected Poems, published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press in
1991, was originally published by Bloodaxe Books in Great Britain in 1990. The Press
subsequently published an original volume of Hewett’s verse, Peninsula, in 1994, which
won the National Book Council Banjo Award for Poetry and the Western Australian
Premier’s Book Award, as well as her Collected Poems in 1995. (In the latter, editor
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William Grono notes that ‘most of [Hewett’s] books have been published by transient
publishing houses in small print runs. Apart from Peninsula, a recent Selected Poems
[1991] and representation in anthologies, her poems have been unavailable for too
long.’486) Randolph Stow’s The Suburbs of Hell, published by Fremantle Arts Centre
Press in 1993, was first published by Martin Secker & Warburg in London in 1984. So
not only did Fremantle Arts Centre Press not launch Hewett’s and Stow’s literary
careers, but it was not even the originating publisher of the earliest titles it released by
these writers.
Clearly, these are very different circumstances than the ones that gave rise to, for
example, T. A. G. Hungerford, A. B. Facey, Elizabeth Jolley, Sally Morgan, John
Kinsella, and Kim Scott. These six writers have been chosen to illustrate this point,
because these are the names Fremantle Press (the ‘Arts Centre’ was dropped from the
name in July 2007) lists in a paragraph on its website that states, ‘A number of
distinguished and award-winning authors ... have been published in the past thirty-one
years.’487 Of course, many more names could be added to this list: Nicholas Hasluck,
Peter Cowan, Philip Salom, Marion Campbell, Joan London, Brenda Walker, Gail
Jones, Simone Lazaroo, and so forth. Hewett and Stow are also ‘distinguished and
award-winning authors’—perhaps even more distinguished than a couple of the names
Fremantle Press has chosen for special mention—but it is no accident that they have not
been selected for inclusion on this list. After all, while Fremantle Arts Centre Press
arguably consolidated Hewett’s and Stow’s reputations, it was not responsible for
generating their reputations as it did for the aforementioned writers.
The writers Fremantle Press lists on its website represent a de facto Western
Australian literary canon. They also perhaps represent an incursion into the wider
486William Grono, ed., Collected Poems 1940–1995, by Dorothy Hewett (South Fremantle: FremantleArts Centre Press, 1995), 13.487Fremantle Press, ‘About Fremantle Press’, in Fremantle Press (accessed 17 Dec. 2007); available fromhttp://www.fremantlepress.com.au.
233
Australian literary canon, prompting those with the authority to draft future versions of
it to be more inclusive of Western Australian writers and writing. In both of these
instances, the Press nominates for canonisation writers it perceives as valuable, as well
as responds to what it perceives the reading public perceives as valuable. These two
forces can be in conflict with each other, but most of the time they are mutually
reinforcing. Thus, the writers Fremantle Press selects for special mention on its website
can be understood to represent the way in which the Press wants to see itself, as well as
the image of its publishing activities it wants to project to the public; that is, as the
publisher of ‘a number of distinguished and award-winning authors’, including T. A. G.
Hungerford, A. B. Facey, Elizabeth Jolley, Sally Morgan, John Kinsella, and Kim Scott.
The absence of Hewett and Stow—two of the most widely acclaimed Western
Australian writers ever—from this list implies the Press is aware that the value
associated with these two writers is not theirs to claim. Prior to the publication of
Hewett’s and Stow’s books in 1991 and 1993 respectively, Fremantle Arts Centre
Press’s attitude to the processes involved in canon formation were much different, and a
situation such as this would have never arisen.
Of course, canons are notoriously problematic and subject to prejudices of all
sorts, which can result in extraordinary re-evaluations of the value of particular texts
and authors across time and place. Peter Kirkpatrick argues that ‘literary canons are
constantly renegotiated as part of an unfolding set of cultural dialogues and debates:
they have never been, and can never be, fixed in stone’.488 This has led some to entirely
dismiss canons as a useful tool for literary discussion.489 An example of some of the
problems associated with canonisation, as well as evidence of the Press’s new attitude to
canon formation, is the inclusion of Kate McCaffrey at the tail end of the list of writers
488Peter Kirkpatrick, ‘The Strange Death of Australian Literature’, Australian Author 39, no. 1 (Apr.2007): 23.489See, for example, John Guillory, Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
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receiving special mention on Fremantle Press’s website—‘A number of distinguished
and award-winning authors, including T. A. G. Hungerford, A. B. Facey, Elizabeth
Jolley, Sally Morgan, John Kinsella, Kim Scott and Kate McCaffrey, have been
published in the past thirty-one years.’490 McCaffrey is a writer whose first book (a
work of young adult fiction, Destroying Avalon) was published in 2006 and won the
Young Adult Fiction category of the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards. Her
second and most recent publication, In Ecstasy, is another work of young adult fiction
published in 2008. However, she seems decidedly anomalous in this company of
‘distinguished and award-winning authors’. The inclusion of McCaffrey in this list of
writers, the youngest of whom (Kim Scott) published his first book 13 years prior to
McCaffrey’s, would seem to be the result of marketing efforts, as well as another de
facto attempt at canon-making. By placing McCaffrey in the company of writers for
whom ‘distinguished and award-winning’ are commonplace descriptions, the Press
perhaps hopes this aura will rub off on her. Furthermore, since Facey and Jolley are
deceased, Hungerford is 93 years old, and Morgan is writing only the very occasional
children’s book, that leaves Kinsella, Scott and McCaffrey writing and publishing books
likely to enhance the reputations of both Western Australian literature and Fremantle
Press in 2008. It is probable McCaffrey has been included in the website listing
mentioned above, less for her accomplishments as a writer and more for what she
represents—a contemporary writer in a genre (young adult fiction) that has come to
occupy a large segment of the Press’s publishing programme. McCaffrey and her
literary prize seem intended to demonstrate that Fremantle Press continues its tradition
of launching the careers of noteworthy Australian writers.
Fremantle Press likely did not intend to propose a canon of its writers, much less
a canon of Western Australian literature—even a de facto one—when it listed ‘a number
490Fremantle Press, ‘About Fremantle Press’.
235
of distinguished and award-winning authors’ on its website. Instead, it probably
envisioned this list as a simple marketing tool for the publishing house. Nonetheless,
the presentation of this list of writers on the Press’s website—as well as the frequent
references to many of these same writers in published interviews with Coffey and
Newman, journalistic reports on the Press’s activities, and reviews of its books—
effectively (even if not intentionally) creates a canon of, at the very least, Fremantle
Press writers.
Other individuals and institutions are more forthright about their participation in
the process of defining a canon of Western Australian writers. For example, in a chapter
devoted to the subject of ‘Tim Winton and West Australian Writing’ in Nicholas Birns
and Rebecca McNeer’s recently published A Companion to Australian Literature since
1900, Lyn Jacobs offers the following canon for consideration:
This brief introduction to his [Tim Winton’s] work, and to WesternAustralian writing, can only suggest the wealth of this state’s literaryheritage, with its varied foci, themes, and styles. The span of timecovered in writings by fellow Western Australians, Katharine SusannahPrichard (1883–1969), Henrietta Drake-Brockman (1901–68), T. A. G.Hungerford (b. 1915), E. L. Grant Watson (1885–1970), Randolph Stow(b. 1935), Peter Cowan (b. 1914 [– d. 2002]), Alec Choate (b. 1915),Nicholas Hasluck (b. 1942), Elizabeth Jolley (b. 1923 [– d. 2007]),Dorothy Hewett (1923–2002), Robert Drewe (b. 1943), Fay Zwicky (b.1933), Dennis Haskell (b. 1948), Joan London (b. 1948), Philip Salom (b.1950), Marion Campbell (b. 1948), Brenda Walker (b. 1957), JohnKinsella (b. 1963), Gail Jones (b. 1955), and Fotini Epanomitis (b. 1969),is relatively short—Western Australia, the Swan River settlement, wascolonized in 1829, while oral Indigenous traditions extend back over50,000 years. Today, this state’s diverse expertise includes a newgeneration of Indigenous writers of English, such as Jimmy Chi (b.1948), Glenyse Ward (b. 1949), Kim Scott (b. 1957), Stephen Kinnane(b. 1967), and Sally Morgan (b. 1951), who, following the pioneeringwork of Jack Davis (1917–2000), Alice Nannup (1911–95), ArchieWeller (b. 1957), and Mudrooroo (b. 1938) are telling stories once elidedby iniquitous social agendas.491
What is most remarkable about Jacobs’s canon is that, of the 29 writers comprising her
assessment of the ‘wealth of this state’s literary heritage’, only ten writers were not
491Lyn Jacobs, ‘Tim Winton and West Australian Writing’, in A Companion to Australian Literature since1900, ed. Nicholas Birns and Rebecca McNeer (Rochester: Camden House, 2007), 308.
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published at one time or another in a single-author volume by Fremantle Arts Centre
Press: Prichard, Drake-Brockman, Watson, Drewe, Epanomitis, Chi, Ward, Davis,
Weller, and Mudrooroo. The reasons for their absence from the Fremantle Arts Centre
Press publishing list are various: Prichard, Drake-Brockman and Watson all died before
the Press was founded; Drewe did not begin publishing books until after he left Western
Australia for New South Wales; Epanomitis has only published one book, the
unpublished manuscript of which was the recipient of The Australian/Vogel National
Literary Award and thus was published by Allen & Unwin, a condition of the award
(similar circumstances gave rise to Winton’s first novel, An Open Swimmer, and
subsequent association with Allen & Unwin, as well as Weller’s The Day of the Dog);
Chi is a songwriter and playwright whose only book publication was a cooperative
production of Currency Press and Magabala Books; Ward was published by Magabala
Books; Davis is best known as a playwright and thus, like most Australian playwrights,
saw much of his work published by Currency Press (although his memoir was published
by Magabala Books); and Mudrooroo’s first novel, Wild Cat Falling, was published as
early as 1965. Nonetheless, Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s enormous influence on a
canon of (especially contemporary) Western Australian literature should be apparent
from this list. This is particularly the case since the Press, by publishing their first
books, launched the writing careers of the majority of the 19 writers from Jacobs’s list
who published single-author volumes with the Press. It is also notable that, of the
writers from Jacobs’s list who were published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press, only one
of them made his writing debut in the period after the early to mid-1990s: Stephen
Kinnane published a biography, Shadow Lines, in 2003, while in 1992 he was one of
two editors of Alice Nannup’s autobiography When the Pelican Laughed. In fact, no
other writer on the list—published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press or elsewhere—made
his or her writing debut later than 1993 (when Scott and Epanomitis made their debuts).
237
Rather than interpreting this as a decline in the quality of writing or writers coming out
of Western Australia, or simply Jacobs’s ignorance of newer Western Australian writers
who deserve a place in the canon, it is perhaps the result of a shift in Fremantle Arts
Centre Press’s publishing programme, which had up until this time been responsible for
the inclusion of so many new names on the list.
Disregarding the anomalous inclusion of McCaffrey in the list on Fremantle
Press’s website, and perhaps also Epanomitis in Jacobs’s list, the most remarkable
aspect of the canons proposed by both are their resistance to change. In fact, the shift
from a canon that is in the process of being defined to one that is static, is a hallmark of
the new attitude to the processes of canon formation that first emerges at the Press in the
early to mid-1990s. The literature anthologies discussed in Chapter 2 of this thesis play
an integral role in this shift. Anthologies can both suggest and confirm a literary canon;
specifically, the repeated inclusion of a single writer or literary work in different
anthologies has the effect of confirming the writer’s status as part of a given canon. The
static quality of Fremantle Press’s canon as evidenced by its anthologies preserves it
from the irrelevancy that threatens all canon formations as a result of constant re-
evaluations. However, in spite of a belief in the enduring power of canons, history
shows they are always being revised subject to changing literary tastes and priorities,
and so this particular canon’s resistance to change simultaneously renders it obsolete.
Consider, for example, the series of anthologies detailed in Chapter 2 of this thesis that
were published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press between 1996 and 2000 (with one
outlying anthology published in 2004): the writers whose names most often appear on
the covers of these anthologies, in order to lure potential book buyers, include Elizabeth
Jolley, Sally Morgan, A. B. Facey, and T. A. G. Hungerford—clearly locating Fremantle
Press’s publishing successes in the distant past.
238
This new attitude at the Press towards canon-making activities is the outcome of
an increasing concern for the bottom line. In other words, the Press’s increasing
concern for the bottom line resulted in the more frequent publication of books
specifically designed to appeal to a so-called ‘popular’ audience, including lifestyle
titles, which then resulted in a new attitude at the Press towards canon-making
activities. This new attitude contributed to the aforementioned situation at the Press
from the early to mid-1990s onwards, in which fewer writers established reputations
comparable to those enjoyed by some of the writers to emerge from the Press in the first
half of its history. The anthologies published by Fremantle Press after 1989 are
particularly suggestive of this new attitude.
Around the same time as the publication of Kim Scott’s True Country and
Simone Lazaroo’s The World Waiting to Be Made, the Press published a series of
anthologies titled Summer Shorts. In addition to the fact that the three titles in this
series are nowhere identified as anthologies of Western Australian writing, the other
remarkable feature of these titles is that they are quite clearly designed as ‘a miscellany
of enjoyable, easily read material’; in other words, they are presented as ‘popular’
fiction.492 The usual established ‘literary’ writers are listed on the back cover of each
volume to entice knowing book buyers, but everything else about these books—from
the cover design with its lurid use of colour to the chatty, anecdotal introduction—
indicates that these books are intended to appeal to a ‘popular’ readership.
The three Summer Shorts anthologies do not represent Fremantle Arts Centre
Press’s first ever attempt to appeal to a ‘popular’ readership, nor do they represent the
first time the Press made a choice they believed would broaden the appeal of a title, for
example about cover design. These processes have been a normal part of the Press’s
operations from the time of its earliest publications. Instead, the Summer Shorts titles
492Peter Holland, 13.
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are significant because they are symptomatic of increasing pressures at the Press to
reach a ‘popular’ readership, which in the years ahead would inspire the Press to publish
in new areas, as well as to rethink their approach to old favourites like the literature
anthology.
In 1994, one year after the publication of the first title in the Summer Shorts
series of anthologies, Fremantle Arts Centre Press published Reading from the Left, an
anthology of prose by 18 writers from across Australia. The inside flap of the front
cover offers this explanation for the pan-Australia focus: ‘Edited and produced on the
West Coast, [Reading from the Left] offers that point of entry and engagement with the
strength and diversity of recent Australian fiction.’ The editor, Wendy Jenkins, expands
on this idea in her introduction:
At Fremantle Arts Centre Press there has been, from time to time,discussion about if, how and when the list of publications might beopened up to include the work of writers from other states. It seemed, inthose discussions, that what was important was that the editorial focusand commitment, informed by living and working in a specific place, bemaintained.493
In the spirit of this statement, Jenkins selected nine Western Australian writers, each of
whom contributed a piece of their own writing to the anthology. These same writers
were also asked to nominate a work for inclusion by a writer from another state, and
then to write an introduction for the two pieces. Even if it can be agreed that Jenkins is
successful in her stated aim of locating the ‘editorial focus and commitment’ of the
anthology in Western Australia, it does not render the inclusion of non-Western
Australian writers in a Fremantle Arts Centre Press publication any less significant.
Furthermore, the prominent placement of several of the interstate writers’ names on the
cover of the book—including Thomas Shapcott, Helen Garner and Thea Astley—
thereby relegating the majority of Western Australian names to the wrap-around colour
band on the back cover and spine, belies a commitment to the bottom line over any
493Wendy Jenkins, ed., Reading from the Left (South Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1994), 11.
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commitment ‘informed by living and working in a specific place’. The intensification
of the former commitment in the period from the early to mid-1990s onwards is, once
again, evident in the new attitude to the processes of canon formation. And while this
book, like Risks—another anthology containing non-Western Australian writers, which
was edited by Brenda Walker and published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press in 1996—is
still designed to appeal more to a ‘literary’ than a ‘popular’ audience, it most certainly
represents an attempt by the Press to attract a wider audience through the inclusion of
prominent, non-Western Australian writers.
Two later anthologies—Great Australian Bites edited by Dave Warner and
published in 1997, and School Days edited by John Kinsella and published in 2006—
more fully illustrate the direction Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s new focus on ‘popular’
publishing has taken their publishing programme. Both books include selections
written by non-Western Australian writers, though neither editor mentions this in the
introductions to their respective titles. The cover designs of the two titles, organising
themes, and the writers chosen for inclusion, all testify to the fact that they were also
designed to appeal to a ‘popular’ audience.
A reviewer of School Days notes that, ‘As selective compendiums of the arts,
anthologies occupy a distinguished segment of book publishing. And because they
perform an educational as well as general interest function, their compilers have a
particular responsibility.’494 This reviewer then criticises School Days for not being up
to the task, before making the following observation of Kinsella, the book’s editor: ‘For
an internationally recognised and self-confessed multi-talented intellect, this anthology
is no magnum opus.’495 It is hard to imagine any of the anthologies published by
Fremantle Arts Centre Press in the late 1970s and into the 1980s being criticised for a
lack of substance, as it seems this reviewer is criticising School Days. Indeed, the
494Lon Bram, ‘Barely a Pass Mark’, Weekend Australian, 11 Nov. 2006.495Ibid.
241
former anthologies were roundly acclaimed for ‘throw[ing] out a challenge to other
states’. Of course, some were also simply ignored outside Western Australia.
However, the Press’s intensified focus on ‘popular’ publishing beginning in the
early to mid-1990s changed all this. Thereafter, the majority of Fremantle Arts Centre
Press’s publishing programme, and not least of all the anthologies it published, could be
characterised as falling outside the aforementioned ‘distinguished segment of book
publishing’. Newman was earlier quoted as saying in a 1998 interview, ‘There’s no
question that in our early career we were seen as elitist in some quarters because we
were doing works of literature, not commercial works.’496 The specificity of ‘in our
early career’ would seem to indicate Newman is aware the Press is no longer in the
business of ‘doing’ exclusively works of literature to the exception of ‘commercial
works’; in fact, this equation has been flipped on its head.
A balancing act between the traditional publishing categories at the Press, and its
search for more reliable sources of income in the form of ‘popular’ titles, typifies the
latter half of Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s history. Of course, the Press also published
many titles in, for example, 1994 that are typical of its first 20 years of publishing, such
as Peter Cowan’s novel The Tenants and John Mateer’s poetry collection Burning
Swans. These were nearly overwhelmed, however, by the large number (seven of a total
of 27 titles) of children’s picture books published in this year, as well as the first three
works of young adult fiction at the Press. The latter category included the first book,
Gaz, in a highly successful series by Warren Flynn. Just two years later, the Press
would again meet with success in the young adult genre with the publication of Killer
Boots, the first in Wendy Jenkins’s trilogy about Australian Rules Football, which
included The Big Game (1998) and Gunna Burn (2000).
496Winn, quoting Newman.
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Occasionally there emerges from the Press in this period a title that spans the
traditions of Fremantle Arts Centre Press and its recent, more vigorous pursuit of a
‘popular’ readership. The 1994 publication of Steve Hawke’s Polly Farmer, a
biography of the famous footballer, is one such title; Newman even nominated this title
in a 1996 article in Australian Book Review as one of his favourites from the past 20
years.497 Unfortunately, these titles are few and far between, and Coffey’s reaction in a
2006 interview—when asked about a title, City of Light by Dave Warner, that was
published the year after Polly Farmer—is more typical: he is quick to mention the
‘juggling act of cross-subsidisation’ that typifies the Press’s publishing programme.498
In other words, Coffey perceives the publication of this particular title as meant to
‘subsidise some of the more uneconomic things we do’, such as publishing poetry and
literary fiction, activities to which he clearly ascribes greater value.499 Contrast his
comments about City of Light with his statement about poetry earlier in the same
interview: ‘We publish three poetry titles a year when, yes, most presses don’t do any.
But it’s a commitment we have, a sense of supporting that form.’500
Herein lies a contradiction: Coffey is one minute speaking of the Press’s
cookbooks, gardening books and ‘popular’ titles more generally as ‘support[ing] some
of the more uneconomic things we do’, while in the very next insisting that ‘we are not
a leading title publisher, investing heavily in a “front list”, and crossing our fingers and
hoping for the best with the rest’.501 In spite of the conflicting rhetoric, it is clear
enough that City of Light, for example—a work of crime fiction featuring the image of a
woman’s naked, decapitated torso on the cover—was a ‘front list’ title for the Press,
expected to generate profits that could then be used to subsidise the publication of other,
497Newman, ‘Twenty Years On’, 54.498Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 36.499Ibid., 37.500Ibid., 35.501Ibid., 41.
243
less profitable titles. It is not possible to have these titles without relegating certain
other titles to ‘back list’ status, due simply to time and budgetary constraints.
Nonetheless, City of Light was perhaps the most notable publishing event at Fremantle
Arts Centre Press in 1995; its author’s previously established public profile as a
musician attracted media attention, its cover image provoked controversy, and it
represented the Press’s first significant foray into genre fiction.
Furthermore, in 1996, arguably the most significant publishing event at
Fremantle Arts Centre Press was the publication of the Press’s first cookbook, The
Grapevine Quick and Tasty Cookbook, edited by Peter Holland and Liz Byrski. The
following year, it was the publication of the Press’s first gardening book, Jeff
Dorrington’s In Your Garden. Coffey explained the Press’s approach to publishing
cookbooks and gardening books in an interview published in 2006: ‘The important
thing we’ve realised—and this is another reason we’ve survived, and why small
publishers who survive do survive—is that you’ve got to find the niche in the market
that the big mainstream publishers aren’t covering. You can’t compete head-to-head.’502
As an example of this approach, Coffey observes that ‘you wouldn’t call the books we
do “cookbooks”, but rather “food-based” books that include elements other than
recipes’.503 While the title Coffey mentions, Feasts and Friends by Lorraine McGinniss
(2005), is an excellent example of the publisher finding a niche in the notoriously
saturated market for ‘lifestyle’ books, not all of the Press’s ‘lifestyle’ titles follow this
prescription; indeed, neither The Grapevine Quick and Tasty nor In Your Garden fit this
description, nor do many of the Press’s more recent cookbooks and gardening books,
generally to the detriment of their sales figures.
Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s decision to venture into the world of cookbook
publishing in 1996, and then into the publishing of gardening books in 1997, was
502Ibid., 37.503Ibid.
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related to (if not actually the direct result of) the Press’s 1996 funding agreement with
the Western Australian Government, which reduced funding to the Press by 50% over a
period of three years and contained a new productivity clause. The terms of this
decision were the result of a recommendation from the ‘Review into the Investment of
Government in the Publishing of Literary Works’ commissioned by Western Australian
Arts Minister Peter Foss in 1994 and completed by Andrew Taylor in June 1995: ‘That
FACP review its publishing policy and draw up a business plan which will enable it to
reduce its dependency on direct Government annual subsidy by 50% of the 1994–95
level by the end of the next five years.’504 The following chart (see Table 2) shows a
pattern of slow, relatively consistent growth in the funding awarded to Fremantle Arts
Centre Press by the Department for the Arts up until the 1995–96 financial year, at
which point the funding drops dramatically (though it never quite reaches Taylor’s
recommended 50% reduction on the 1994–95 funding level).
504Taylor, ‘Review’, 25.
245
Table 2: Western Australian Department for the Arts/ArtsWA Funding for
Fremantle Arts Centre Press (1986–2000)505
Year Funds received
1986–87 $144,300
1987–88 $136,750
1988–89 $153,500
1989–90 $193,500
1990–91 $168,054
1991–92 $173,500
1992–93 $177,000
1993–94 $232,250
1994–95 $241,000
1995–96 $186,118
1996–97 $166,500
1997–98 $148,500
1998–99 $129,500
1999–2000 $163,000
In meetings with Foss to challenge the funding cut, Fremantle Arts Centre Press was
informed by Foss that he believed they should cultivate a more ‘commercial’, as
opposed to ‘literary’, publishing programme.506 This language was not written into the
Press’s funding agreement, nor does it appear to have been the intention of Taylor’s
‘Review’, which instead makes the claim that ‘commercially viable writing ...
frequently has a very short shelf-life, while what might be called works of cultural
significance, once established in people’s awareness, can continue to sell for
generations’.507 The ‘Review’ nonetheless concludes that ‘benefits to the State’s writers
will accrue if FACP draw less heavily on Government funds, and that savings in this
area be made available to other publishers’; the Press is subsequently advised to
‘carefully scrutinise its publishing policy with an eye to reducing the number of non-
505Table 2 is a composite of two sources: Taylor, ‘Review’, 20; and White, ‘Independent Evaluation’, 10.506Brian Raymond Coffey, letter to author, 18 June 2007.507Taylor, ‘Review’, 25.
246
performing titles’.508 The Press felt that the dramatic reduction in their funding left them
no other option but to pursue the aforementioned more ‘commercial’ publishing
programme.
Adding to Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s difficulties, the reduction in state
funding to the Press (administered by ArtsWA, which inherited this responsibility in
1996 from the Department for the Arts) ‘combined scarily’ with ‘the publishing trade
recession [that] hit in 1996’.509 In the same 2005 newspaper interview in which Coffey
made this observation, Newman subsequently ‘reveals publicly for the first time that the
Press has a “very important but off-the-record guarantee” from a high-profile Perth
business figure who is a fan’ of the Press.510 This arrangement became necessary when
the Press was unable to locate alternative sources of funding, and the banks would not
loan them the money necessary to continue their publishing operations; Coffey says,
‘The only way we could convince the banks was if somebody with money could
guarantee us if we fell over.511 Newman is quick to add that, while the guarantee of the
‘high-profile Perth business figure’ remains in effect to this day, Fremantle Arts Centre
Press have never had to call on it.
University of Western Australia Press also diversified its list in the 1990s to
include titles with more ‘popular’ or ‘commercial’ appeal. Both publishing houses
arrived at the unique makeup of their current publishing programmes in response to
larger changes in the field of cultural production, including economic and political
changes. These changes included the ‘end of a period of government interventionist
nation-building, both in general terms and with respect to the book-publishing industry’;
this imperative is evident in Foss’s decision to significantly reduce the funding
508Ibid.509Victoria Laurie, quoting Coffey.510Ibid., quoting Newman.511Ibid., quoting Coffey.
247
Fremantle Arts Centre Press received from the Western Australian Government.512
University of Melbourne academic Mark Davis maintains that this shift of direction
‘tallied precisely’ with the ‘decline of the literary paradigm’.513
The much-discussed ‘decline of the literary paradigm’ in Australian (and, indeed,
international) literature—that is, the decline of interest in ‘high-brow’ or ‘literary’
fiction and non-fiction—also neatly parallels the decline of interest in regional literature
and issues of regionalism in Australia. Consequently, regional publishers and
commentators alike have been inclined to blame subsequent difficulties on this change
of fortunes, the fallout of ‘profound economic, technological, political and ... cultural
changes, since the late 1960s’, but which really gained momentum in the 1990s.514
Coffey said as much in a 2006 interview: ‘What is called “middlebrow fiction” is now
dominating shops, along with that crossover of a personal narrative or “life story”, in
fiction and non-fiction form. These have certainly taken over, or merged into, what was
the literary fiction market.’515
The focus in this section of the thesis on the aforementioned two notable effects
of Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s increasing concern for the bottom line—the emergence
of a new attitude to the processes of canon formation, and the increasingly frequent
publication of books specifically designed to appeal to a ‘popular’ audience, including
lifestyle titles—has thus far been based on a (nearly) implicit acceptance of the
distinction between ‘popular’ publishing and the ‘distinguished segment of book
publishing’, or ‘literary’ publishing. Earlier discussion of the problems associated with
literary canons and the canonisation process has gone some way to addressing this gap.
However, if it is to be maintained that the period from the early to mid-1990s onwards
at Fremantle Arts Centre Press is characterised by this balancing act between the
512Mark Davis, ‘The Decline of the Literary Paradigm in Australian Publishing’, Heat 12 (2006): 95.513Ibid.514Nathan Hollier, ‘Diagnosing the Death of Literature’, Wet Ink 6 (2007): 13.515Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 37.
248
traditional publishing categories at the Press including ‘literary’ fiction and non-fiction,
and its search for more reliable sources of income in the form of ‘popular’ titles, then
the matter deserves further explication. In particular, it should be noted why this
distinction is useful in the larger discussion of the production of a regional literature in
Western Australia.
It is important for the producers of regional literature to remember that regional
literature is first and foremost writing possessing cultural value that is specific to a
region, although the writing may also have national and international value. While
‘literary’ fiction and non-fiction are in many respects defined by their distance from
‘popular’ literature, regional literature is defined by its relationship to a different set of
factors, and it is these that must be considered if regional publishing houses are going to
continue to be viable in this age of increasing consolidation and globalisation of
publishing operations. Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s recent history signals only an
inconstant awareness of this fact.
As described above, the Press’s focus on ‘popular’ publishing over the last 15 or
so years has come at the expense of its ‘literary’ publishing traditions. While these
changes may have seemed unavoidable at the time, and they were the same sorts of
changes being undertaken by publishers in the traditional publishing centres of Sydney
and Melbourne, they are largely self-defeating for a regional publisher. After all, the
interests of the ‘literary paradigm’ do not exactly tally with those of regional publishers
and literature. Succumbing to the pressures to produce more ‘popular’ books, such as
cookbooks, gardening books and genre fiction, eliminates in many ways those aspects
that established these regional publishers as remarkable in the first place, in particular
their attention to regional developments. It is not enough for a regional publishing
house to publish books that are just as good as those published by the major
multinational publishers in the cultural centres of the country, because the latter
249
publishers will be able to produce theirs more cheaply and provide them with better
distribution, marketing and promotion. Coffey is aware of this fact:
There is little prospect of publication if you write another readable novel,another competent biography or history, etc. It isn’t really enough. ... TheAustralian market is flooded with such works, particularly from the U.S.and U.K. And produced more cheaply than we could ever do. Apublisher like Fremantle [Arts Centre Press] can only succeed if it findsniches in the market, if it doesn’t try to do what everyone else is doing.516
Whether or not Fremantle Arts Centre Press can be said to have followed Coffey’s
prescription in the latter half of its history, it is clear that regional publishers must aspire
to produce work that is either of demonstrably higher quality, or that is distinctive and
can generate its own publicity.
This last point is particularly important, since the budget of a regional publisher
like Fremantle Arts Centre Press rarely extends to extensive print (much less television)
advertising campaigns. In fact, at the Press,
the total budgeted amount allocated for marketing, advertising andpromotion is less than the amount to cover freight and postage whichmay come as no surprise given the geographical distances of Australia.The total amount for ‘marketing’ represents, in the 2000 financialstatements, 5.89% of the year’s total sales.
Therefore, Fremantle Arts Centre Press (and other regional publishing houses) must be
attuned to opportunities for free publicity for the titles it publishes; these opportunities
are often the best sort of publicity a publisher can get, anyway. Terri-ann White notes in
a 2001 report on Western Australian publishing commissioned by ArtsWA, that
Fremantle Arts Centre Press ‘relies upon as much no-cost coverage as it can and does
extremely well within these constraints’.517 However, the ‘popular’ titles that have
consumed increasing amounts of the Press’s energies since the early to mid-1990s, in
addition to diluting the notion of cultural value that is specific to Western Australia, do
not often appeal to the individuals and institutions responsible for generating this sort of
516Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by Burke, 6.517White, ‘Independent Evaluation’, 20.
250
free publicity. Australian children’s literature, for example, constitutes only four percent
of book coverage in the mainstream Australian literary media, while comprising 14% of
total book sales in Australia; in contrast, the numbers for Australian fiction are ten
percent and 11%, respectively.518 So even though Australian fiction sells less than
Australian children’s literature, it receives more than twice as much media coverage.
These figures are derived from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and Media
Extra (MX), an online supplement to Bookseller+Publisher magazine that records
mentions of books in the media. Neither source, unfortunately, discriminates between
sales of ‘literary’ and ‘popular’ titles, so it is impossible to further demonstrate that, like
children’s literature, other types of ‘popular’ titles ‘do not often appeal to the individuals
and institutions responsible for generating this sort of free publicity’. It is worth noting,
however, that ‘the Literature Board of the Australia Council gives over $1 million in
grants each year, mostly for literary fiction’.519 In fact, all the available facts seem to
confirm this conclusion, including a particularly striking anecdote about the death of
‘one of Australia’s best-known romance writers’, Dorothy Sanders (pseudonymously
Lucy Walker), being registered by The West Australian ‘only in terms of the loss
experienced by her son’; the headline read ‘Yachtsman’s Mother Dies’, and only much
later in the article did it mention that her novels had sold more than a million copies.520
Similar to the publishing houses whose titles they read, discuss and review, these
individuals and institutions are participants in the activity of defining a literary canon.
And when it comes to defining literary canons,
the traditional constructors of canons are the universities, and thisremains the case, despite what you might have heard about literary theoryand ‘decanonisation’. Few people outside academe have the sort ofinstitutional clout and access to research funds required to bring
518Per Henningsgaard, ‘Media Neglects Its Responsibilities to Oz Lit’, Australian Author 39, no. 1 (Apr.2007): 16.519Susannah Bowen and Steve Carey, ‘The Bloom Report’, Bookseller+Publisher, September 2006, 21.
520Juliet Flesch, From Australia with Love: A History of Modern Australian Popular Romance Novels
(Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2004), 9.
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particular writers to notice and facilitate serious debate about their works.... Also at work is the Australia Council, which funds writers directly,keeping mainly the established old guard of local writing in the money,with a dash of token youth bias and state-sponsored ethnic egalitarianism.Somewhere in between are the journals and broadsheet dailies.521
Davis’s mode of expression is undoubtedly partisan, but this should not detract from the
sound basis of his argument. In other words, the aforementioned individuals and
institutions—academics, the Australia Council, journals, and so-called ‘broadsheet’
newspapers—are all the most potent activists of ‘literary’ writing. Davis merely
elaborates on this point more frequently than others: ‘Literary journals such as ABR and
Meanjin and the books pages of broadsheet newspapers have set themselves up as
nostalgic guardians of a (mid-list) literary culture .... Literary culture is supported, too,
by the academic formations that continue to study it.’522 It is notable that the library at
The University of Western Australia, for example, has copies of nearly every title
published in the first half of Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s history, while there are many
more titles published in the latter half of the Press’s history that are missing from the
library’s catalogue—mostly in the areas of children’s literature, cookbooks, gardening
and ‘lifestyle’ books, genre fiction, and so forth.
Most reasonable people would also agree that ‘talent may or may not be a
naturally occurring thing, but reputations are no more “natural” than eating with a knife
and fork. They are to do with accumulated cultural capital and commercial power, and
building them requires a lot of careful work by the writers and their advocates.’523 So
for the simple reason that Fremantle Arts Centre Press does not have the finances to
purchase its publicity, therefore making the aforementioned individuals and institutions
and their attendant free publicity invaluable, the distinction between ‘popular’ and
521Mark Davis, Gangland: Cultural Elites and the New Generationalism (St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin,1997), 118.522Mark Davis, ‘Decline’, 103.523Mark Davis, Gangland, 117–18.
252
‘literary’ publishing is important and useful in this discussion of the production of a
regional literature.
Furthermore, most ‘popular’ books are rarely thought to possess any cultural
value that is identifiable as specific to a region; this includes the majority of cookbooks,
gardening books and genre fiction published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press, as well as
a significant proportion of its young adult and children’s literature. In describing the
community of individuals responsible for making the sort of assessment of cultural
value mentioned here, it is perhaps best to summarise a relevant passage from Chapter 3
of this thesis: Regional literature is written by those individuals located outside the
cultural centres and is judged to be regional by members of that same community, just
as other minority literatures are written and appraised by those individuals in their
respective minority group. There are many reasons why this community of individuals
might not ascribe any cultural value that is identifiable as specific to a region to the sorts
of ‘popular’ books mentioned above, but at least one of their reasons would likely be
related to the fact that these books do not regularly participate in the forms of free
publicity named above.
Books that engage with the aforementioned individuals and institutions—by
being reviewed in newspapers and journals, chosen as set texts for secondary- and
tertiary-level courses, and winning literary prizes—take on a life outside the bookstore.
At a time when titles that are not selling sufficient quantities disappear from bookstore
shelves in four to six weeks as part of increasingly rapid turnover cycles, books whose
publishers cannot afford expensive advertising and promotional campaigns must engage
with these individuals and institutions in order to have any hope of persisting beyond
this time. It is also the case that the individuals and institutions mentioned above are
often responsible for introducing not just individual titles to the public consciousness,
but the author as a public figure. As part of this public profile, the author’s
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identification or association with a particular region is oftentimes a strong trigger for
people to say, ‘This author’s works all have a cultural value that is identifiable as
specific to the region.’ Other factors that can inspire this same response include the use
of an identifiable regional setting in the text; literary titles are more likely to make use
of such a technique than, for example, genre or adolescent fiction, thereby increasing
their cultural value for residents in the region responsible for making such judgements.
In the first half of Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s history, it was able to find
‘niches in the market’—Coffey’s prescription for publishing success, and an ideal for
small, independent publishing houses (a category that includes almost all regional
publishers) upon which most informed observers of the publishing industry would
agree. It did so largely through its unique emphasis on Western Australia and its
commitment to ‘literary’ writing. As the Press’s increasing concern for the bottom line
in the early to mid-1990s gave rise to both the emergence of a new attitude to the
processes of canon formation, and the increasingly frequent publication of books
specifically designed to appeal to a ‘popular’ audience, the Press lost its ability to find
these same niches. For this reason, the distinction between ‘popular’ and ‘literary’
publishing is useful in understanding the Press’s history; publishing ‘literary’ writing
was one means by which Fremantle Arts Centre Press found a niche for its publishing
activities in the first half of its history, but the Press’s later focus on ‘popular’ publishing
came at the expense of these ‘literary’ publishing traditions, and so this niche was
relegated to the sidelines. The likelihood of titles published by Fremantle Arts Centre
Press being understood as ‘regional literature’ is relevant for similar reasons—in its
early history, the ‘Western Australian-ness’ of the Press, its writers and the titles it
published constituted a significant part of its appeal.
Clearly, in its search for more reliable sources of income in the form of ‘popular’
titles, Fremantle Arts Centre Press sacrificed many of the qualities that made it
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distinctive in the first half of its history. In fact, an assessment of the Press’s activities
conducted in 2001 noted that the Press had lost sight of one of its stated objectives: ‘To
identify, nurture and develop writing talent within the state to a standard necessary for
successful publication.’524 The author of this review observed that, in the past, the Press
had been consistently acclaimed for its role in nurturing new writing talent, and yet
concluded, ‘it is my opinion that this important role within FACP is being eroded’ and
that ‘there are few of those opportunities to take genuine risks by investing in new
writers that they have been renowned for over decades’.525 And since even if the Press
did discover the next Bryce Courtenay or Stephen King, it would undoubtedly soon lose
him or her to a publishing house that could provide a larger advance, the Press needs to
concentrate on alternative models for success. Perhaps Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s
early history—and instructive successes from the latter half of its history—might even
function as that model.
As the remainder of this section of the thesis canvasses some of the highlights of
this latter period, it is important to bear in mind what could perhaps be best described as
the third and final feature of Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s increased concern for
financial viability. In addition to the emergence of a new attitude to the processes of
canon formation, and the increasingly frequent publication of books specifically
designed to appeal to a ‘popular’ audience, the Press’s increased concern for the bottom
line in the period from the early to mid-1990s onwards, caused the Press to continue
publishing in many of the niches that had defined its early history. As was mentioned
above, by the time the Press celebrated its tenth anniversary in 1986, it had published
nearly 100 titles, and there were already many well-established trends in its publishing
programme. Among the trends mentioned (both up-and-coming and well-established)
were the publication of ‘literary’ novels, short stories and poetry; photography books
524White, ‘Independent Evaluation’, 15.525Ibid.
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featuring Western Australian locations; art books; local history, including both social
and individual histories, as well as natural history; scholarly books; and writing on
Indigenous issues (by both white and Aboriginal writers). In the period from the early
to mid-1990s onwards, Fremantle Arts Centre Press continued to publish in almost all of
these areas, even as the energy it could devote to any given area was diminished by the
demands of its ‘popular’ publishing programme.
This might sound like a good thing—that the Press continued to publish poetry
and Aboriginal writing, for example, in a period defined by its increasing concern for
the bottom line—but the problem resides less in what the Press did publish, and more so
in what it did not publish. In short, the Press did not break new ground with the books it
published in this period. Many of the trends noted from Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s
first ten years represented new developments in the Australian publishing industry at the
time the Press started publishing them, but they have since entered the mainstream. To
use short story publishing as an example:
Along with books of stories by Peter Cowan, T. A. G. Hungerford, andlater, younger writers such as Joan London and Gail Jones, FremantleArts Centre Press contributed strongly, as did the University ofQueensland Press, to an Australia-wide revival of short fictionpublishing. Jolley was a beneficiary, and a major contributor to thisdevelopment.526
Short stories, of course, experienced ‘an Australia-wide revival’ in the 1980s, only to
almost totally disappear again from the publishing programme of nearly every major
Australian publisher, including Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Since 1996, the Press has
published only five collections of short stories, and three of these were published in
1997. In this example, Fremantle Arts Centre Press is clearly responding to perceived
market demand, and like most publishers, it does not see a demand for short story
collections. Whether or not this impression is correct, it is worth noting that in its early
526Bruce Bennett, Australian Short Fiction: A History (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2002),214.
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history—as the above excerpt testifies—the Press was responsible for creating this sort
of demand, rather than simply responding to the ‘common knowledge’ of the market
that every publisher seems to share.
It is also instructive to note that, in 1997, when Fremantle Arts Centre Press
experienced its last burst of short story publishing, among the titles it released were the
second short story collection by Gail Jones, Fetish Lives, and the first book by Deborah
Robertson, Proudflesh. It has already been mentioned that Jones has achieved a
considerable reputation as a writer both in Australia and overseas, and that she has
produced her most acclaimed, highest selling titles since leaving Fremantle Arts Centre
Press and signing book deals with several different multinational publishers.
Nonetheless, she published two highly acclaimed and award-winning books with the
Press before departing its ranks. Robertson, on the other hand, published only
Proudflesh, which was highly acclaimed but did not win nearly as many awards as
Jones’s collections, before Pan Macmillan released her novel Careless in 2006.
Robertson’s novel was subsequently longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin
Literary Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the South East Asia
and South Pacific Region Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book and the Miles
Franklin Literary Award, among others. While Careless did not win many prizes, it
clearly established Robertson as an important Australian writer; in fact, she is arguably
the last truly ‘big name’ to be introduced by Fremantle Arts Centre Press—and her only
book with the Press was published more than ten years ago.
In contrast to the sharp decline in the publication of short story collections at
Fremantle Arts Centre Press from the mid-1990s onwards, the publication of books of
poetry and novels have continued to occupy roughly the same percentage of the Press’s
annual publishing programme (see Table 3).
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Table 3: Number of Titles (Excluding Anthologies) Published by Fremantle Arts
Centre Press by Genre
Year Poetry Short Fiction Novel Total # of Titles Published
1976 1 1 0 4
1977 2 2 0 5
1978 1 1 0 5
1979 1 3 0 10
1980 4 0 1 10
1981 1 1 1 10
1982 2 1 1 11
1983 2 2 0 11
1984 3 3 1 11
1985 3 0 2 9
1986 2 1 1 12
1987 3 2* 0 11
1988 1 1 2 13
1989 2 2* 1 15
1990 3* 3 0 20
1991 4 2 2 17
1992 2 1 1 22
1993 5 1 3 33
1994 3 1 2 27
1995 4 1 3 28
1996 4 0 2 35
1997 5 3 2 33
1998 2 1 3 25
1999 5 0 5 30
2000 5* 0 5 26
2001 4 0 3 27
2002 4 1 5 29
2003 3 0 3 36
2004 2 0 3 33
*Brian Dibble’s Analogues (1987), Vasso Kalamaras’s The Same Light (1989), Griffith Watkins’s God inthe Afternoon (1990, ed. Peter Jeffery), and Dorothy Hewett and John Kinsella’s Wheatlands (2000),contain examples of the writers’ work in the genres of both Poetry and Short Fiction. Analogues and TheSame Light have been classified as Short Fiction for the purposes of Table 3, since the majority of the
material contained in these two titles fit this designation; God in the Afternoon and Wheatlands have beenclassified as Poetry for similar reasons.
258
2005 3 0 1 34
2006 2 0 3 23
In the period from 1990 until 2006, Fremantle Arts Centre Press published the ninth-
highest number of Australian literary fiction titles by any publishing house.527
Nonetheless, it is worth remembering that ‘the top six publishers from 1990 to 2006
have averaged ten titles per year (ranging from Pan Macmillan’s 12 to UQP’s six); the
next ten average fewer than two’.528 Among the more noteworthy novels published after
the mid-1990s at Fremantle Arts Centre Press are Wayne Ashton’s Under a Tin-Grey
Sari (2002) and Craig Silvey’s Rhubarb (2004). Both are ‘literary’ fiction and yet were
also huge sales successes for the Press; sales of Rhubarb saw a boost after it was
selected for the 2005 Perth International Arts Festival’s inaugural ‘One Book’ project, a
series of events simulating a state-wide book club.
Poetry titles are almost never expected to achieve the same levels of commercial
success as novels, and yet they are expected to attract prestige to their publisher. And
while Fremantle Arts Centre Press continued in the period from the early to mid-1990s
onwards to publish works by nationally and internationally acclaimed poets such as
John Kinsella, Philip Salom, Dennis Haskell, Tracy Ryan, John Mateer, and Dorothy
Hewett, it has failed to introduce comparable new talent. All of the aforementioned
writers had their first books of poetry published prior to 1995; Mark Reid (Parochial
[2000] and A Difficult Faith [2006]) and Graeme Miles (Phosphorescence [2006]) are
just about the only possible successors to their legacy.
While the Press continued to publish in areas such as photography and art in the
period from the early to mid-1990s onwards, the majority of these titles were now
527David Carter, ‘Boom, Bust or Business as Usual?: Literary Fiction Publishing’, in Making Books:
Contemporary Australian Publishing, ed. David Carter and Anne Galligan (St. Lucia: University of
Queensland Press, 2007), 240.528Ibid., 242.
259
designed as ‘gift’ or ‘coffee table’ books. This is not a criticism, as it generally means
the production value of these titles was improved. Whereas many of Fremantle Arts
Centre Press’s early photography and art books had the appearance of reference works,
later publications in these areas, such as Down to Earth: Australian Landscapes
(published in 1999, with photography by Richard Woldendorp and an introductory essay
by Tim Winton) and Perth (published in 2005, with photography by Frances Andrijich,
a foreword by Robert Drewe and text by Jeff Bell), have been produced with as much
care and attention to detail as their creators have clearly lavished on the content. One
consequence of this development is that many of the Press’s photography and art books
are published only in hardcover editions, in order to cover the high costs associated with
their production, as well as to meet the expectations of the ‘gift’ or ‘coffee table’ book
genre.
Some of Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s history publications, including social,
individual and natural histories, subscribed to a similar logic in the period from the early
to mid-1990s onwards. Many of these titles, including Beyond the Lattice: Broome’s
Early Years (published in 2003, and combining historical photography with a history of
the place written by Susan Sickert), The Last Anzacs: Lest We Forget (published in
2003, also combining historical photography with text by Tony Stephens and additional
photography by Steven Siewert), and Soul of the Desert (published in 2005, with
botanical illustrations by Philippa Nikulinsky and text by Stephen D. Hopper), have the
appearance of ‘gift’ or ‘coffee table’ books. Nonetheless, it would seem the Press
believes there is a smaller readership for these books than for the aforementioned
photography and art books, as history titles are rarely published in hardback.
Of course, Fremantle Arts Centre Press also continued in this period to publish a
list of history titles that could not be described as ‘gift’ or ‘coffee table’ books, but
rather draw substantially on the Press’s early commitments to social history and its
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innovative but short-lived Community Publishing Project. Books like Daphne Street by
Geoffrey Bolton (1997), False Economy by William J. Lines (1998), and Tom and Jack:
A Frontier Story by Geraldine Byrne (2003), continue the tradition at the Press of
publishing books that are seen as making a valuable contribution to the understanding of
Western Australian history, even if these titles are unlikely to attract a substantial
readership. Indeed, it is Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s commitment to this very notion
that there is a ‘strong cultural, literary, social, or political value’ to certain texts—
examples can be drawn from nearly every genre in which Fremantle Arts Centre Press
publishes, though poetry and history perhaps provide the greatest number—which has
driven the Press in the latter half of its history to ‘have some more commercial books to
support the less commercial’.529
Another area of the Press’s publishing programme in which this notion of ‘value’
continues to exert a strong influence, is the area of scholarly publishing. In contrast to
many of the genres discussed above, scholarly publishing at Fremantle Arts Centre
Press underwent its most innovative developments in the period after the early to
mid-1990s. In fact, very little changed in the Press’s approach to scholarly publishing
from its earliest forays into the genre, such as Lords of Death: A People, a Place, a
Legend (1982) and the more memorable A City and Its Setting (1986), until October
2002, when a new imprint dedicated to scholarly publishing was launched. Curtin
University Books, as the imprint was known, resulted from a partnership between
Curtin University of Technology and Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Curtin University
was interested in producing ‘new ideas-based titles ... written for a broader
readership’,530 but ‘the establishment of a new and separate publishing house [was]
beyond Curtin’s financial capacity’.531 In return for its cooperation, Fremantle Arts
529Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 39, 37.530Rod Moran, ‘Curtin Books Venture Begins’, West Australian, 9 Oct. 2002, quoting Tom Stannage.531Moran, ‘Curtin Books’.
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Centre Press received from Curtin University an annual injection of funds sufficient to
pay the salary of one new, full-time staff member.
The first book published under the Curtin University Books imprint was
Verandah Music in 2003, a collection of interviews, historical photographs and two
compact discs containing Australian folk music, edited by Graham Seal and Rob Willis.
While an interesting publication, this approximately A4-sized book was a poor indicator
of what lay ahead for Curtin University Books, both in terms of its design and content.
Subsequent Curtin University Books titles had the appearance of more traditional trade
paperbacks, and their content was typically a single work of extended prose, rather than
the ‘collection’ that structured Verandah Music. A couple of these later publications
succeeded in reaching that ‘broader readership’ that Curtin University’s Executive Dean
of Humanities, Professor Tom Stannage, hoped they would reach; in particular, What,
No Baby? by Leslie Cannold, a book that addresses Australia’s falling fertility rate and
the various reasons women remain childless, had an impact outside the walls of the
academy amidst a flurry of positive newspaper reviews and feature articles. The
success of What, No Baby? was a case of a timely issue, written about in an accessible
(read: non-academic) style, which was then well-packaged by its publisher.
Other titles in the Curtin University Books imprint, such as The Gates of
Memory: Australian People’s Experiences and Memories of Loss and the Great War
(2004) by Tanja Luckins and Babes in the Bush: The Making of an Australian Image
(2005) by Kim Torney, are reminiscent of the doctoral dissertations from which they are
the offspring. They also share the quality of being perhaps too specific in their subject
matter to have any realistic chance of attracting a ‘broader readership’. In contrast,
titles such as From Australia with Love: A History of Modern Australian Popular
Romance Novels (2004) by Juliet Flesch and City Bushman: Henry Lawson and the
Australian Imagination (2004) by Christopher Lee, seem to strike a balance between the
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demands of the scholarly form and the expectations of a ‘broader readership’. At the
very least, it must be acknowledged that increasing pressure to appeal to a ‘popular’
readership has had perhaps its most positive effect on scholarly publishing and the
Curtin University Books imprint at Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Very few scholarly
books will ever reach a truly ‘popular’ audience, therefore denying their publisher any
chance of a significant financial reward; yet, Fremantle Arts Centre Press and its Curtin
University Books imprint not only improved its chances of at least breaking even on
scholarly publications it deems culturally valuable, but the very same innovations also
improved the quality of these titles.
That the imprint folded in May 2006 after publishing only 12 titles should not be
seen as a judgement on Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s management of individual titles
or the imprint as a whole. Rather, the reason the Curtin University Books imprint was
‘wound up’ was that ‘Curtin University was not able to continue its commitment to the
program’.532
The final publishing niche that defined Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s early
history, and in which the Press has continued to publish, is the area of Indigenous issues
as written about by both white and Aboriginal writers. Notable titles in this area include
Those Who Remain Will Always Remember: An Anthology of Aboriginal Writing (2000)
edited by Anne Brewster, Angeline O’Neill and Rosemary van den Berg, Broken Circles
(2000) by Anna Haebich, Under a Bilari Tree I Born (2002) by Alice Bilari Smith with
Anna Vitenbergs and Loreen Brehaut, Shadow Lines (2003) by Stephen Kinnane, and
Kayang & Me (2005) by Kim Scott and Hazel Brown. Similar to the publishing history
of short stories at Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Aboriginal writing represented a
relatively new development in the Australian publishing industry at the time the Press
started publishing in this area. Also, through the publication of Morgan’s My Place, the
532Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 43.
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Press was largely responsible for popularising the genre of Indigenous autobiography.
Kim Scott later broke new ground in Indigenous fiction, making him the first
Indigenous writer to win the Miles Franklin Literary Award. While some successes
have resulted from Fremantle Arts Centre Press continuing in the latter half of its
history to publish in many of the same niches that defined its early history, including
Indigenous issues, it is nonetheless a regrettable development that this seems to have
come at the expense of opening up new areas for exploration.
The increasingly frequent publication of books specifically designed to appeal to
a ‘popular’ audience is a reaction to concerns at the Press that continuing in the latter
half of its history to publish in many of the same niches that defined its early history is
not a sustainable approach to publishing over the long term. Publishers must remain
flexible and innovative in order to cope with the changing demands of the marketplace
and, perhaps even more importantly, to anticipate what might appeal to the marketplace
of the future. Earlier discussion of books designed to appeal to a ‘popular’ audience
focussed mainly on ‘lifestyle’ titles such as cookbooks and gardening books. The
majority of titles of this type are commissioned by the Press; in other words, the Press
either has an idea for a book they want to see written, and they search out an author for
that book, or perhaps an individual approaches the Press with an idea for a book, and
the Press either commissions them or someone else to write that book. Either way, the
issue of anticipating what might appeal to future readers is particularly relevant, since
the Press is taking a risk by offering editorial support and perhaps also money before
there is even a manuscript, or perhaps only a short excerpt from a manuscript, under
consideration. When commissioning a book, ‘long-term relationships between the
publisher and the author often provide a foundation for the development of new
titles’.533
533Louise Poland, ‘Independent Australian Publishers and the Acquisition of Books’, Journal ofAustralian Studies 63 (1999): 113.
264
However, when it comes to attracting new writers—both of the sort that need
commissioning, and those that come with a complete manuscript in hand—then the
well-established niches in a publisher’s programme are eminently useful. One of the
most common (and sensible) pieces of advice given to writers aspiring to have their
work published, is to look for titles similar to their own and approach the publishers of
those titles. Thus, an aspiring writer with a poetry manuscript, or a work of social or
natural history that is concerned with a Western Australian topic, might approach
Fremantle Press before any other publishing house. In this instance, since very few
other publishers are publishing in these areas, the writer sees Fremantle Press as a likely
home for the manuscript. As was noted earlier, in order to remain competitive with the
larger, mostly multinational publishing houses, small, independent publishers—but
especially a regional publisher like Fremantle Press—must publish titles that are either
of demonstrably higher quality or that are distinctive. Poetry and Western Australian
history publishing are examples of Fremantle Press ensuring its competitiveness by
drawing on the strength of both of these approaches, but mostly because they are doing
something different from other publishing houses.
In the early to mid-1990s, however, when Fremantle Arts Centre Press began
pouring its energies into ‘lifestyle’ titles and other books designed to appeal to a
‘popular’ audience, it became impossible to differentiate a significant proportion of its
publishing programme from that of any number of larger, multinational publishing
houses. By choosing to work in areas that other publishing houses with deeper pockets
and larger marketing departments were already working, the Press practically ensured
the only manuscripts they received in these areas would have earlier been rejected from
these same publishers. Quite simply, if a writer believes their manuscript stands a good
chance—based on what is currently being published—of being accepted at a larger
publishing house, it is unlikely they will submit that manuscript to Fremantle Press.
265
Fremantle Press still receives approximately 500 unsolicited manuscripts in a year, and
while it is impossible to ascertain what percentage of these were earlier rejected by
another publisher, a significant proportion of them almost certainly were.534 If this
proportion has not changed in the life of the Press, then the reasoning behind these
initial rejections almost certainly has—from manuscripts being rejected by
multinational publishers by virtue of not publishing in that area, to rejected because the
manuscript is not up to the standard of publications in that area.
Fremantle Press’s decision to publish in areas in which it is unlikely to ever be
perceived as one of the most likely or desirable homes for a manuscript, means there is
little chance titles published in these areas will be the very best available on any given
subject. (Of course, sometimes the Press will be an author’s first port of call simply
because he or she wants to deal with a local publishing house, but these are the
exceptions that prove the rule.) For example, All the Troubles: Terrorism, War and the
World After 9/11 (2004) by Simon Adams, The Irreverent Commonwealth Games (2006)
by Ross Solly, and Caravanserai: Journey Among Australian Muslims (2003) by Hanifa
Deen, are all intended to engage with an Australian readership’s interest in specific
current affairs. Of course, if the issues are of great enough interest, many more books
concerned with the same topics will be published by publishing houses that can afford
better marketing and distribution, thereby overtaking Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s
efforts. Furthermore, since these sorts of titles have a notoriously short shelf life—only
as long as the ‘current affair’ remains current—even a title that is better written or more
engaging than its competitors can fail to attract an audience without a significant
marketing push, because the issue is no longer timely by the time a critical mass has
read the book and can recommend it to future readers. There is also the matter of a
534Heiss, 59.
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publishing house attracting the very best talent, and better books on all of these subjects
have been published by other Australian publishers.
In fact, the version of Caravanserai: Journey Among Australian Muslims
published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press is a revised edition based on a 1995
publication by the same name from Allen & Unwin. Clearly, Allen & Unwin did not
think enough of the book or its profit-making potential to publish a new edition.
Publishers often disagree on matters such as this, but in the case of Caravanserai it is
hard to understand why Fremantle Arts Centre Press went ahead with a revised edition;
it could hardly be expected to compete with a brand-new title on the subject of Islam
and Australia, of which there were many in the period after the 11 September 2001
attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.
The collection of genres and subject matter for which Fremantle Press is
currently thought of as one of the most likely or desirable homes has in the latter half of
its history become increasingly marginal—poetry, Western Australian history,
Aboriginal issues, and so forth. However, the majority of the Press’s publishing
programme—including children’s and young adult books, ‘lifestyle’ titles, books on
current affairs—is in direct competition with the output of the major, multinational
publishing houses. Clearly, this is not a model for success for a regional publishing
house. Instead, it is instructive to look to Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s early history, in
which the Press established a reputation for producing innovative and important work,
in addition to enjoying several of its greatest commercial successes. The genres and
subject matter from which these early successes emerged were the almost exclusive
providence of Fremantle Arts Centre Press and a small number of mostly independent
publishers. The Press’s Community Publishing Project, for example, was inspired by
Coffey’s observation that British publishers such as the small, independent Centreprise
were only just ‘starting to look at what has now become known as “life stories” ...
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stories that were away from the centre of what was then considered important and
valuable’.535 The successful publication of writers like Elizabeth Jolley, Sally Morgan
and A. B. Facey, helped popularise genres such as Australian literary fiction (and short
stories, in particular), women’s writing, books by Aboriginal writers and on Indigenous
issues, and life writing. Consequently, the formerly open field in which these genres
and subject matter are situated has become crowded.
Fremantle Press has failed to open up any comparable new areas of publication
in the latter half of its history. Instead, the Press has hung its hopes of financial security
on genres and subject matter in which it will always be at a disadvantage. These
developments have had the effect of reducing the Press’s cachet amongst individuals
whose business it is to notice these sorts of things—typically, the most knowledgeable
and often influential members of the literary establishment. Devoting its energies to
‘lifestyle’ titles and other forms of ‘popular’ writing, as well as the decline in innovative
publishing at the Press in the period from the early to mid-1990s onwards, has
negatively impacted on the Press’s reputation. A publishing house’s reputation is
important, because a good reputation can ensure the publisher attracts first-rate writers
and the attention of the literary establishment; the latter is often the necessary
predecessor to newspaper reviews, Australia Council funding, literary prizes, writers’
festival appearances, and so forth. Coffey is aware of this fact:
Because opinion-makers judge prizes and even if you don’t win, if youare attempting to draw attention to your list and key people are readingfor this poetry prize, or that fiction or history prize, then they’re seeingyour books regularly. And they talk to other people. And then when youwin one every now and then, it helps the editors of the literary pages ofjournals and newspapers, dailies, weeklies to start looking more closelyat your titles.536
In April 2001, Terri-ann White was commissioned by ArtsWA to conduct an
‘evaluation of the impact of the Review into the Investment of Government in the
535Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 31–32.536Ibid., 52.
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Publishing of Literary Works dated June 1995 on the Fremantle Arts Centre Press’ and
to ‘provide recommendations for the future support and development of the Fremantle
Arts Centre Press’.537 White noted in her report, submitted in August 2001, that ‘there is
much more that could be done that could build upon the good name and track record of
FACP to consolidate their place in the market’.538 Qualifying this statement, she writes:
I am not suggesting here that FACP should participate fully in thecommercial field of publishing marketing—they cannot is the realisticresponse to that idea. An astute, and modest, campaign that is ongoing,can be built upon and involves as its outcomes attention to individualtitles and the branding of FACP as Australia’s finest small publisherwould be both timely and effective.539
Fremantle Arts Centre Press adopted ‘Australia’s finest small publisher’ as its byline in
2001, prior to the submission of the White report. White’s suggestion that the Press
brand itself is closely related to the concept of reputation discussed above.
The idea of a publishing house marketing itself as a brand is not new. The
‘publishing house as brand’ concept is commonly envisaged as a supplement to—rather
than a wholesale replacement of—the brand that is often already associated with the
author (in other words, the ‘author as celebrity’). Perhaps the most notorious recent
airing of this concept was at the hands of HarperCollins in 2005, when it announced its
intention to make the company as identifiable as the big-name writers it publishes; the
initiative was subject to considerable scepticism at the time, and nothing seems to have
come of it.540 A common criticism is that the majority of people do not walk into a
bookstore looking for a Penguin novel or the most recent Allen & Unwin title—‘unlike
with other manufactured consumer goods, branding rarely works in publishing, since
few readers buy a book based on familiarity with or regard for a publisher’.541 Rather,
537White, ‘Independent Evaluation’, 7.538Ibid., 20.539Ibid.540Edward Wyatt, ‘Michael Crichton? He’s Just the Author’, New York Times, 6 Feb. 2005.541Laura J. Miller, Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 2006), 187.
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when they are not just browsing, readers are typically looking for a specific title or
perhaps a specific author. What this line of argument misses, however, is the benefit to
be gained from branding that appeals to the literary establishment, those active members
of the aforementioned field of cultural production. These individuals, by and large, do
care about the publisher of a given title, and Fremantle Press’s stock among such
individuals has been slipping since the early to mid-1990s. This is evidenced to some
extent by a decline (as a percentage of titles published) in the number of high-profile,
national literary awards for which Fremantle Press books are shortlisted. Furthermore,
a substantial number of individuals who could be classed as belonging to the literary
establishment (including writers, publishers, literary scholars, and so forth) have
confided to me their bewilderment and dismay about the change of direction at
Fremantle Press, though none of these individuals would ascribe their name to this
opinion.
White’s 2001 report effectively reversed the effects of the earlier report,
submitted to ArtsWA in 1995, by Taylor. Among the more significant proposals was
‘that additional support is provided to FACP in its general operating grant to assist in the
establishment and appointment of the position of Associate Publisher’, as well as ‘to
assist in the development of its marketing profile’.542 White felt that an increase in the
Press’s general operating grant was advisable, in part because the reduction of this grant
following Taylor’s ‘Review’ had a ‘detrimental effect on the business operations of the
Press’.543 Furthermore, Taylor had proposed that ‘savings accruing from this reduction
in subsidy ... be kept within the Literature budget and redirected so as to establish,
among other initiatives, a growing Earnback pool available to eligible literary
publishers, of which FACP be one’, and White noted that ‘there is no evidence to show
542White, ‘Independent Evaluation’, 26.543Ibid., 6.
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that there has been any growth in additional publishing activity in the State since
1996’.544 Clearly, White felt Fremantle Arts Centre Press was performing admirably in
its role as a regional publisher and deserved further government support.
Yet, as the Press’s reputation suffers in the minds of the literary establishment as
a result of its increased attention to the bottom line, it must also suffer in the minds of
bureaucrats. While White saw the Western Australian Government’s support of
Fremantle Arts Centre Press as ‘a direct investment into the cultural work of its
peoples’, there is almost surely a measure of self-interest involved in this decision.545
The Press’s constitution lists five ‘objects for which Fremantle Arts Centre Press is
established’, and one of these states that the Press is meant ‘to facilitate the publication
of the work of talented West Australian writers, artists and poets so as to encourage in
Western Australia the production of work of literary and/or artistic merit’; this ‘object’
closely resembles White’s understanding of the reasons for the Western Australian
Government’s support of Fremantle Arts Centre Press. However, another ‘object’ states
that the Press is meant ‘to encourage the growth of the appreciation and publication of
works of literary and/or artistic merit produced by West Australian writers, artists and
poets’ (emphasis mine).546 This mandate that the Press is meant ‘to encourage the
growth of the appreciation’ of Western Australian writers is exactly the sort of self-
interested reasoning mentioned earlier. In other words, the Press is meant to generate
positive publicity for the state’s writers and, by inference, the state more generally
including its government.
The changes that have been enacted at Fremantle Press since the early to
mid-1990s do not, however, work in the interests of the Western Australian
Government. The Press’s push into ‘popular’ writing has significantly reduced the
544Ibid.545Ibid., 25.546Fremantle Arts Centre Press, ‘Fremantle Arts Centre Press Constitution and Rules’, 2.
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number of titles it publishes possessing cultural value that is identifiable as specific to a
region; instead, ‘popular’ books and writers are commonly affiliated with the cultural
centre, if only because this is the default position. ‘Popular’ books are not as often
reviewed in the media, nor do their authors win literary prizes (oftentimes resulting in
even more media coverage), thereby reducing the free publicity afforded the Western
Australian Government through its support of Fremantle Press. In fact, the changes
enacted in the latter half of Fremantle Press’s history seemingly satisfy no one: they do
not serve the government that supports the publishing house; they are not enjoyed by
the publisher for their own sake, as testified by his comments about the Press’s ‘popular’
publishing programme ‘subsidis[ing] some of the more uneconomic things we do’, such
as publishing poetry and literary fiction, activities to which he clearly ascribes greater
value; and they do not seem to have ensured the Press’s financial security, which was
their original and overriding intention.
In May 2006, The West Australian reported that although Fremantle Arts Centre
Press’s ‘sales for the past quarter have been the strongest for some time, the previous
two years have seen a slump of 16 per cent’, and the Press expected to post a loss for the
financial year.547 Coffey attributed the Press’s difficulties to a diminished market for
literary fiction and non-fiction; ‘trade liberalisation measures introduced in the book
trade by the federal government’ that have resulted in ‘thirty percent of the sales of
small publishers ... lost to large publishers within the past decade’; an increase in
production costs in the past five years while income from book sales remained even;
and, finally, ‘the addition [in 2000] of the 10% GST [Goods and Services Tax] to the
cost of books’.548
Less than a year later, the Western Australian Government gave the Press a one-
off grant of $300,000, an interest-free loan in the amount of $265,000, and $255,692 in
547Rod Moran, ‘Fremantle Publisher’s Financial Books Run into the Red’, West Australian, 30 May 2006.548Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 40–41.
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core funding for 2007, after the Press had trouble paying its creditors, including printers
and authors. The West Australian reported that ‘the funding is conditional on upgraded
financial reporting and the preparation of a sound business plan’.549 It later emerged that
‘part of the restructure was a search for a chief executive with experience in business
administration’.550 Mary Anne Paton, who has been CEO of other organisations, started
work with the publisher in July 2007.
That same month, Fremantle Arts Centre Press changed its name to Fremantle
Press. The Press has long had its premises outside the Fremantle Arts Centre—from
1990–99 in South Fremantle, and then from 1999 onwards in Quarry Street, North
Fremantle—so perhaps the name change was overdue. The name change was part of a
restructuring process mandated by the Western Australian Government, and Coffey
maintains that it is to be accompanied by a change of direction in the Press’s publishing
programme and a renewed ‘focus on its core business, at the literary end of the
publishing spectrum, where it had been most successful’.551 He said that because the
Press’s funding had been cut at the same time it was instructed to pursue a more
‘commercial’ publishing programme, ‘it really precluded us bringing in special
expertise in areas we were directed to publish in’, thereby losing the Press even more
money in the long run.552 Along with its change of name, Fremantle Press changed its
byline from ‘Australia’s finest small publisher’ to the more modest ‘fine independent
publishing’.
Furthermore, Coffey and Newman have recently begun to publicly discuss the
matter of succession planning—‘over the next five to ten years we’re likely to be
moving on, so we need to be thinking very seriously about succession, and that’s what
549Rod Moran, ‘Troubled Fremantle Press Given Grant, Loan in $565,000 Bailout’, West Australian, 13Mar. 2007.550Rod Moran, ‘New Name Comes Hot Off the Press’, West Australian, 16 July 2007.551Moran, ‘Troubled’.552Ibid., quoting Coffey.
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our Board is doing and what we are doing’—but it is unclear where that successor might
come from.553 Fremantle Press pays ‘the equivalent of seven or eight full-time wages’,
and even though ‘that involves a lot more than seven or eight people’, this is an
undeniably small pool that has, until recently, seen very limited potential for upward
mobility at the Press.554 Consequently, similar to the flow of Western Australian writing
talent—many of them given their start by Fremantle Press—to publishing houses
located in Melbourne and Sydney, there has been a flow of talented editors, designers,
and so forth, out of Western Australia. It may be that Fremantle Press needs to look east
to source replacements for Coffey and Newman, although this is a move that has the
potential to further endanger the production of a regional literature in Western Australia.
In an e-mail to Anita Heiss, author of Dhuuluu-Yala (To Talk Straight): Publishing
Indigenous Literature, Coffey writes of the publishing house that he has led for nearly
20 years:
It is part of our commitment since inception to encourage, support andpublish work by people who have had limited access to publication.Historically this has included women, and, for example, it continues tovarying degrees to include people from a non-English speakingbackground, and working class backgrounds.555
He adds, presumably to clarify the connection between his comment and Heiss’s
research, ‘certainly in this area we do consider Aboriginality as a criteria [sic], as one of
our particular concerns is to identify gaps in the record and disadvantage with respect to
the artform’.556 Of course, in addition to supporting and publishing work by Indigenous
people, women, ‘people from a non-English speaking background’, and the working
class, Fremantle Press has a mandate to privilege Western Australian material,
contributors and subject matter as part of its raison d’etre as a regional publisher.
553Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 43.554Ibid., 50.555Heiss, 62, quoting Coffey.556Ibid.
274
Indeed, the Press was founded on the basis of an appreciation that Western Australian
writers belong to the category of ‘people who have had limited access to publication’
and ‘disadvantage with respect to the artform’. Delys Bird noted as much in the chapter
she wrote for the 2000 publication of The Cambridge Companion to Australian
Literature: ‘A contemporary interest in regions as locations of literary difference is
matched by regional identification arising from the shared socio-economic problem of
publishing from marginal locations.’557
From the outset, Fremantle Arts Centre Press adopted a defiantly regionalist
perspective in response to the limitations imposed by a dominant cultural centre that
resides elsewhere. In other words, it responded to the prospect of national exclusionism
favouring Sydney- and Melbourne-centric cultural production by establishing
regionalist ‘gatekeeping’ mechanisms of its own. From the early days, the Press
attempted to make a virtue and a defining feature of regionalism in the development of
its list, its profile and its role in national literary and intellectual culture. The promotion
of Western Australian writers as a readily identifiable quantity, gathered under the
masthead of a Western Australian publisher, increased the Press’s chances of penetrating
a national market.
In spite of its overtly regional policies and perspectives, Fremantle Press has had
a disproportionate impact on the national literary and cultural scene. It has published, in
just over 30 years in the industry, more than 400 titles, a number of which have changed
the way in which Australians and others have come to know and think about ‘Australia’.
Fremantle Press has been a demonstrably national player as a publisher, at least in the
sense of re-routing public consciousness and the ‘national imagination’. However, in
the latter half of its history, the Press has gone from being an active agent in attempting
to redefine cultural traffic, to struggling to penetrate the centre and present itself as a
557Delys Bird, ‘New Narrations: Contemporary Fiction’, in The Cambridge Companion to AustralianLiterature, ed. Elizabeth Webby (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 194.
275
national player that just happens to be located on the far edge of the world—a nearly
impossible task given the odds stacked against them, including lack of access to the
gatekeeping mechanisms of cultural production and high distribution costs.
Considering the central role Fremantle Press played in the cultivation of a regional
literature in Australia, its current publishing practices raise questions about the future of
Australian literary regionalism.
III. Magabala Books
Established in 1987, Magabala Books refers to itself as ‘Australia’s oldest
independent Indigenous publishing house’.558 Many scholars of Aboriginal literature
concur with this assessment: ‘Another W.A. publisher is usually credited with being the
country’s first Indigenous publishing company. Magabala Books opened for business in
Broome in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia in 1987.’559 However,
there remains some debate about what constitutes an ‘Indigenous publishing house’; the
definition of this term has changed shape and provoked contestation over the years. It is
worth noting that ‘there [are] no all-Black publishing houses in Australia’, in the sense
that ‘publishing houses that identified as Indigenous entities still tended to have
disproportionate non-Indigenous inhouse influence’.560
Nonetheless, the publication of Indigenous writing prior to 1987 was
undoubtedly a very different exercise to its publication following the establishment of
Magabala Books. For example,
as far as is known, the first Aboriginal writer to have a book published inAustralia was David Unaipon, whose Native Legends appeared inAdelaide in 1929. ... After David Unaipon, it was several decades beforethe next book by an Indigenous writer appeared. We Are Going, a
558Magabala Books, ‘Home’, in Magabala Books (accessed 6 Mar. 2008); available fromhttp://www.magabala.com.559Munro, ‘Case-study’, 153.560Heiss, 51.
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collection of poems by Kath Walker, later known as OodgerooNoonuccal, was published by Jacaranda Press in 1964.561
Both of these significant early titles by Indigenous writers were published by publishing
houses that did not have any special commitment to the publication of Indigenous
writing. The year after the publication of We Are Going, however, Aboriginal Studies
Press was established in Canberra ‘as the publishing arm of the Australian Institute of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies’.562 Furthermore, in 1972, Institute of
Aboriginal Development (IAD) Press was established in Alice Springs as ‘the
publishing arm of the educational college, the Institute of Aboriginal Development’.563
In their early years, however, neither publishing house was exclusively devoted to
publishing works by Aboriginal creators, but rather also considered works by non-
Indigenous writers on Indigenous issues. Aboriginal Studies Press has maintained this
policy to the present day, which has likely contributed to its status as ‘Australia’s
leading publisher of works in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies’,564 while
IAD Press now publishes only work by Indigenous writers, ‘or else there is at least a
50% collaboration between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal writers’.565 IAD Press is
particularly well-known for its publication of language dictionaries, though like
Aboriginal Studies Press it has moved (in the period since the early 1990s) ‘to expand
beyond the academic market’, especially into the area of creative writing.566
Craig Munro notes in his ‘case-study’ of Indigenous writers that ‘it was not until
the 1980s that Aboriginal publishing began with the formation of Blackbooks, a Sydney
Aboriginal cooperative which later specialised in distribution’.567 Of course, what
Munro is referring to in this instance as ‘Aboriginal publishing’ is a publishing policy
561Munro, ‘Case-study’, 150–51.562Poland, ‘Enduring Record’, 84.563Heiss, 51.564Poland, ‘Enduring Record’, 93.565Heiss, 52.566Poland, ‘Enduring Record’, 93.567Munro, ‘Case-study’, 152.
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that specifies only works by Aboriginal writers will be considered for publication.
Blackbooks had this policy, but its existence as a publishing house was so short-lived
and, presumably, under-financed that it published only one title, Windradyne, a
Wiradjuri Koorie by Mary Coe, with paintings by Isabell Coe. Though the organisation
was established in 1982 by the Tranby Co-operative for Aborigines, this book was not
published until 1986, after which time Blackbooks abandoned publishing in favour of
its current role as the only book distributor and retail outlet owned and controlled by
Aboriginal people and specialising in books by and about Aboriginal people.568
Therefore, when Magabala Books was established in 1987, its publishing policy
was still quite radical:
We publish work by Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander or South SeaIslander creators, including authors, storytellers, illustrators and editors.Although we do consider collaborative works with non-Indigenousauthors, there must be at least a fifty per cent contribution orcollaboration with an Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander or South SeaIslander creator.569
Magabala Books and this policy were born of a desire to ‘provid[e] protection to
traditional storytellers and artists in matters of copyright and publication’,570 as well as
‘to record, promote and pass on Aboriginal traditions and cultures in book form’.571
These priorities were decided upon at a 1984 ‘festival of Indigenous song and dance at
Ngumpan, near Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia’s north’, when ‘those attending
voted to establish the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre’.572 Wendy Albert,
an employee of the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre, wrote the original
submission. The Centre provided an establishment grant of $287,000,573 while
568Poland, ‘Enduring Record’, 101.569Magabala Books, ‘Publishing Policy’, in Magabala Books (accessed 6 Mar. 2008); available fromhttp://www.magabala.com.570Magabala Books, ‘About Us’, in Magabala Books (accessed 6 Mar. 2008); available from
http://www.magabala.com.571Diana Giese, ‘Case-study: Magabala Books’, in Paper Empires: A History of the Book in Australia,1946–2005, ed. Craig Munro and Robyn Sheahan-Bright (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press,2006), 111.572Ibid.573Rosemary Rule, ‘Publishing in Broome’, Editions 1, no. 1 (Aug. 1989): 7.
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Magabala Books received a further grant from the Australian Bicentennial Authority’s
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Program.574
The combination of these funds enabled the fledgling organisation to embark on
its first book publishing project. A young Aboriginal woman, Merrilee Lands, who was
working on the Dampierland Oral History Project, compiled materials gathered over the
course of this project to form Magabala Books’s first title, Mayi: Some Bush Fruits of
Dampierland (re-issued in 1997 as Mayi: Some Bush Fruits of the West Kimberley).
This small book, for which Lands also did the illustrations, contains traditional
Aboriginal knowledge pertaining to ‘bush tucker’ plants of the Dampierland region in
the West Kimberley. The copyright to the book is in Lands’s name, but the information
contained in the book is attributed to a group of Aboriginal elders representing five
different language groups; the book provides the names of bush fruits in each of these
five languages.
Lands soon after joined the staff at Magabala Books, which up until this point
had numbered only two (non-Indigenous) individuals, Robyn Slarke and Peter Bibby.
However, the publishing house has always operated with an Aboriginal Management
Committee composed of Indigenous people from the community; before joining the
Magabala Books staff, for example, Lands was a member of the original Aboriginal
Management Committee. Unlike Fremantle Press’s Board of Management, which
restricts itself to financial matters and does not interfere in editorial decisions, one of the
roles of the committee at Magabala Books is to advise the publishing house on editorial
matters. The Aboriginal Management Committee reviews ‘all incoming submissions ...
[and] has sole discretionary power to accept or reject manuscripts and to influence the
direction of commissioned projects’.575 Thus, the (largely non-Indigenous) editorial
staff must pitch any new titles they are interested in acquiring to the Aboriginal
574Heiss, 53.575Poland, ‘Independent’, 114.
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Management Committee, and this committee makes the final decision to acquire based
on a variety of factors, including the manuscript’s prospective contribution to Magabala
Books’s stated objectives.
In spite of differences in the roles of their respective management committees,
this balancing act—which Magabala Books captures in the sometimes conflicting
imperatives of two of its assessment criteria, ‘the quality and/or importance of the
manuscript’ and ‘the perceived market and sales potential’—is common to both
Magabala Books and Fremantle Press.576 The reason for this similarity is, of course, that
both publishing houses have a mandate capturing aspects of the business beyond
commercial imperatives. More specifically, both publishing houses are seen as
providing a service to under-served segments of the community; it is this mandate that
is used to justify any financial assistance the two publishing houses receive from the
state or federal governments. Thus, Magabala Books provides a service to Aboriginal
writers and illustrators from around the nation, while Fremantle Press provides a similar
service to Western Australian writers and illustrators, both Indigenous and non-
Indigenous.
The publication of Mayi: Some Bush Fruits of Dampierland by Magabala Books
is perhaps analogous to Fremantle Press publishing a work of natural history about
Western Australia, or even one of the titles from its Community Publishing Project; in
both instances, the publishing houses appear to have come down on the side of ‘the
quality and/or importance of the manuscript’, as opposed to ‘the perceived market and
sales potential’, which is clearly quite small. Nonetheless, it is Magabala Books and
Aboriginal writing, more generally, that feature most prominently in discussions of the
dynamic that occurs when these two assessment criteria conflict:
Because the Aboriginal writer must make his or her works amenable instyle (and often in content) to the standards of publishers who have their
576Magabala Books, ‘Publishing Policy’.
280
eye on the marketplace, this censors out Aboriginality of style andcontent. A problem here is that the Aboriginal population is too smallwith little economic clout, and so books for and by Aboriginal writers aregoods of little profit, or if they are to be profitable must be written toconform to the dictates of the marketplace.577
The success of Sally Morgan’s My Place, for example, has often been attributed to it
‘being written to conform to the dictates of the marketplace’. Or, as Heiss was earlier
quoted, ‘My Place’s success arguably lay in the fact that it was not confrontational to
the white-mainstream way of perceiving Australia’. Both of these statements question
—if not actually find fault in—the appearance of a member of a marginalised
community writing for ‘the marketplace’ or, in other words, the ‘majority’.
These ideas about Aboriginal literature exist in a slightly altered (and perhaps
also diluted) form with regard to regional literature. It was mentioned in Part II
(‘Fremantle Press’) of this chapter that there are many reasons why a community of
individuals might not ascribe to a given title any cultural value that is identifiable as
specific to a region. For example, the title might not participate in the aforementioned
forms of free publicity that are so often responsible for introducing not just individual
titles to the public consciousness, but the author as a public figure who is (sometimes)
associated with a particular region. The use of an identifiable regional setting in the text
is also liable to increase its cultural value for residents in the region responsible for
making such judgements. This last point is akin to something Mudrooroo Narogin
(formerly Colin Johnson) said about Aboriginal writing: ‘The Aboriginal writer does not
exist in isolation, but as a member of the community who see, or attach certain values to
his or her literary production. ... Often a criterion of value is the degree of Aboriginality
in the work.’578 The ‘degree of Aboriginality in the work’ is in many ways analogous to
577Mudrooroo Narogin, Writing from the Fringe: A Study of Modern Aboriginal Literature (Melbourne:
Hyland House, 1990), 26.578Narogin, 37.
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the degree of ‘regionality’ sometimes expected of regional writers—that is, descriptions
of specific places, local customs, regional dialects, and so forth.
These expectations can come both from within and from outside the
communities under investigation—the Western Australian or regional community, and
the Aboriginal community. This is, of course, similar to the way in which a definition
of the region is formulated. Producers of both regional literature and Aboriginal
literature must be attentive to the dynamics of this exchange, as the communities from
which they are publishing are generally held to be of insufficient size to support the
commercial necessities of a book publishing operation without some reference to other
communities (in other words, book sales outside the region or to non-Indigenous
readers). They cannot afford to alienate readers in communities outside their own by
choosing an approach or publishing on a subject matter that is too specific to their own
community, nor should they generalise too much, or they risk losing their support in the
local community as well as their marketing ‘niche’.
With regard to Fremantle Press, it was noted in Part II (‘Fremantle Press’) of this
chapter how the Press attempted to make a virtue and a defining feature of regionalism.
In the latter half of its history, however, the Press seemed to believe it could balance this
interest with a selection of more ‘popular’ titles that did not tap so deeply into its
community of interest (in other words, Western Australia). Rather than attempting to
balance the demands of the home and outside communities within a single title,
Fremantle Press attempted to balance them across the breadth of its publishing
programme. Of course, as was detailed earlier in this chapter, the demands of books
that were specifically designed to appeal to a ‘popular’ audience placed greater than
anticipated demands on the Press’s resources for returns that were less than anticipated,
and the entire list suffered as a result.
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Magabala Books is both a regional and an Indigenous publishing house. As
such, it would seem to need to balance the demands of both communities. With its first
title, Mayi: Some Bush Fruits of Dampierland, it appears to have attempted this—the
book contains information that is specific to Indigenous culture in the region—but in
doing so it has perhaps overlooked the demands of other communities, especially more
‘mainstream’ communities, which constitute the majority of the book-buying public.
This is particularly relevant in the case of Magabala Books, since many of the qualities
that define Fremantle Press as a regional publishing house are even further intensified
for Magabala Books. In other words, there is regional, and then there is regional. A
book about metropolitan Perth—an area that includes Fremantle, home of Fremantle
Press—while it may not attract a readership in the eastern states, it will at least appeal to
the major population centre of Western Australia and, therefore, afford its publisher the
chance of breaking even. Even a book about the southwest of Western Australia has a
potentially sizeable readership, given the resident population of the region and its
popularity as a tourist destination. A book about the West Kimberley, on the other hand,
is playing to a much smaller market. In publishing Mayi, Magabala Books clearly
favoured ‘the quality and/or importance of the manuscript’ over that other assessment
criteria, ‘the perceived market and sales potential’, even as it tried to balance the
demands of being both a regional and an Indigenous publishing house.
The number of Magabala Books’s authors who come from the Kimberley region
in northwest Western Australia is disproportionately high; more of its writers come from
this region than from any other geographical area in Australia. Nonetheless, ‘Magabala
Books receives submissions from all over Australia, and books have been published
from every state [and territory] except Tasmania’.579 It lists as its aims:
• Recording, promoting and publishing a body of Aboriginal, TorresStrait Islander and South Sea Islander cultures.
579Giese, 112.
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• Assisting and encouraging people to pass on their history. • Making the wider community aware of the wealth of theirtradition and culture.
• Protection and education in matters of copyright. • Promoting acknowledgement of and respect for Indigenousculture through the use of published works and through electronicmedia.
• Providing employment and training of Aboriginal, Torres StraitIslander and South Sea Islander people.580
Notably, these aims make no reference to a specifically regional mandate. For this
reason, as well as its publication of writers from outside Western Australia, Magabala
Books has arguably contributed less than Fremantle Press, for example, to the
production of a regional literature in Western Australia. Also, the publishing house’s
identification with one ‘minority’ community (in other words, the Indigenous
community) has perhaps taken precedence over its identification with any other (for
example, the regional Western Australian community). Of course, the first book in any
publishing programme could be seen to make a statement about the publishing house’s
foundational values, and if this is the case, then Mayi: Some Bush Fruits of
Dampierland makes a particularly strong (though perhaps untenable, due to its limited
commercial viability) statement about Magabala Books’s commitment to both the
Indigenous and regional communities.
With its fourth publication, however, Magabala Books struck an excellent and
profitable balance between all of these competing forces, including importance and
marketability. Glenyse Ward’s memoir of her childhood experiences as a member of the
‘Stolen Generation’, Wandering Girl, was published in 1987 to much acclaim. The
book was ‘launched by the then Prime Minister Bob Hawke, and the initial print run of
5,000 sold out in two months, putting it on Sydney’s bestseller list while the rights to
publishing in the United Kingdom were taken up by Virago’.581 Heiss notes that
580Magabala Books, ‘About Us’.581Heiss, 53.
284
works like ... Glenyse Ward’s Wandering Girl ... cite far harsher lifeexperiences [than Morgan’s My Place], discrimination and the impact ofracist government policy. However these works have not had near thesame success as Morgan’s work, arguably because their content andstrong Aboriginal identification were more challenging to potentialreaders.582
Nonetheless, Wandering Girl remains one of Magabala Books’s most commercially
successful publications. Ward’s second book, Unna You Fullas, published four years
later in 1991, also brought financial rewards to the publishing house. Notably, Ward is
one of nine Indigenous writers selected for inclusion in Lyn Jacobs’s aforementioned
canon of 29 writers that comprise her assessment of the ‘wealth of this state’s literary
heritage’.
Wandering Girl made a substantial contribution to the early success of Magabala
Books by establishing its profile in the literary community and suggesting the
possibility of a more secure financial future. Magabala Books’s second and third
publications, Jalygurr: Aussie Animal Rhymes and The Story of Crow: A Nyul Nyul
Story, both titles written and illustrated by Pat Torres (with Nyul Nyul language text in
the latter title provided by Magdalene Williams), also pointed the fledgling publishing
house in a potentially lucrative direction—the area of children’s book publishing.
Nonetheless, Magabala Books encountered difficulties when the funds received from
the Australian Bicentennial Authority’s National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Program were finally used up in October 1988.583 In its first 18 months, Magabala
Books had also received a couple of small grants from the Aboriginal Affairs Planning
Authority to cover expenses like rent and the purchase of furniture, a computer, fax
machine, and a second telephone line.584 With a handful of publications now under its
belt, Magabala Books once again looked to this organisation for further funding, as well
582Ibid., 103.583Mary Wright, ‘Recording—and Remaking—History’, Fremantle Arts Review 3, no. 10 (Oct. 1988): 11.584Ibid.
285
as to the Aboriginal Arts Board and the Western Australian Department for the Arts
(now Department of Culture and the Arts).585
Funding trickled in from various organisations, but mostly from the Department
for the Arts. The publishing house’s future would not be secure, however, until the
publishing house formally severed its ties to the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture
Centre and established itself as an independent Aboriginal corporation in 1990.
Magabala Books had published 11 titles by 1990.586 Since this date, it has received
regular funding from the Western Australian Government, as well as from the Australia
Council. Of course, being dependent on a government organisation for funding can
hardly be considered a secure financial future. Nonetheless, the following chart (see
Table 4) reveals a much more stable funding pattern than the analogous chart for
Fremantle Press.
585Ibid.586Merrilee Lands, ‘Magabala Books—Celebrating Culture and Survival’, Habitat Australia 19, no. 3(Jun. 1991): 32.
286
Table 4: Western Australian Department for the Arts/ArtsWA Funding for
Magabala Books (1988–2000)587
Year Funds received
1988–89 $168,990
1989–90 $37,500
1990–91 $201,500
1991–92 $161,000
1992–93 $144,000
1993–94 $143,250
1994–95 $142,500
1995–96 $142,500
1996–97 $142,500
1997–98 $142,500
1998–99 $142,500
1999–2000 $142,500
Notably, Magabala Books did not suffer a dramatic decrease in funding beginning in the
1995–96 financial year and continuing over the next four years, as Fremantle Arts
Centre Press did in the wake of Taylor’s ‘Review into the Investment of Government in
the Publishing of Literary Works’. Instead, both Taylor in his ‘Review’ and White in
her ‘An Independent Evaluation of State Funding to Publishing of Literary Works in
Western Australia’ would seem to agree that ‘Magabala Books cannot be subjected to
the same criteria as other publishers ... because of its specific role as an Aboriginal
publisher and its attendant responsibilities’.588
Yet, a significant number of the difficulties portrayed as unique to Magabala
Books by individuals writing about the publishing house, as well as by publishing house
employees, have more to do with its status as a regional publishing house, than its
‘specific role as an Aboriginal publisher and its attendant responsibilities’. For
example, it was alluded to earlier how Magabala Books’s ‘location in Broome
587Table 4 is a composite of two sources: Taylor, ‘Review’, 20; and White, ‘Independent Evaluation’, 10.588Taylor, ‘Review’, 29.
287
exacerbates the problems for distribution, marketing and promotion which are common
to all Western Australian publishers’ (emphasis mine); after all, ‘Perth publishers are far
from eastern states markets, but have relatively ready access to Perth and the South
West of the state’, while ‘Magabala is remote from all its markets’.589 These statements
mark a common trend: Magabala Books’s difficulties might be ‘exacerbated’ by a
variety of features of the publishing house, but they are hardly unique in Western
Australian publishing. Another expert observation about the struggles that are
ostensibly specific to Magabala Books illustrates this point: ‘The most costly aspects of
publishing are printing—a huge factor—and storage. Freight is expensive as well, due
to the isolation of Broome in comparison to the authors and printers, most of whom are
a considerable distance from the Magabala office.’590 Of course, the costs associated
with the transportation of books is an issue for all Western Australian or regional
publishing houses, since they are at a great distance from the major markets for books;
however, this shared situation is then intensified by Magabala Books’s location.
Another characteristic of Magabala Books that is frequently cited as unique to its
position as an Indigenous publishing house, is how ‘the publishing process at Magabala
Books, in particular publisher-author relationships, is marked by exceptional
intensity’.591 Louise Poland expands on this idea in a journal article on the subject of
the acquisition of books by independent publishers:
The publisher faces the political and practical challenges of collaborativeprojects including multiple authors and community ownership.Furthermore, extensive consultation with Indigenous authors is requiredas almost all are first-time writers. ... Bruce Sims [Publishing Manager atMagabala Books] emphasises the importance of a publisher taking adevelopmental role when working with Aboriginal authors.592
589Ibid., 27.590Sue McGinty, ‘“It’s Really a Community Service”: Issues in the Publication and Retailing of Books inNorthern Australia’, in Value Chain Clustering in Regional Publishing Services Markets, ed. Bill Copeand Rod Brown (Altona: Common Ground Publishing, 2002), 181.591Poland, ‘Independent’, 114.592Ibid., 114–15.
288
Clearly, ‘collaborative projects including multiple authors and community ownership’
would be relatively unique to an Indigenous publishing house; there is certainly little or
no precedent for them amongst Western Australian publishing houses other than
Magabala Books. However, this is perhaps an example of the extremes of an
experience—its ‘exacerbated’ form, in other words—that is otherwise common to
Western Australian or regional publishing houses. After all, Poland mentions the
‘exceptional intensity’ of ‘publisher-author relationships’, and the need for ‘extensive
consultation’ with writers, all of which sounds very similar to what she writes about
Fremantle Press elsewhere in the same article: ‘Such a developmental role involves the
publisher in a long and careful process of working closely with the author, a form of
editorial involvement which, increasingly, multinational publishers do not choose to
make.’593 So perhaps the ‘exceptional intensity’ of ‘publisher-author relationships’ is an
issue for most or all independent publishing houses, rather than being a unique feature
of either regional or Indigenous publishing houses. Even Sims concedes (in an
interview conducted in 1997) that ‘there is an obligation [with Indigenous writers] to
consult more than usual, but I believe the same applies in any publishing.’594
Yet, even if it is not wholly unique, it has already been noted that Magabala
Books’s positioning as an Indigenous publishing house ‘exacerbates’ aspects of the need
for ‘extensive consultation’ with writers. So, too, does the positioning of a regional
publishing house. In other words, there is a hierarchy of sorts with a majority of
features that are shared by independent publishing houses; however, some of the
struggles that are particular to independent publishing houses are ‘exacerbated’ for
regional/independent publishing houses, and then are more difficult again for
Indigenous/regional/independent publishing houses. So when Poland writes ‘extensive
consultation with Indigenous authors is required as almost all are first-time writers’, it
593Ibid., 114.594Ibid., 115, quoting Bruce Sims.
289
should be noted that independent publishing houses will often devote a percentage of
their output to ‘first-time writers’ that is greater than any multinational publishing
house, and regional publishing houses (which are also almost always independent) will
contribute more than their fair share to this total.595 A publishing house that is
independent and regional and Indigenous could be said to be triply marginalised, and as
a result attracts an especially high percentage of ‘first-time’ and ‘only-time’ writers.
Consequently, Magabala Books frequently receives manuscripts
in forms that are not ready for publication: on tape, partially developedand sometimes just as ideas and the visions of storytellers.Developmental work entails recording stories, transcribing them,obtaining language translations for bilingual productions, and theapproval of community elders for some of the stories.596
Fremantle Press receives more than 40 unsolicited manuscripts per month.597 It
currently publishes approximately 30 books annually, or six percent of the more than
500 manuscripts it receives.598 Magabala Books, on the other hand, receives only three
or four manuscripts per month599 and rejects ‘between 20 and 40 books’ each year.600
Magabala Books currently publishes an average of five books per year, or between ten
and 20 percent of the unsolicited manuscripts it receives.
When Magabala Books finally decides to publish a title, ‘most print runs are
between 1500 and 4000 as a rule, but smaller and larger runs are organised when
required’.601 Landmark acts as the publishing house’s distributor to the national trade
(previously Australian Book Group was its distributor), and Fremantle Press as its
distributor to the trade in Western Australia with the exception of the Kimberley, where
Magabala Books oversees its own distribution network. The statement earlier about
Magabala Books being ‘remote from all its markets’ is not entirely true, as 34.7% (or
595Julian Lee, ‘Publishers Shun Rookie Authors’, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 May 2004.596Lands, 32.597Brian Raymond Coffey, interview by King, 46.598Heiss, 59.599Giese, 112.600McGinty, 179.601Ibid., 179–80.
290
$198,314.19) of the publishing house’s 2005 sales, for example, resulted from its own
distribution.602 A percentage of this figure was undoubtedly obtained from Magabala
Books distributing books directly to customers or bookstores outside the Kimberley
(indeed, there is a note that $5,427 resulted from distribution to the ‘overseas market’)
through avenues such as sales on the publishing house’s website, but this should not
detract from the obvious conclusion that the Kimberley is a strong market for Magabala
Books’s publications.603 In fact, the second-highest percentage of sales from any single
distributor came from Landmark and the national trade, but this comprised only 23% (or
$131,158.58) of the overall sales for 2005, much less than Magabala Books obtained
through its own distribution network.604
Magabala Books also has a distributor in the United States, but only a small
percentage of its titles that are successful domestically penetrate this market. Early in
its history, the publishing house had three such titles: Glenyse Ward’s Wandering Girl,
Bill Neidjie’s Story About Feeling (1989), and Raparapa Kularr Martuwarra: All Right,
Now We Go 'side the River, Along That Sundown Way: Stories from the Fitzroy River
Drovers (1988, edited by Paul Marshall). Other particularly successful Magabala Books
publications (though they have not necessarily been distributed in the United States)
include ‘four collaborations between husband-and-wife team Pat Lowe and Jimmy Pike,
with Pike providing his distinctive illustrations’; ‘the work of urban novelists Philip
McLaren and Bruce Pascoe’; and numerous children’s picture books, including the
award-winning Do Not Go Around the Edges (1990) by Daisy Utemorrah with
illustrations by Pat Torres, Tjarany Roughtail (1992) by Gracie Green and Joe
Tramacchi with illustrations by Lucille Gill, A Home for Bilby (2004) by Joanne
602Magabala Books, ‘Sales Figures 2005’.603Ibid.604Ibid.
291
Crawford with illustrations by Grace Fielding, and The Mark of the Wagarl (2004) by
Lorna Little with illustrations by Janice Lyndon.605
A couple of social history titles have already been mentioned or alluded to,
including Raparapa and Jilji: Life in the Great Sandy Desert (1990) with text and
photographs by Pat Lowe and paintings by Jimmy Pike, but these alone cannot do
justice to the breadth and depth of this publishing category at Magabala Books. Other
notable titles include Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance (1995) by Howard
Pedersen and Banjo Woorunmurra, and Out of the Desert: Stories from the Walmajarri
Exodus (2002) edited by Eirlys Richard, Joyce Hudson and Pat Lowe, both of which
won their subject prize in the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards, while
Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance also won the overall Premier’s Prize. Social
history and life writing arguably form the core of Magabala Books’s publishing
programme, with fiction publishing occupying a much smaller segment. The publishing
house has also published a very small selection of poetry, most notably the work of Alf
Taylor, and one play—‘the popular musical Bran Nue Dae by Jimmy Chi and Kuckles
was jointly published by Currency Press (and Magabala) in 1991’.606
Of course, any successes Magabala Books has enjoyed over the years have been
matched by funding problems and commercially unsuccessful publications. In 2001, for
example, Magabala Books published ten new titles and reprinted four more, but ‘only
two of these books ... actually sold well’.607 Then, the publishing house’s triennial
funding agreement with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board of the
Australia Council was changed to an annual agreement and its funding dramatically
reduced. Consequently, Magabala Books ‘chose to restructure and cease publishing for
six months at the beginning of 2002’.608 It has since significantly reduced the number of
605Giese, 112–13.606Heiss, 64.607Magabala Books, ‘Annual Report 2004’, 16.608Ibid.
292
new titles it publishes to the current level of five books per year, but it also seems to
have found new relevance in a recommendation from Taylor’s 1995 ‘Review into the
Investment of Government in the Publishing of Literary Works’:
Magabala, being an Aboriginal publisher, has a special niche in thenational market if adequately promoted. ... Recommendation 9: ThatMagabala Books be encouraged to target the tourist market in Broomeand two locations in Perth with specific marketing strategies over a trialperiod of one year, with a view to expanding this to other tourist areas inAustralia should it prove successful.609
Thus, the Magabala Books website now features the following declaration:
The Board recognises that it is crucial to grow the business of MagabalaBooks to increase commercial viability so that we can support the socialand cultural objectives of the organisation. We have identified thetourism market as an area that has an unmet need for quality Indigenousproduct that can be supplied by Magabala Books using existing artisticcollateral. This may include merchandising or product diversificationusing the books that Magabala produces as the basis for productdevelopment.610
The publishing house’s recent financial difficulties have inspired contemplation
of all aspects of its future: ‘The original aims and objectives are under scrutiny, now that
more publishing houses are taking up the work of Indigenous writers and artists. ...
Priorities [must be] determined, including whether to focus more on the Kimberley
area.’611 Magabala Books has always had a ‘particular interest in servicing the
Kimberley communities, with whom [it] closely liaises’, and yet it has also always
published the work of Indigenous writers from around Australia.612 The publishing
house has established interstate links that assist with the sometimes difficult
negotiations involved in a long-distance writer/publisher relationship.613 However, these
measures are not always seen to be sufficient:
The Australian Publishers Association Residential Editorial Program ...highlights the problems for Magabala as a result of its establishment in
609Taylor, ‘Review’, 27.610Magabala Books, ‘About Us’.611Giese, 113.612Ibid., 112.613Ibid.
293
such a remote location: ‘Editors need to be given the opportunity to meetwith authors more frequently. Several editors admitted that they had notmet authors whose work they had edited and that they perceived this as amajor problem in developing their manuscripts.’614
This injunction from the Australian Publishers Association Residential Editorial
Program is particularly relevant to Magabala Books, which in 1994 published a memoir
titled My Own Sweet Time, ostensibly written by a young Indigenous woman named
Wanda Koolmatrie. The book subsequently won the $5,000 Nita May Dobbie Award,
which is given to the best first novel by a woman writer. However, when the author’s
agent attempted in 1997 to submit a sequel to the prize-winning memoir, Magabala
Books insisted on meeting the author—up until this point, the publishing house had
dealt exclusively with the author’s agent—at which time it was revealed that the author
of My Own Sweet Time was not an Indigenous woman, but rather a white man named
Leon Carmen.
Clearly, Magabala Books’s status as an Indigenous publishing house made it the
target of Carmen’s literary hoax, but it was its positioning as a regional publishing
house with a national mandate that made it most susceptible to being hoaxed.
‘Focus[ing] more on the Kimberley area’ would almost certainly decrease the likelihood
of a hoax such as this being perpetrated on the publishing house ever again, but this is
never mentioned as a factor in Magabala Books’s recent consideration of a renewed (or
simply ‘new’) focus on the Kimberley region. Instead, it is said that ‘more publishing
houses are taking up the work of Indigenous writers and artists’, and Magabala Books
needs to differentiate itself from these producers, as well as differentiate the titles it
publishes from those of more ‘mainstream’ publishing houses. The publishing house’s
2006–08 business plan lists as one of its strengths the fact that it is ‘small and remote’:
Magabala is a relatively small organisation based in Broome, a fairlyremote regional town in the far north of Western Australia. While thiscould be perceived to be a weakness, in fact the reverse is true.
614Heiss, 54, quoting ‘Australian Publishers Association Residential Editorial Program Report 1999’, 17.
294
Magabala gains significant media attention precisely because of theuniqueness of the organisation regarding product and location.615
The last sentence of this excerpt arguably contains the two keys to Magabala Books’s
niche market appeal—‘the uniqueness of the organisation regarding product and
location’ (emphasis mine). In addition to being ‘small and remote’, the business plan
also lists as a strength that ‘Magabala Books is the only independent Indigenous
publishing house in Australia’.616 Magabala Books has always recognised the value of
emphasising the distinctiveness of its ‘product’, but perhaps now it is beginning to
better understand the potential value associated with the distinctiveness of its regional
‘location’.
Early in Magabala Books’s history, a newspaper journalist wrote of the
publishing house,
There is, inevitably, a view among some West Australian writers andpublishers that Magabala Books represents an unfortunate trend. Whyestablish a press (with substantial subsidy money) that won’t entertain theidea of publishing Uncle Wal’s bush ballads or the Hills short story writer—unless, of course, the authors are Aboriginal?617
This statement—or, at least, the ‘view’ described in this statement and the assumptions
that allow certain aspects of it to remain unwritten—seems to imply that Aboriginal
writers are not part of the larger community of Western Australian writers. Vickie
Laurie writes ‘some West Australian writers’, but what is meant is ‘some [non-
Indigenous] West Australian writers’, with the logical implication being that ‘West
Australian writers’ are non-Indigenous. And yet, as has been previously noted, many
Indigenous Western Australian writers have been embraced as central to an informal
canon of Western Australian literature. Therefore, it should be said that some of the
complaints about Magabala Books (such as those found in the excerpt above) arise
simply from objections to a system of government subsidy; the same sorts of complaints
615Magabala Books, ‘Business Plan 2006–2008’, 3.616Ibid.617Vickie Laurie, 26.
295
have been made about Fremantle Press and are unrelated to the ethnicity of the writers
being published or issues of content.
Without bothering to discuss any of the more clearly racist objections to
Magabala Books, there nonetheless remains another type of complaint that is very much
related to its identity as an Indigenous publishing house. The ‘view’ Laurie describes in
the above excerpt captures (perhaps unintentionally) a prominent aspect of this
complaint: Western Australians, like all marginalised communities, appear to believe a
degree of unity (and thus, uniformity) is necessary if they are to have any chance of a
successful rejoinder to the dominant group. Fremantle Press, for example, is commonly
thought of as the Western Australian publishing house, and the degree of unity this
represents has contributed to its success in raising the profile of Western Australian
writers and writing. On the other hand, Magabala Books is perhaps not seen as aiding
in this effort, since its primary allegiance is to a differently defined marginalised
community (in other words, the Indigenous community). Even the publishing house’s
name, Magabala Books, taps into the traditions of the latter community without
acknowledging the former (or at least not in a fashion recognised by the non-Indigenous
majority of the former):
Magabala is the Nyul Nyul, Nyangumarta, Karrajari and Yawurutraditional language word for the bush banana found on the westKimberley coast. ... Every part can be eaten—the skin, green seeds andpulp. Later the fruit hardens and dries, in preparation for the dispersal ofits many seeds with their spectacular parasol-shaped aerofoils. Like thebush banana, our organisation spreads the seeds of Aboriginal, TorresStrait Islander and South Sea Islander cultures, publishing and promotingIndigenous literature in Australia and throughout the world.618
Clearly, Magabala Books’s identity as an Indigenous publishing house is important both
to Magabala Books and its readership, but perhaps Magabala Books has underestimated
the relevance of its activities in the context of the region, much less as potentially
contributing to a regional literature. After all, while Western Australian ‘writers from
618Magabala Books, ‘About Us’.
296
both cultures [Indigenous and non-Indigenous] confront unresolved national issues of
equity, they similarly celebrate their regional distance from east coast imperatives as a
mark of artistic and social independence’.619
Magabala Books has published more than 100 titles since it was established in
1987, a fact which clearly marks it as one of the most significant publishing houses
operating in Western Australia. Within the diversity of a book publishing scene that
includes a trade publishing house (Fremantle Press), an academic publishing house
(University of Western Australia Press), and an Indigenous publishing house (Magabala
Books)—not to mention numerous smaller operations—the sites at which these Western
Australian publishing houses experience commonalities, form a compelling case for the
shared experiences of regional publishers in other parts of the world. Of course, these
sites are largely derived from their shared experiences of being located outside the
cultural centres, where the lack of access to the gatekeepers of cultural production (such
as literary agents, editors and publishers) has inhibited their reach into the public
imagination. As arguably the best example from amongst the regional publishing
houses under discussion of the tensions that exist between the marginalised and the
dominant group—a defining feature of regionalism and regional literature—Magabala
Books plays a particularly important role in this discussion.
IV. University of Western Australia Press
University of Western Australia Press (UWA Press) was the first book publishing
house established in Western Australia. It was established in 1935 in order ‘to produce
less expensive and more relevant student textbooks than those available through British
publishers’.620 UWA Press has since left off publishing textbooks, and instead has built
619Jacobs, 308.620Geoffrey Shellam, foreword to A Press in Isolation: University of Western Australia Press 1935–2004,by Criena Fitzgerald (Crawley: University of Western Australia Press, 2005), v.
297
its identity as an academic publisher with a regional or Western Australian focus. In
2005, a book-length history of UWA Press was published to commemorate 70 years in
the book publishing business. Criena Fitzgerald’s A Press in Isolation: University of
Western Australia Press 1935–2004, published by University of Western Australia
Press, provides a reasonably comprehensive—though perhaps uncritical—account of
the publishing house’s history. Consequently, there is little need for this information to
be repeated here. Instead, this section of the thesis will confine itself to a brief critical
assessment of UWA Press’s history and current work as it has contributed to the
production of a regional literature in Western Australia.
Associate Professor and then Director of UWA Press Jenny Gregory notes in the
introduction to A Press in Isolation that
UWA Press is physically remote from the country’s major capital citiesand thus the major Australian book markets. Established to publishacademic books, it occupies an isolated position in an uneasy placebordering the world of commercial publishing. Set a task that is notprofitable, it has at times been marginalised and isolated within theuniversity.
But there are immensely positive aspects to geographicalisolation. It has triggered the Press’s strong regional focus, which hasbeen crucial for our understanding of the place in which we live. It hasheightened the Press’s awareness of the need to reach out and to publishbooks of international relevance.621
Clearly, there are many similarities between UWA Press, Fremantle Press and Magabala
Books, including their locations, which are ‘physically remote from the country’s major
capital cities’, having both positive and negative implications for their publishing
operations. Furthermore, like Magabala Books, UWA Press is marginalised not only by
its regional location and commitment to a regional community, but also by other aspects
of its publishing mandate such as its commitment to academic publishing.
Another similarity between the three publishing houses is that they all augment
their income received from book sales with substantial subsidies: Fremantle Press and
621Gregory, introduction to A Press in Isolation, 7–8.
298
Magabala Books benefit from government assistance, while UWA Press receives a
subsidy from the university, without which it would be unable to continue its operations.
Of course, university publishing houses are also subject to some unique forces,
and it is these forces to which the university is typically responding when it decides to
subsidise a publishing house’s operations. Frank Thompson attempts to summarise
these forces (from a specifically Australian perspective) in his ‘case-study’ of university
publishing houses:
Book publishing in Australia has always faced the problems of a smallpopulation base, competition from cheaper imports, and vast distancesbetween population centres. These problems are even more severe foruniversity presses. Because distribution costs are high, mainstreamdistributors are reluctant to handle expensive scholarly titles with suchsmall markets. Similarly, overseas importers are disinclined to marketthese titles. ... Australia’s surviving university presses have fought theseproblems in similar ways, confining their publishing to Australian topicsprincipally in the humanities and natural sciences—areas in whichimports cannot compete. They have broadened their lists to include non-academic books, and have focussed their attention on the subtleties of theAustralian marketplace.622
As Thompson notes, many of these ‘problems’ are common to publishing houses across
Australia, to one degree or another. For example, the unit price for Australia-originated
books is typically higher than for imported titles, because of the relatively small
population and, thus, print runs; this is a problem for independent publishing houses
more so than for their multinational colleagues. Thompson notes, however, that ‘these
problems are even more severe for university presses’.
While it is not the subject of the above excerpt, it has been noted many times
elsewhere in this thesis that these ‘problems’ are also more severe for regional
publishing houses. It follows that it would be especially difficult for a regional,
university publishing house such as University of Western Australia Press:
622Frank Thompson, ‘Case-study: University Presses’, in Paper Empires: A History of the Book in
Australia, 1946–2005, ed. Craig Munro and Robyn Sheahan-Bright (St. Lucia: University of QueenslandPress, 2006), 335.
299
Distribution and marketing have always been expensive for Australianpublishers because of the large distances between major populationcentres. For UWAP [University of Western Australia Press] the problemis even greater, because not only is Western Australia separated from therest of Australia by a vast desert but the state itself is huge.623
Consequently, UWA Press’s commitment to regional interests has been perhaps as much
a defining feature of its history as its commitment to academic concerns. Or, as
Thompson succinctly describes it, ‘Geographically, the University of Western Australia
Press (UWAP) is the most remote Australian university press and this has done much to
shape its publishing profile.’624 Among Australian university publishing houses, only
Central Queensland University Press (established in 1993) and Quintus Publishing
(established in 2006 as a joint venture between The University of Tasmania and Arts
Tasmania, the state government’s arts funding body), have a regional mandate similar to
that of UWA Press.
University of Western Australia Press’s regional mandate was an important
feature of the publishing house almost from its inception in 1935 as The University of
Western Australia Text Books Board. While its initial publication was the first volume
of the non-place specific University Studies in History and Economics, by 1941 it was
publishing more regionally specific titles such as J. Gentilli’s Atlas of Western
Australian Agriculture. In 1953, the publishing house changed its name to University of
Western Australia Press, and under this new brand continued to make a valuable
contribution to the culture of the region.
However, as was mentioned in Chapter 3 of this thesis, very little of UWA
Press’s publishing programme prior to 1970 falls within the parameters of the definition
of ‘literature’ employed in this thesis. Gregory notes in her introduction to A Press in
Isolation that, ‘in the 1970s, as the Press increasingly focussed on publishing in the
623Ibid., 331.624Ibid.
300
humanities, the idea of the textbook gradually began to fall out of favour in that area’.625
This resulted in the first substantial introduction of literature to UWA Press’s publishing
programme. Then, beginning in the mid-1980s, but only really gaining momentum with
the arrival of Janine Drakeford at the Press in 1992, UWA Press diversified its list
further to include children’s books under its Cygnet Books imprints.626 The pool of
talented writers it draws upon has, consequently, also been stretched far beyond its
traditional base in academia. This development has resulted in strong sales for the
Press, as well as a large number of awards from bodies as diverse as the Children’s
Book Council and the Wilderness Society, not to mention numerous awards in the
children’s book category of the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards. At
approximately the same time as the Press introduced children’s books to its publishing
programme, it also began making a more concerted effort to reach a general trade
audience; this effort included publishing an increasing number of titles with ‘popular’ or
commercial appeal, such as ‘gift’ or ‘coffee table’ books, as well as a ‘more aggressive
marketing and promotions policy’.627 This timeline roughly corresponds with Fremantle
Arts Centre Press’s similar efforts.
Nonetheless, the majority of University of Western Australia Press’s output
remains decidedly non-literary. As recently as 2006, The Australian Writer’s
Marketplace described the publishing house’s ‘specialisation’ as ‘natural history,
history, maritime history, contemporary issues, critical studies, women’s studies, literary
studies, general non-fiction (e.g. travel), children’s picture books, and young fiction’.628
It is often (though not necessarily) the case that much of the material published in these
genres (with the exception of children’s and young adult books) will not participate in
the aforementioned ‘broadly based, as distinct from a narrowly specialist, cultural
625Gregory, introduction to A Press in Isolation, 5.626University of Western Australia Press, ‘Children’s Catalogue 2005–2006’.627Fitzgerald, 82.628Queensland Writers Centre, 477.
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debate’. Given that UWA Press was the only book publishing house in Western
Australia for a full 40 years until Fremantle Arts Centre Press was founded in 1975, it is
perhaps surprising that this may mean UWA Press will never rival the influence of
Fremantle Press when it comes to shaping the way in which individuals conceive of the
region and of a regional literature. Nonetheless, it is undoubtedly true that UWA Press
‘remains an essential regional voice’.629 On those occasions when it produces a book
that reaches beyond a narrowly conceived audience, it makes ‘an important contribution
to discussion of the environment, history and culture of WA and beyond’—that is, it
makes an important contribution to a regional literature.630
In 2001, the Press began publishing young adult fiction under its Cygnet Young
Fiction imprint, followed by the introduction of adult fiction for the first time in 2005
under its New Fiction imprint. The latter development, in particular, had the potential to
increase UWA Press’s influence in defining a regional literature and move it into
territory otherwise successfully colonised by Fremantle Press. However, instead of
focusing on its regional mandate during the implementation of its New Writing imprint,
the Press emphasised its commitment to the academic community by limiting the
manuscripts it would consider to those received from postgraduate students enrolled in
(or recent graduates of) university courses in creative writing; there was no geographical
limitation to this brief. More recently, UWA Press under the leadership of Director
Terri-ann White decided to accept submissions to the imprint from university staff, as
well as students. Yet, it purchased the rights to Scottish author Ewan Morrison’s
collection of short stories, The Last Book You Read and Other Stories (first published by
Edinburgh-based Black & White Publishing in 2005), which it then published in 2007,
with no explanation forthcoming of the current focus of the New Writing imprint.
629Thompson, 335.630Queensland Writers Centre, 477.
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Another recent development at UWA Press is that, as of May 2007, it is
‘undergoing a period of “renewal” involving staffing changes and a new focus’.631
White has said that she is ‘trying to reposition UWA Press, as an Australian intellectual
publisher based in Perth, to take much more of a marketing and business approach and
to look at the press as more of a national press’.632 She characterised these changes as
‘follow[ing] on from the launch of a fiction list in late 2005’.633 Furthermore, it has
been reported that UWA Press ‘will discontinue its young adult list and has put on hold
its publishing of children’s books, pending a reassessment of the list’.634 All of these
developments appear geared towards repositioning and asserting UWA Press’s role as a
university publishing house of national significance, to the detriment of its other
traditional role as a regional publishing house. Of course, the Press will almost
certainly continue to publish, for example, scientific works concerned with the flora and
fauna of the region—especially since Conservation International identified the
southwest of Western Australia as one of 25 ‘biodiversity hotspots’ in the world, thereby
virtually guaranteeing a modest but consistent institutional audience for these titles—as
well as local histories. However, these are not often books that fit the definition of
‘literature’ employed in this thesis and, more importantly, that is recognised by many of
the most influential forces in book production (for example, government funding bodies
for the arts, literary editors at newspapers, the ‘general reader’). In contrast, those
books that are intended to appeal to a more broadly conceived audience and recognised
as ‘literature’ will most likely have been denuded of their regionality.
In the past, UWA Press’s status as a university publishing house was nearly as
important as its status as a regional, Western Australian publishing house. Balancing the
631‘Changes at UWA Press’, in Bookseller+Publisher Online (2 May 2007, accessed 2 Apr. 2008), quotingTerri-ann White; available from http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2007/05/04042/.632Ibid.633‘Changes at UWA Press’.634‘UWA Press Reassessing Children’s List’, in Bookseller+Publisher Online, (8 Aug. 2007, accessed 2Apr. 2008); available from http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2007/08/05096/.
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demands of these two arguably marginalised communities (in other words, communities
of university and regional publishing houses—not the university community as a whole,
which cannot be characterised as marginalised) defined its publishing history. Now,
while the Press’s association with The University of Western Australia is in many ways
enough to sustain its appearance of importance in the Western Australian community, it
seems that in other more relevant ways UWA Press has begun to absolve itself from the
task of promoting a regional literature in Western Australia. Interestingly, other
university publishing houses, faced with a similar sort of question about where they are
meant to turn ‘if the role of monographs diminishes in the coming years and university
support continues to decline’, have ‘tried to become regional publishers as a solution to
this dilemma’.635 Specifically, university publishing houses in the American states of
‘Nebraska and Oklahoma have developed impressive lines of books on local history’.636
Nonetheless, the process of absolving itself from the task of promoting a
regional literature, which already appears to be gaining momentum, could be sped up if
UWA Press embraces electronic publishing as an alternative to more conventional print
publishing methods. White wrote in April 2008, on the subject of electronic publishing,
‘We are currently exploring the whole field—there is a strong chance we’ll make a
move in the next 18 months.’637 Experts in the field of electronic publishing have noted
that ‘when it comes to e-publishing, it could be argued that university presses are ideally
suited to this development in the book world’.638 The rationale for this statement is that
the ‘underlying motivation’ of university publishing houses is ‘to disseminate
information, as opposed to the commercial aims of mainstream trade publishers’.639
According to this logic, UWA Press would be much more likely to consider electronic
635Schiffrin, 139.636Ibid.637Terri-ann White, e-mail to author, 2 Apr. 2008.638‘E-presses impress universities’, Campus Bookseller+Publisher, Oct. 2006, 18.639Ibid.
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publishing than the other two Western Australian publishing houses, Fremantle Press
and Magabala Books. However, where ‘mainstream trade publishers’ are taking steps in
this direction—for example, by digitising all new and backlist titles, as HarperCollins is
doing—they are almost invariably multinational publishing houses; they can afford such
forays into emerging technologies where any financial returns may not be seen for many
years, whereas small, independent publishing houses cannot.640
The first step in this process is digitising the publishing house’s output:
‘Digitising has many aspects: there’s digitising for production, for searchability, for e-
books and so forth.’641 The then Production Manager at UWA Press, Janine Drakeford,
has said that the ‘company’s digital output is less than 10%, but adds that figure is “at
present”’.642 None of the titles the Press has digitalised have been released as e-books.
In contrast, Australian National University and Monash University already have
extensive electronic publishing programmes, Melbourne University Publishing ‘has
advertised CD-ROM titles and University of Queensland Press has experimented with
an electronic text—a medical resource book’.643 The concern for a publishing house
with a regional brief, such as UWA Press, is that ‘electronic media pose problems ...
when it comes to defining their location in the sense of their attachment to region and
their local symbolic significance within, for example, contexts such as the idea of
“Australia” or “Australian”’.644 Clearly, much the same thing could be said for
electronic media in the context of ‘Western Australia’, thereby further divorcing UWA
Press from its regional situation and the constituent community.
640Andrew Wilkins, ‘Future-proofing HarperCollins’, Bookseller+Publisher, Aug. 2006, 17.641Ibid., quoting Jane Friedman.642
Bookseller+Publisher, Feb. 2006, 31, quoting Janine Drakeford.
643Anne Galligan, ‘Case-study: Publishers On-line’, in Paper Empires: A History of the Book in Australia,1946–2005, ed. Craig Munro and Robyn Sheahan-Bright (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press,
2006), 132.644Martin Harrison, Who Wants to Create Australia?: Essays on Poetry and Ideas in Contemporary
Australia (Broadway: Halstead Press, 2004), 11.
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Of course, University of Western Australia Press has published more than 700
titles since 1935—it currently publishes an average of 25–30 books per year—and none
of these have been e-books. With the Press’s already unsteady commitment to its
regional base, a possible future in electronic publishing is perhaps a small concern when
the issue at hand is the production of a regional literature in Western Australia.
Roy Lourens, then lecturer at The University of Western Australia when he ‘conducted
an investigation in 1971 into the Press finances’ (at the behest of the Deputy Vice
Chancellor), reminisced in a 2002 interview:645
Remember in those days The University of Western Australia was still ina Cinderella state, fighting for national recognition and someinternational recognition. It didn’t like to be parochial and tended toresist parochial things, so it was probably more anti-Press in the earlydays than the later ones. When it got its confidence, such as in the late‘80s and ‘90s, it felt more comfortable about specialising in a regionalPress.646
Of course, UWA Press contributed to this new confidence—both within the university
and in the wider Western Australian community—through the publication of scholarly
titles on Western Australian topics that received national acclaim, such as Tom
Stannage’s edited collection A New History of Western Australia (1981) and the fourteen
volumes published in honour of the Western Australian sesquicentenary. Brian Dickey
at Flinders University wrote of the former publication in a 1984 issue of Canberra
Times, ‘The scholars of the West have no need to suffer inferiority complexes. I
commend the presence of this fine volume.’647 Interestingly, the aforementioned
publications represent high points for UWA Press in its roles as both university and
regional publishing house.
645Fitzgerald, 45.646Ibid., 45–46, quoting Roy Lourens.647Cited in Fitzgerald, 59.
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Clearly, it is possible to balance the demands of these two roles—and perhaps
striking the appropriate balance even increases the Press’s chances of success—but, of
course, success thus measured does not necessarily equate with commercial success.
UWA Press is understandably concerned with ensuring its continued existence by
establishing a commercially successful publishing model. It is unlikely, however, to
ever achieve complete financial independence from The University of Western
Australia. Thus, if UWA Press’s decision ‘to take much more of a marketing and
business approach’ has already resulted in indications that its commitment to the
production of a regional literature is wavering, this raises questions about how long it
can sustain its commitment to that other marginalised role—as a university publishing
house—that constitutes its identity. Of course, any perceived neglect of its
responsibilities as a university publishing house would endanger its funding from the
University. Already, its movement away from a firm commitment to the Western
Australian region could be perceived as a black mark in the university’s register, since
The University of Western Australia sees the Press as fulfilling part of its brief of
community outreach—a ‘new emphasis’ that ‘was a direct consequence of the federal
government’s Committee for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, which began to
measure community service by universities in 1993’.648
Of course, this is all very similar to Fremantle Press’s increased concern with the
bottom line beginning in the early to mid-1990s—even the timelines approximately
match—and the effects this had on its publishing programme, as well as on the benefits
it could be perceived as providing the Western Australian Government in return for its
funding. Both publishing houses would do well to remember a comment made by Brian
de Garis, which although he is referring specifically to the publishing of history titles at
648Gregory, introduction to A Press in Isolation, 5–6.
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UWA Press, with a few substitutions would apply equally well to any Western
Australian publishing house:
The fundamental value of the Press as a publisher of history is that muchof the history I have referred to would probably never have beenpublished if the Press had not been there. ... Although some of the localhistories and commissioned histories brought out by the Press wouldhave found out-of-state publishers, and others would have been producedby local printers without adequate professional publishing input, manywould probably never have been written without the assurance of acompetent local publisher.649
The minute any of the three Western Australian publishing houses described in this
chapter of the thesis loses sight of this ‘fundamental value’, it also loses sight of its most
distinguishing feature and perhaps only competitive advantage, thus exposing itself to
the many and various advantages that publishing houses located in the traditional
centres of book publishing have over those located outside these centres.
V. Other Western Australian publishing houses
As was mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, there are publishing houses
in Western Australia beyond the three identified above. The histories and current work
of these other publishing houses are not charted in this thesis, however, since they are
mostly hobby or ‘vanity’ publishing houses, or they publish titles that do not fit the
definition of ‘literature’ employed in this thesis. Fremantle Press, Magabala Books and
University of Western Australia Press produce the vast majority of Western Australia’s
relatively modest literary output and, thus, also contribute the most to the formulation of
a regional literature in Western Australia. Nonetheless, for the sake of
comprehensiveness, it is worth providing a brief description of some of the other
publishing houses currently operating in Western Australia. These publishing houses
can be roughly divided into four categories: educational publishing, vanity publishing,
poetry publishing, and specialist publishing.
649de Garis, 126.
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Educational publishing: Narkaling publishes audio books that are meant to aid
young people with literacy and reading difficulties, as well as a range of short, easy-to-
read fiction and non-fiction titles in print for adults;650 Ready-Ed Publications publishes
‘educational photocopy masters for primary schools and secondary schools’;651
Chalkface Press ‘specialises in publishing textbooks for students and teachers in the
area of subject English, at secondary and tertiary level’;652 and RIC Publications, which
‘was incorporated in 1986 with the primary aim of producing’ books for Australian
primary school teachers that included the right to photocopy pages for student use, now
has a publishing list that ‘exceeds 900 titles’ and ‘offices in England, Ireland and Japan’,
in addition to its home office in Western Australia.653
Vanity publishing: Indian Ocean Books publishes approximately 80 titles per
year in the genres of fiction and poetry;654 Valvana Publishing House publishes on
average one title per year from the genres of ‘poetry, short stories, plays, biography,
novels, and music’, and it donates the proceeds from sales of its publications to
charity;655 and Access Press ‘specialises in limited print runs ... of biographical,
autobiographical or historical works’, although it also occasionally publishes works
with larger print runs that do not fit the ‘vanity publishing’ bill.656
Poetry publishing: Cactus Publishing typically publishes one poetry title per
year;657 and Sunline Press, which is run by Roland Leach (a poet with a volume
published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press), also publishes on average one poetry title
per year.658
650Queensland Writers Centre, 450.651Ibid., 463.652Chalkface Press, ‘About Chalkface Press’, in Chalkface Press (accessed 4 Apr. 2008); available fromhttp://www.chalkface.net.au.653RIC Publications, ‘About Us’, in RIC Publications (accessed 16 Apr. 2008); available from
http://www.ricgroup.com.au/Frontend/aboutus.html.654Queensland Writers Centre, 440.655Ibid., 478.656Ibid., 411.657Ibid., 421.658Sunline Press, ‘About Sunline Press’, in Sunline Press (accessed 4 Apr. 2008); available from
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Specialist publishing: Æolian Press specialises in Italian literature in translation,
as well as the publication of limited edition fine art books;659 Hesperian Press has
published more than 300 titles since it was founded by Peter Bridge in 1979,
specialising in ‘bush history’, Australiana and reprints of historical source material;660
Kaleidoscope Publishing publishes 15–25 titles per year that are concerned with
Christian themes;661 Western Australian Museum Publications ‘is a specialist press
dedicated to publishing quality books about the natural and cultural heritage and
environment of Western Australia and Australia’, which is of course housed in the
Western Australian Museum;662 and the Westerly Centre ‘is a research centre situated
within the School of Social and Cultural Studies at The University of Western
Australia’, which every year publishes ‘up to two books of literature or literary
scholarship’ on the subject of Australian literature, as well as the literary journal
Westerly.663
Notably, none of these publishing houses has ever published a play or film
script. Fremantle Press, Magabala Books and University of Western Australia Press
also all have very limited records of publishing dramatic scripts: Fremantle Press
published Hewett’s The Man from Mukinupin (in conjunction with Currency Press) and
Radio Quartet: A Collection of Radio Plays (1980) by Joan Ambrose, Hal Colebatch,
John Meredith Evans, and Elizabeth Jolley; Magabala Books published Bran Nue Dae
(also in conjunction with Sydney-based Currency Press); and UWA Press has never
published a play or film script. Considering two of Australia’s most notable
http://www.sunlinepress.com.au/sunline/.659Æolian Press, ‘The Æolian Press’, in Fontecolombo: A Piece of Italy in Western Australia (accessed 4Apr. 2008); available from http://www.fontecolombo.com.au.660Hesperian Press, ‘About Hesperian Press’, in Hesperian Press: Real Australian Books (accessed 4 Apr.2008); available from http://www.hesperianpress.com/otherpages/about.htm.661Queensland Writers Centre, 443.662Western Australian Museum, ‘Western Australian Museum Publications’, in Western AustralianMuseum (accessed 4 Apr. 2008); available from http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/collections/publications/wampubs.asp.663Westerly Centre, ‘Home’, in Westerly Centre (accessed 4 Apr. 2008); available fromhttp://www.westerlycentre.uwa.edu.au/home.
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playwrights, Jack Davis and Dorothy Hewett, were born and spent much of their lives in
Western Australia, this is a remarkable gap in the Western Australian publishing scene.
The oddity of this situation is only multiplied by the presence in Perth of the nationally
renowned Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (which teaches units in
script writing), as well as a lively community of theatrical practitioners and theatre-
goers.
All of the publishing houses listed above are currently operating Western
Australian publishing houses. It is not worth mentioning most of the publishing houses
that have been founded and since ceased operations in the period from 1970 until the
present, since the majority of these would be a perfect fit for the categories outlined
above. Besides, any contribution they made to the production of a regional literature in
Western Australia was generally small, bordering on the inconsequential. Perhaps the
only two no-longer-operating publishing houses worth mentioning are St. George Books
and Artlook Books.
St. George Books was founded in 1980 ‘as a subsidiary of West Australian
Newspapers’.664 It published titles from all genres, but these titles were ‘often linked to
the Western Australian market’, including reprints of written and photographic material
originally published in The West Australian newspaper.665 Notable titles include
Western Images: Western Australia in Pictures from the Colonial Era to the Present
(1996) with text by Thomas Austen, and In Perspective: An Anthology of Women’s
Writing (1993) written by members of the Western Australian branch of the Society of
Women Writers.
Helen Weller and a non-profit literary group known as the Nine Club began to
publish a magazine, Artlook, in 1973.666 The magazine eventually folded in 1983, but
664Queensland Writers Centre, 471.665Ibid.666Publish Your Own Book (Northbridge: Access Press), 1.
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not before Weller led the group into book publishing in 1979. Artlook Books, as the
publishing house would come to be known, was initially set up to publish works by
Western Australian writers, though it later abandoned this brief.667 Within four years,
Artlook Books had published more than 100 titles.668 Among its most successful
publications were France Australe: A Study of French Explorations and Attempts to
Found a Penal Colony and Strategic Base in South-western Australia, 1503–1826
(1982) by Leslie R. Marchant, and Full Fathom Five (1982), a history of the pearling
industry by Mary Albertus Bain, both of which were shortlisted for The Age Book of the
Year Awards.669 In late 1984 and carrying over into 1985, however, Artlook Books
became embroiled in controversy after it was placed in receivership as complaints rolled
in about unpaid authors’ royalties.670 Subsequently, its typesetting operation was sold to
Access Press, a purportedly new company that had, in fact, functioned for several years
much like an imprint of Artlook Books, engaging in ‘vanity’ publishing and directed by
Weller’s son, Guy Weller.671 On the heels of this controversy, Weller and company
abandoned the Artlook Books label and continued to publish as Access Press, though as
was noted above in the description of the latter publishing house, it is now
predominantly a vanity publishing house.
This has not stopped Helen Weller, however, from becoming one of the most
outspoken critics of the manner in which state government funding is administered to
publishing houses in Western Australia. For example, in 1984, ‘Weller said she was
“very sour” that Artlook had received only $800 this year from the WA Arts Council,
which contrasted with the thousands given to the Fremantle Arts Centre Press. ... The
annual grant for FACP was about $70,000.’672 A close associate of Weller, Hal
667Allan Veal, ‘Publish, and Be Different’, West Australian, 2 July 1983.668Ann Treweek, ‘Artlook Losses Lead to Receivership’, West Australian, 28 Dec. 1984, 2.669Ibid.670‘Artlook’s Typesetting Division Sold’, West Australian, 5 Jan. 1985, 10.671Bruce Lawson, ‘Four Different Ways of Keeping the Book Business Booming’, West Australian, 5 June
1982; ‘It was Nothing New ...’, Western Mail, 19–20 Jan. 1985, 5.672Treweek, 2, quoting Helen Weller.
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Colebatch, wrote, ‘No private-enterprise publisher could compete with a State publisher
of creative writing supported by a unique and relatively massive subsidy especially in a
small and competitive market.’673
Another frequent critic of the system of government assistance for the Western
Australian publishing industry is Peter Bridge at Hesperian Press. These complaints are
largely directed at Fremantle Press, which Bridge, among others, feels has a virtual
monopoly on ‘federal and state grants and literary awards’.674 Bridge and other like-
minded publishers ‘talk of “cliques” and “factions” within the arts bureaucracy which
prevent them from receiving a slice of the subsidy cake’.675 Furthermore, ‘they would
claim that they offer wider publishing prospects than Fremantle Arts Centre Press with
its perceived concentration on “high-brow” fiction’.676
For the government’s part, its response to these claims typically runs along the
following lines: ‘Of all the West Australian arts organisations that have received a
subsidy from the state, the Fremantle Arts Centre Press has presented over the past
decade the most consistent quality product.’677 While a valid point that can be
demonstrated through a variety of measures (such as number of awards won, amount of
media coverage received, units sold), the obvious rejoinder to this statement is that the
subsidy Fremantle Press receives from the Western Australian Government has helped
create an environment that fosters such achievements. This, too, is a valid point, and
one that has been made by Bridge, but it overlooks the unique benefits afforded the
Western Australian Government (and Western Australians, more generally) by the
publishing programme of Fremantle Press—benefits that do not typically accrue to
educational or speciality publishing, for example. As was noted in the ‘Fremantle Press’
673Hal Colebatch, ‘The Public Funding of Literature’, Quadrant 31, nos. 1–2 (Jan./Feb. 1987): 17.674Vickie Laurie, 25.675Ibid.676Ibid.677Ibid., quoting Keith Sinclair, Arts Development Officer for Literature, Western Australian Departmentfor the Arts.
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section of this chapter, one of the reasons the Press was established was ‘to encourage
the growth of the appreciation ... of works of literary ... merit produced by West
Australian writers’.678 And as was also noted in this section, certain types of books are
more likely than others to accomplish this lofty aim; certain types of books are more
likely to possess cultural value that is identifiable as specific to a region (in part due to
their engagement with influential individuals and institutions, such as by being
reviewed in newspapers and journals, chosen as set texts for secondary- and tertiary-
level courses, and winning literary prizes). In short, Fremantle Press participates in a
brand of book publishing that is more likely than some others to attract acclaim to
Western Australian writers and writing:
Many people in the book industry believe small presses to be the majorsource of innovation and excitement within publishing. ... Most smallpresses actually engage in non-fiction publishing, specializing inbusiness, spirituality, how-to, and other circumscribed areas. But whilethese presses may be admired for filling (or creating) a need amongreaders, it is the presses that engage in literary fiction, poetry, and seriouspolitical and social commentary that inspire so many small pressadvocates.679
The acclaim that Fremantle Press generates for Western Australian writers and writing
as a result of its specific brand of book publishing also implicates the Western
Australian Government for its support of this artistic form. Contrary to what is
suggested by Bridge’s critique, Fremantle Press’s subsidy from the state government is
not about support for an industry. Bridge’s Hesperian Press, and other Western
Australian publishing houses like it, are unlikely ever to attract a similar subsidy so long
as they continue to publish books and generally operate outside a culture that recognises
achievements in the aforementioned terms and makes them known to the general public.
Of course, government funds allocated to support book publishing stretch only
so far. In 1987, for example, the state government commissioned Western Australian
678Fremantle Arts Centre Press, ‘Constitution and Rules’, 2.679Miller, 71–72.
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writer Bryn Griffiths to examine ‘the state’s book publishing industry and new
approaches that might be adopted to provide more publishing opportunities for West
Australian writers’.680 This commission was, presumably, a response to complaints the
government had been receiving from the proprietors of Western Australian publishing
houses that did not receive government support. The main recommendation of
Griffiths’s report was
to establish in Perth an ‘alternative press’, possibly within the complex ofthe Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. The aim would be to publish‘original writing of acceptable quality from all areas of the WAcommunity—the native-born, immigrant and Aboriginal’. Three-yearfunding would be provided by the Department for the Arts.681
Western Outlook magazine noted that, ‘informally, many people feel Griffiths has
effectively recommended a second Fremantle Arts Centre Press, when the first is
performing its duties well’.682 The official response, however, was that ‘the Panel would
not like to see the financial curtailment of any existing programmes to allow support for
the implementation of the Griffiths’s recommendations’.683 Clearly, the lack of available
funding (or interest in making additional funds available) is the inspiration for this
response, but there might also be certain benefits associated with the provision of
subsidies to a very limited number of publishing houses, such as the more coherent and
focussed representation of the region which will almost certainly result.
A ‘coherent and focussed representation of the region’ is perhaps exactly the sort
of thing Sue McGinty had in mind when she wrote that ‘the region needs a marketable
product’ in order for ‘the cluster concept to work’.684 Explaining this concept in more
detail, McGinty writes,
The ‘clusters’ idea ... maintains that you need a critical mass and linksaround skills. Components may involve retailing bookstore outlets,
680Vickie Laurie, 25.681Ibid.682Ibid.683Literature Consultative Panel, ‘Notes’, 27 May 1988, State Records Office of Western Australia.684McGinty, 183–84.
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people who have competence to produce marketable materials, those whohave the technical skills, and people with equipment. This is the sort ofmix needed for the cluster concept to work. The region needs amarketable product for this to happen.685
She goes on to say that ‘this is what appears to be happening in the Broome region with
the focus on local histories and local knowledges and cooperation between those who
have the skills, the know-how, the know-who, and the equipment to publish’.686
McGinty’s reference to Broome has as much to do with individuals and organisations
that decide to self-publish, as it does with Magabala Books and the more traditional
organisation of a publishing house as it has been examined in this thesis:
Some people in Broome are doing their own publishing. Noel Trevors, alocal author, is about to publish his second book investigating the reasonspeople live in Broome. In the first book he recorded people’s stories,published them and has sold 3000 copies in the last two years. PaulRoberts, the local magistrate who flies around the countryside takingphotos, has also published with some success. Both Noel Trevors andPaul Roberts do their own publishing and distribution. Mrs. Miller andher illustrators have produced children’s books about frogs. They wereprinted locally. The local historical museum did their own history ofBroome. They used the local printers, too.687
Clearly, each of these self-publishers has the potential to diversify the representation of
the region and remedy any narrowness in its definition that can result from the activities
of a single publishing house; in the process, they can perhaps make an important
contribution to the culture of the region.
It is worth noting, however, that the flagship publishing house (in this case,
Magabala Books, but Fremantle Press is arguably the flagship Western Australian
publishing house) plays an important role in that it is often the first to define the bounds
of the ‘marketable product’, as well as to train and/or identify a community of people
‘who have the skills, the know-how, the know-who, and the equipment to publish’. In
other words, the flagship regional publishing house is largely responsible for creating an
685Ibid.686Ibid., 184.687Ibid., 182–83.
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environment in which other publishing houses or self-publishers might flourish; this is
evidenced by the fact that none of the publishing houses identified in this section of the
thesis (‘Other Western Australian publishing houses’) existed prior to Fremantle Press
or, in the case of those Broome-based self-publishers, prior to Magabala Books. Of
course, the existence of all these smaller publishing operations with their diverse
agendas alongside Western Australia’s three mainstream, though still remarkably
diverse, publishing houses—a trade publishing house (Fremantle Press), an academic
publishing house (University of Western Australia Press), and an Indigenous publishing
house (Magabala Books)—is testament to the perceived need for literature to represent
the full diversity of voices that comprise any given community. Regional literature is a
response to that perceived need in a specific geographical area. And regional publishing
(in all its guises, from mainstream trade publishing house to self-publisher) is the
manifestation of a recognition that ‘any given community’ could be a subculture
resident in the region, the region as a whole, the nation, or even an international
community of readers.
317
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Conclusion
I. Critical regionalism
In September 2007, a call for papers for a conference was circulated that read,
‘Paul Keating famously said that if you weren’t living in Sydney, you were camping.
More recently, Per Henningsgaard argued in Antipodes (June 2007) that we have seen a
decline of regionalism in Australian literature and culture.688 This conference will
explore the power of place and region in Australian writing.’ The conference, sponsored
by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, was titled ‘Critical
Regionalism: Realizing the Local’.
‘Critical regionalism’ is defined by Penguin’s Dictionary of Architecture &
Landscape Architecture as
a term coined in 1981 and quickly given currency by architectural criticsthough never precisely defined. It is an attitude or approach rather than atheory, in reaction against the consumerist Post-Modern hedonism of theReagan and Thatcher years. Conspicuously ‘regional’, it seeks tocombine a response to the local with a certain universality, avoiding thevernacular, sentimental or picturesque while affirming the importance ofenvironmental, cultural and societal values.689
The subject-specific Dictionary of Architecture & Landscape Architecture provides a
particularly detailed definition of the term, but even a dictionary that is not subject-
specific, such as The Oxford English Dictionary, recognises that ‘critical regionalism’
springs from an architectural tradition. Moreover, current applications of the term have
not strayed far from these beginnings. In fact, a brief survey of the available literature
reveals that the term ‘critical regionalism’ is almost never applied to literary study. The
logical follow-up to this observation takes the form of a question: ‘Why was “critical
regionalism” chosen as the title and organising theme of a conference sponsored by the
Association for the Study of Australian Literature?’
688Per Henningsgaard, ‘The Decline of Regionalism in Australian Literature and Culture’, Antipodes 21,no. 1 (June 2007): 53–59.689John Fleming, Hugh Honour, and Nikolaus Pevsner, ‘Critical Regionalism’, in Dictionary ofArchitecture & Landscape Architecture, 5th ed. (London: Penguin, 1999), 134.
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The answer is perhaps as simple as the conference organisers wishing to specify
a ‘critical’ investigation of regionalism, rather than a rose-tinted embrace of ‘the power
of place and region in Australian writing’. By nominating a ‘critical’ approach to
regionalism, they hopefully dodge accusations of parochialism or provincialism, two
terms that have been used almost interchangeably by Australian critics to constitute one
of the oldest criticisms of regionalism. This criticism was present even at the 1978
seminar organised by Fremantle Arts Centre Press, ‘Time, Place and People:
Regionalism in Contemporary Australian Literature’, which inaugurated the
conversation about regionalism in Australian literature and culture.
In addition to the term ‘critical regionalism’ being uncritically appropriated from
an architectural tradition, however, its choice as the conference theme is symptomatic of
a more pervasive disempowerment of both the region and regionalism. The term
‘critical regionalism’ was used most famously by Kenneth Frampton in his essay
‘Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance’ published
in 1983. In this essay, Frampton argues that critical regionalism should adopt features
of modern architecture for its universal qualities, while at the same time valuing and
responding to the particularities of place.690 He writes:
The fundamental strategy of Critical Regionalism is to mediate theimpact of universal civilization with elements derived indirectly from thepeculiarities of a particular place. It is clear from the above that CriticalRegionalism depends upon maintaining a high level of critical self-consciousness.691
The choice of the term ‘critical regionalism’ to describe this approach has implications
that are the same for architecture as they would be if this term was applied to literature:
namely, modifying ‘regionalism’ with ‘critical’ implies that ‘regionalism’ alone (that is,
not ‘critical regionalism’ but rather plain ‘regionalism’) responds only to the
690Kenneth Frampton, ‘Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance’, in
The Anti-aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, ed. Hal Foster (Seattle: Bay Press, 1983), 16–30.691Ibid., 21.
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particularities of place and is absent of any universal qualities. If you have to specify
‘critical regionalism’ when discussing an approach that values both the specific and the
universal, then ‘regionalism’ without the ‘critical’ must not value the same things—it is
seen to value only the specific.
In his essay, Frampton also references the progenitors of the term ‘critical
regionalism’, Alex Tzonis and Liliane Lefaivre in their 1981 essay ‘The Grid and the
Pathway: An Introduction to the Work of Dimitris and Susana Antonakakis’. Tzonis
and Lefaivre make the aforementioned point (about the perception of ‘regionalism’ as
absent of universal qualities) most explicitly: ‘Regionalism has dominated architecture
in almost all countries at some time during the past two centuries and a half. By way of
general definition we can say that it upholds the individual and local architectonic
features against more universal and abstract ones.’692 According to this definition,
‘regionalism’ is also thought to possess a lower ‘level of critical self-consciousness’
than ‘critical regionalism’.
This proposition is very similar to John Kinsella’s theory of ‘international
regionalism’, which he has discussed in several published interviews as well as
delivering unpublished lectures on the subject. Although he has never published a
formal exegesis of his theory, Kinsella has made clear his intentions for the theory: ‘At
the core of it is a desire to cross boundaries, to open up lines of communication. This is
not done randomly, but within a code of respect for the integrity of regional concerns
and demarcations.’693 Furthermore, he writes that ‘the globalisation of text must also
carry respect for the specific’.694 Once again, the implication is that ‘regionalism’ as a
solitary term is incapable of ‘open[ing] up lines of communication’—perhaps because it
692Alex Tzonis and Liliane Lefaivre, ‘The Grid and the Pathway: An Introduction to the Work of Dimitrisand Susana Antonakakis’, Architecture in Greece 15 (1981): 178.693John Kinsella, ‘International Regionalism and Poetryetc’, in John Kinsella (accessed 10 Oct. 2005);
available from http://www.johnkinsella.org/essays/international.html.694Ibid.
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is only capable of a single-minded focus on ‘the integrity of regional concerns’—while
‘international regionalism’ can manage this balance perfectly well.
Of course, even as both formations, ‘critical regionalism’ and ‘international
regionalism’, problematise regionalism, they also express a generalised discontent with
the ‘international’, the ‘universal’ and the ‘global’ where it is unresponsive to the local
and specific. This does not mean, however, that the choice of ‘critical regionalism’ as
the theme of the aforementioned conference is not symptomatic of the disempowerment
of ‘the region’. To the contrary, these formations locate the local and specific as a
subjective concept which may be more or less necessary—even unnecessary—in
different contexts. The ‘international’, the ‘universal’ and the ‘global’, on the other
hand, are represented as something towards which all should aspire, even though some
will clearly find this task more difficult than others. The terms ‘critical regionalism’ and
‘international regionalism’ demonstrate, for example, the sort of linguistic contortions
many feel are necessary for those outside the centres to achieve this result, balancing the
local and specific with the ‘global’.
Gareth Griffiths describes how this imbalance of expectations is created:
It is a fact often forgotten in cultures which have publishing traditionsrunning back hundreds of years that books are not made by writers alone,and that ‘literature’, as opposed to the act of narrative or writing isconstructed not only by ‘authors’ but by a complex economic and socialinstitution of ‘publication, distribution and exchange’ (to appropriate theMarxist dictum in a new but perhaps quite appropriate way).695
The ‘complex economic and social institution of “publication, distribution and
exchange”’ that Griffiths identifies as responsible for constructing ‘literature’ is very
similar to what Pierre Bourdieu called the ‘field of cultural production’. As was noted
in the Introduction to this thesis, in the case of print culture, this field includes writers,
literary agents, editors, publishers, government arts organisations, the media, schools,
695Gareth Griffiths, ‘Documentation and Communication in Postcolonial Societies: The Politics ofControl’, The Yearbook of English Studies 27 (1997): 132.
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book clubs, and book retailers, just to name a few. The clustering of these instruments
of cultural production in certain locations creates an effect whereby ‘the region’ is
subject to a different set of rules than the ‘international’, the ‘universal’ and the ‘global’;
thus, it also creates the intellectual and cultural conditions that give rise to phrases such
as ‘critical regionalism’ and ‘international regionalism’.
In cultural centres such as London and New York City, or the ‘“golden triangle”
of Sydney–Melbourne–Canberra’, the high concentration of instruments of cultural
production results in the perception that the local and specific of these places constitutes
the ‘universal’.696 It is no coincidence, for example, that London and New York City are
traditional centres of book publishing, home to a critical mass of the instruments that
constitute the literary field of cultural production, and that they are also used as the
settings for more novels than any other cities in the world.697 Of course, by conducting
the survey of 13,000 works of adult fiction published in the United States that led to this
conclusion, Bowker (a leading source of bibliographical information and exclusive
distributor of ISBNs in the United States) is acknowledging the significance of the local
and specific—the ‘specific’ locations of London and New York City were found to be
most popular. Nonetheless, the disproportionately high representation of these centres
in the cultural sphere, resulting from the concentration of instruments of cultural
production in these locations, abets the popular belief that representations of these
specific places are ‘universal’. Writing that does not take into account the local and
specific version of their reality (that is, the reality of the cultural centres) is thought to
be neglecting some ‘universal’ value.
696Bruce Bennett, ‘Literary Culture since Vietnam’, 258.697‘New York and London are Most Popular Settings for Novels, According to Newly Released Fiction
Statistics Analysis from Bowker’, in Bowker (21 Jan. 2006, accessed 22 Dec. 2006); available from http://www.bowker.com/press/bowker/2006_0121_bowker.htm.
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II. Australia as a region
Clearly, while the aforementioned conference was meant to ‘explore the power
of place and region in Australian writing’, ‘the region’ more often than not finds itself
disempowered. Constructions such as ‘critical regionalism’ and ‘international
regionalism’ reveal that regionalism is widely thought to be germane only for those
located outside the centres of culture and influence. Bruce Bennett recognised this fact
when he wrote, ‘I tried to extend notions of regionalism which I had been developing in
Australian terms to the neighbouring countries of Southeast Asia, whose cultures, like
those of Western Australia, and Australia itself, had been too glibly passed over.’698
Bennett uses the expression ‘cultures ... [which] had been too glibly passed over’ to
describe ‘those located outside the centres of culture and influence’. Moreover, he
understands it is only these cultures, which can lay no convincing claim to the
‘universal’, that are seen to produce cultural records of the local and specific—that is, of
the regional.
Of course, as Bennett briefly mentions above, ‘Australia itself’ is one of these
marginal spaces that ‘ha[s] been too glibly passed over’. There is ample evidence of
this neglect: ‘Far more foreign books are distributed here than Australian books
distributed overseas; more knowledge is imported than exported, and popular culture
sees the most successful products as coming from the USA.’699 The significance of
these observations can perhaps only be fully appreciated when one is reminded of the
fact that
the nation-state’s geographical relationship to political communitiesbeyond its borders is an important component in defining the collectivepolitical identity of the people within national borders. Australia’sidentity has been defined through spatial practices that position theAustralian nation-state in the larger international community.700
698Bruce Bennett, ‘Home and Away’, 236.699Ted Wheelwright, introduction to Communications and the Media in Australia, ed. Ted Wheelwright
and Ken Buckley (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1987), 16.700Cerwonka, 197.
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This statement need not apply only to Australia’s political identity, as it has been
elsewhere observed that ‘“Aust.Lit.” evolved as a category through its own provincial
relations to the western European literary canon’.701 More recently, however, the
contexts in which Australian literature defines itself have changed and diversified.
Within Australia, for example, the high concentration of instruments of cultural
production in Sydney and Melbourne results in the perception that the local and specific
of these places constitutes the ‘universal’; any attention paid to the local and specific in
the cultural products of other Australian locations, such as Western Australia, therefore
constitutes the ‘regional’. In an international or global context, however, Australia
constitutes the ‘regional’ rather than the ‘universal’, since the relatively greater
concentrations of instruments of cultural production in places such as London and New
York City indirectly confers upon them the latter title. The connection between regional
identity and access to the field of cultural production is perhaps best illustrated by a
practical example:
The high unit costs typical of Australian literary publications generally,caused by Australia’s small population, are magnified in WA. And just asit is difficult and costly to promote and market Australian titles abroad, itis difficult and costly to market WA titles interstate because of the greatdistance involved.702
It seems there are many continuities between Western Australia’s situation as a region
within Australia, and Australia’s situation as a region in the international literary
community.
Of course, it is uncommon to hear the positioning of ‘the Australian nation-state
in the larger international community’ conceptualised as a sort of regionalism. The
scarcity of this concept is perhaps symptomatic of the paucity of informed commentary
on regionalism in Australia, but it is also at least in part due to the fact that, while
701Ken Gelder, ‘Recovering Australian Popular Fiction: Towards the End of Australian Literature’, inAustralian Literary Studies in the 21st Century, ed. Philip Mead (Association for the Study of Australian
Literature, 2001), 113.702Taylor, ‘Review’, 24.
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regionalism may refer to the distinctive local character of different partsof the world or to a people’s perception of and identification with suchplaces ... [t]he concept is rarely applied ... to differences between parts ofa city or to those between continents or countries. Rather, it is usuallyused as an intermediate scale.703
Nonetheless, there is an undeniable parallel between the dynamic that governs
Australia’s negotiations with the international literary community, and the dynamic that
governs the negotiations of a more conventionally conceived region (such as Western
Australia) with its national literary culture.
This dynamic had especially profound implications when Australian literature
first ‘began to be disseminated on a world scale in the 1980s’.704 In the decade or so
leading up to this, Nicholas Birns and Rebecca McNeer, in their recently published A
Companion to Australian Literature since 1900, contend that ‘nationalism within
Australia burgeoned, as seen in the founding of the strongly nationalistic Association for
the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) and the Literature Board of the Australia
Council for the Arts’.705 It was noted in Chapter 1 of this thesis that ‘in Australia the
development of regional differences in the cultural sphere has been dwarfed and
stultified by a powerful continental vision of nationhood which has been the mainspring
of our sense of identification’.706 Australian nationalism certainly flourished in the
1970s and ‘80s, and while it may be true this nationalist sentiment ‘stultified’ the
‘development of regional differences’ to some extent, it is also true that the offence
could have been much greater. After all, during the 1970s and especially in the 1980s,
Australian nationalism as it manifested itself in the literary sphere was increasingly
concerned with its new ability ‘to be disseminated on a world scale’. On this scale, the
only role Australia could convincingly play was that of a region; while manifestations of
703R. Cole Harris, ‘Regionalism’, in The Canadian Encyclopedia (accessed 8 Feb. 2008); available fromhttp://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com.704Nicholas Birns and Rebecca McNeer, eds., A Companion to Australian Literature since 1900(Rochester: Camden House, 2007), 1.705Ibid., 4.706Whitlock, ‘Queensland’, 88.
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the nationalist myth within Australia had trafficked heavily in the sentiment, Australia
could make no pretence to represent the ‘universal’ in the international literary
community where there were so many more culturally powerful entities.
One of the most remarkable outcomes associated with this dynamic is that ‘by
the 1970s and 1980s ... Australian writers were praised for having specifically
Australian content’.707 Or, to put it another way, ‘The Australian novels that go well in
the current global market are those acted out against an unfamiliar backdrop, that is a
backdrop unfamiliar to an international audience, which basically means an English or
American audience.’708 Andrew Wilkins, publisher of Bookseller+Publisher magazine,
offers a similar explanation for the occasions when the Australian book industry has
enjoyed success in the export market: ‘He feels many overseas markets “are looking for
something that is slightly different and Australia is seen as a place that is slightly
different”.’709 The identification of ‘Australia’ by overseas audiences as somewhere or
something ‘slightly different’ is an example of Australia’s regional identity. In order to
appeal to this overseas audience, Australian literature abandoned any pretence to
represent the ‘universal’ and instead traded in the local and specific. Australian
literature’s focus during this period on the local and specific—a focus that necessitated
Australian literature function as a region in the international literary community—
perhaps also made it possible for literary cultures within Australia to entertain other
aspects and manifestations of regionalism, such as literary regions within the framework
of a formerly overwhelming nationalist literary tradition.
However, Birns and McNeer observe a ‘waning of the appeal of the specifically
Australian’ in the 1990s.710 They speculate that
707Birns and McNeer, 4.708Drusilla Modjeska, Timepieces (Sydney: Picador, 2002), 209.709Rosemary Neill, ‘Paperback heroes’, Australian, 13 August 2005, quoting Andrew Wilkins.710Birns and McNeer, 5.
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the decreasing salience of the specifically Australian angle [in the1990s] ... meant that Australian writers, having gained a new sense ofcommon ground with the other world writers, increasingly lacked themarketing niche available to their predecessors.711
Birns and McNeer further write:
This crisis was perhaps expressed in the ‘Tasmanian novel’, popular inthe late 1990s and early 2000s. Novels by Julia Leigh, Chloe Hooper,and Richard Flanagan were set in Australia’s southernmost state andgained exposure abroad that was reminiscent of that garnered ten yearspreviously by the ‘class’ of Australian writers that included Carey,Malouf, and Winton. Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish and Leigh’s TheHunter were, in part, brilliant allegories of tensions between the globaland the local that did not stand the universal in good light. But theirworks were nevertheless appreciated by readers presuming themselves‘universal’ and hankering after the token of the vanishing local color thatthe novels themselves thematized more rigorously. It was as if Tasmaniawas now the only part of Australia that was unique, and therebyappropriate for niche marketing. But the Tasmanian books also showedthat the spirit of Australian place had a particular appeal to aninternational audience. Ironically, the more cosmopolitan the writing, theless centered on place it appeared, the less the international audience wasprepared for it.712
Birns and McNeer are not alone in their observation:
Tasmania has always fascinated the literary world. An isolated islandhaunted by its ‘blood-soaked history’—this phrase appears again andagain—it has become disproportionately significant in Australian writing.So marked has this trend become that, according to one commentator, werisk the Tasmanianisation of Australian literature. Gould’s Book of Fish[by Richard Flanagan] and Chloe Hooper’s A Child’s Book of True Crimeare just two of a number of recent novels set in Tasmania (in 1999 therewere four) and both have had an enthusiastic reception overseas, theattraction being in no small measure due to their ‘blood-soaked’setting.713
The authors of these two excerpts clearly connect the international commercial success
of a certain type of Australian literature with its attention to issues of place, thereby
aligning Australian literature with the local and specific—that is, with the conventions
of regional literature—rather than with the ‘universal’.
711Ibid.712Ibid., 5–6.713Shirley Walker, ‘Coming and Going: A Literature of Place, Australian Fiction 2001–2002’, Westerly 47(Nov. 2002): 38–39.
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III. Postcolonial literature
Accordingly, both Western Australia and Australia can be understood as
peripheries dominated in their different spheres (the ‘national’ and the ‘international’,
respectively) by cultures residing elsewhere. There are parallels between this dynamic
and the dynamic responsible for producing postcolonial literature, a literary movement
that ‘emerged ... out of the experience of colonization and asserted [itself] by
foregrounding the tension with the colonial power, and emphasizing ... differences from
the assumptions of the imperial centre’.714 It has been said that all postcolonial societies
are ‘constituted by their difference from the metropolitan and it is in this relationship
that identity both as a distancing from the centre and as a means of self-assertion comes
into being’.715 It has also been remarked that ‘in settler colonies the first task seems to
be to establish that the texts can be shown to constitute a literature separate from that of
the metropolitan centre’.716 This is, of course, very similar to the centre versus
periphery articulation of regionalism discussed in Chapter 1 of this thesis; it also draws
upon one of the justifications for regionalism discussed in Chapter 1, the region as
distinctive. Furthermore, it should be noted that the postcolonial impulse ‘to constitute
a literature separate from that of the metropolitan centre’ is similar to Australian
literature’s trading in the local and specific in order to attract an overseas audience.
Nonetheless, there are a number of differences between literatures that are
traditionally held to be ‘postcolonial’ and those labelled ‘regional’. Arguably the most
important amongst these differences is that race is often a dominant factor in the former,
while location and access to the field of cultural production are more important in the
latter.717 In both postcolonial and regional literatures, however, ‘power’ or the
714Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in
Post-colonial Literatures (London: Routledge, 1989), 2.715Ibid., 167.716Ibid., 131–32.717Josephine Donovan, ‘Local-Color Literature and Modernity: The Example of Jewett’, Tamkang Review38, no. 1 (Dec. 2007): 23.
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domination of one culture by another could be said to encompass and most accurately
characterise the variety of dynamics that defines these categories.
Lip service has been paid to the ‘power of place and region’, but those
employing the phrase have rarely bothered to critically examine the ‘power’ of which
they are speaking. It is significant, for example, that Australian academics first
published on the subject of regionalism in the late 1970s but mostly in the 1980s, a time
when even the dominant discourse seemed to endorse challenges on issues such as race
and gender. Ken Gelder and Paul Salzman, in their 1989 publication The New
Diversity: Australian Fiction 1970–88, noted parallels in the emergence of regional
literature in Australia and that of other ‘minority’ literatures: ‘Looking back over the last
twenty years, the shifts in the construction of Australia and its regions parallel the
historical development of many social groups defined against the mainstream.’718
Gelder and Salzman use the phrase ‘social groups defined against the mainstream’ to
describe ethnic minority writers, as well as categories such as women’s literature, queer
literature and experimental literature. All of these categories of literature have been
explicitly shaped by their relation to the centres of power and by the idea of power.
Furthermore, it seems the development of these minority literatures in the 1970s and
‘80s was paralleled by ‘shifts in the construction of Australia and its regions’—in other
words, the growth of interest in regional literature.
However, regionalism and regional literature have almost never been framed in
reference to this larger conversation about power, which is one reason the effects of
regionalism are not more widely recognised or appreciated. Australia’s national literary
culture, on the other hand, found arguably its most potent articulation in a dialectic
about power. After all, Australian literature came to prominence as a region on the
international literary scene in no small part due to international interest in the study of
718Gelder and Salzman, 82.
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postcolonial literatures, which address structures of power as well as its distribution. It
is no small coincidence that the timeline describing serious scholarly interest in
postcolonial literature closely mirrors the rise of international interest in Australian
literature in the 1970s and ‘80s:
Employed by historians and political scientists after World War II interms such as the post-colonial state, ‘post-colonial’ then had a clearlychronological meaning, simply designating the post-independence period.By the late 1970s the terms had been used by a few literary critics tocharacterize the various cultural effects of colonization. ... Thedevelopment of colonial discourse theory in the work of Gayatri Spivakand Homi Bhaba, following on from Edward Said’s landmark workOrientalism (1978), provided a more theoretically stringent andconceptually original intervention into the debate about these issues.719
This timeline, in addition to earlier observations about the importance of power in the
formations of both postcolonial and regional literatures, suggests that an international
interest in postcolonial literature may have contributed to Australian literature being
taken more seriously as a regional contribution to the international literary community.
This parallel between postcolonial and regional literatures is not frequently
remarked upon, though it has been noted by at least one scholar that ‘regionalism
surfaced in Australian art discourse at roughly the same time it emerged in literary
debate, as part of a widespread anti-modernist, postcolonial critique’.720 Furthermore,
an American scholar remarked that ‘local-colorists’, a 19th-century manifestation of the
regional writer, ‘evince the “double vision” characteristic of the postcolonial author who
has one eye on the hegemonic audience and the other on their native subjects.
Translating from the latter to the former is what local-color literature does.’721 This idea
of regional literature ‘translating’ the ‘native subject’ of the region for a ‘hegemonic
719Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, 197.720Diane Roberts, ‘The Implications of “Regionalism” for South West Contemporary Artists and Art
Practice’ (paper delivered at the Association for the Study of Australian Literature’s ‘Critical
Regionalism: Realizing the Local’ conference, Perth, 8–9 Feb. 2008), 2.721Donovan, 7.
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audience’ located in the cultural centres is particularly significant, since it has strong
parallels in postcolonial theory:
Ideas and images of self and place for peoples in the former whitecolonies of the British Empire have always been produced for others, thatis, for a metropolitan market (in the first instance, the place where thewhite settlers came from). Lacking a self-sustaining critical mass ofpopulation or financial capital, the settler society was shaped by forcesdictating that whatever is produced must also be exportable. This demandis not merely economic but cultural. In such places it determines thearticulation of self, of identity.722
In this excerpt, Stephen Turner makes the astute observation that ‘this demand’ in
postcolonial (and, I would add, regional) societies to produce ‘ideas and images of self
and place ... for others’, rather than for the ‘native subject’, ‘is not merely economic but
cultural’. He makes the mistake, however, of identifying the lack of ‘a self-sustaining
critical mass of population or financial capital’ as the only factors responsible for this
result. Rather, the ‘cultural’ aspects of the ‘demand’ placed on postcolonial and regional
societies are, at least in part, the result of cultural factors—namely, the imbalance of
cultural power between regional areas and the cultural centres, between postcolonial
societies and the metropolitan. Of course, some of this imbalance of cultural power is
the result of population or financial factors, but as has been comprehensively
demonstrated throughout this thesis, it would be a gross oversimplification to identify
these as the only relevant factors.
One outcome associated with writing for others, rather than for the ‘native
subject’, is that
celebrated postcolonial writers are typically situated in relation to anumber of underdeveloped locales, such that what Brennan calls the‘banners’ of geographical affiliation are always in sight: ‘Being from“there” in this sense is primarily a kind of literary passport that identifiesthe artist as being from a region of underdevelopment and pain.’ ... In fact
722Stephen Turner, ‘Colonialism Continued: Producing the Self for Export’, in Race, Colour and Identity
in Australia and New Zealand, ed. John Docker and Gerhard Fischer (Sydney: University of New SouthWales Press, 2000), 218.
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these writers in part succeed because of their ostensible attachment tospecific locations.723
This is similar to another observation—this one by several prominent scholars of
postcolonial literature—that one of the few things ‘each of these [postcolonial]
literatures has in common’ is that each possesses ‘special and distinctive regional
characteristics’.724 Apparently, success as a postcolonial writer is often associated with
the writer’s ‘ostensible attachment to specific locations’, since place and location are
typically accorded great significance by ‘the institutions and circumstances that make
up the field of postcolonial literature’.725 Of course, this is similar to the aforementioned
observation that ‘Australian writers were praised for having specifically Australian
content’. It also bears a strong resemblance to the pressures to which regional writers
and writing are subjected, such that it should be no surprise that Tim Winton is Western
Australia’s most famous literary export—his work is deeply engaged with the local and
specific of the Western Australian landscape.
Winton has, for this reason, contributed immeasurably to the production of a
regional literature in Western Australia. Indeed, he is the first writer most people think
of when ‘Western Australian literature’ is mentioned, and his descriptions of Western
Australian locations have shaped the perceptions of locals and visitors to Western
Australia alike, not to mention influenced a generation of Western Australian and
Australian writers. However, this thesis does not examine his contribution in any
significant way, since none of the works for which Winton is best known—his novels
and short story collections—were published by a Western Australian publishing house;
and beyond just studying the production of a regional literature, this thesis is concerned
723Sarah Brouillette, Postcolonial Writers in the Global Literary Marketplace (Houndmills: PalgraveMacmillan, 2007), 61, quoting Timothy Brennan, At Home in the World: Cosmopolitanism Now(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 38.724Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, 2.725Brouillette, 2.
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with the various ways in which a regional culture can be encouraged through local
efforts to lay claim to cultural influence in the literary sphere.
For the purposes of this thesis, the anecdote about Tim Winton and, indeed, the
larger point about regional and postcolonial literatures functioning in similar ways,
serve as examples of how,
if we are to fully understand the power and effect of texts on shapingwhat we call objective reality, we need to consider the texts not only inthemselves as formal constructions through which our ideas are shapedbut also as themselves products of large-scale institutions through whichthe particular shape and form they assume is determined. It is clearly alot more difficult to continue with the myth of the independent author inthe context of a scenario such as that of Heinemann’s influence in Nigeriain the late 1950s and 1960s than in the context of the much moreobscured force of such institutions in societies such as Britain, America,or even Australia.726
Similar ‘institutions’ to those that determine the ‘particular shape and form’ of
postcolonial literatures can also impact on the production of regional literatures. The
above excerpt mentions the publishing house Heinemann, for example, and its influence
on postcolonial Nigerian literature, while this thesis examines the production of a
regional literature in Western Australia by the state’s three major publishing houses—
Fremantle Press, Magabala Books and University of Western Australia Press.
Publishing houses clearly function in any marginalised culture (whether postcolonial,
regional, and so forth) as particularly significant symbols (and, of course, literal
manifestations) of the field of cultural production; it should not be forgotten, however,
that the experience of being marginalised is arguably the greatest influence of all, as this
experience has the ability to shape a publishing programme, as well as all the other
‘institutions and circumstances’ that define a local culture.
726Griffiths, 133.
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IV. The contemporary relevance of regionalism and regional literature
Of course, as Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin note in their seminal work The
Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures, the process of
identifying a marginalised culture might be complicated by the existence of ‘conflicting
postures of the dominant society which might itself be subtly dominated by another
power’.727 This phenomenon was mentioned in Chapter 4 of this thesis with reference
to Magabala Books and Indigenous literature more generally. Similarly, the
aforementioned authors elaborate this point:
In Australia ... Aboriginal writing provides an excellent example of adominated literature, while that of white Australia has characteristics of adominating one in relation to it. Yet white Australian literature isdominated in its turn by a relationship with Britain and Englishliterature.728
Chapter 4 describes how Indigenous literature is perhaps more comfortably
accommodated within the field of regional literature than in analogous contexts.
Similar claims have been made about regional literature and other minorities:
‘Regionalism ... affords literary access to women, African Americans, and ethnic
immigrants and “made the experience of the socially marginalized into a literary asset,
and so made marginality itself a positive authorial advantage”.’729 Nonetheless,
Indigenous literature is also clearly marginalised within the field of regional literature,
just as regional literature is marginalised within the national literary tradition, and
Australia’s national literary tradition is marginalised within the international literary
community. Even within a regional literary tradition, it could be argued that a hierarchy
is constructed (or replicated) within a larger social context, typically presenting cultural
727Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, 31.728Ibid.729Joseph Yu, ‘Editor’s Note’, Tamkang Review 38, no. 1 (Dec. 2007): 3–4, quoting Richard H. Brodhead,
‘Regionalism and the Upper Class’, in Rethinking Class: Literary Studies and Social Formations, ed. WaiChee Dimock and Michael T. Gilmore (New York City: Columbia University Press, 1994), 151.
335
centres as the dominant elite, with regional centres and rural outposts occupying lower
levels of the structure respectively.730
As has been argued at various points in this thesis, access (or a lack thereof) to
the field of cultural production plays a significant role in establishing and shaping an
identity for each of these marginalised constituencies. Indeed, it is the very thing that
subjugates one community to another. However, this does not explain why at certain
historical moments regionalism and regional literature are seen as particularly relevant
concerns and a flourish of activity surrounds them. Earlier, the publishing house
Heinemann was mentioned for its role in the 1950s and ‘60s in shaping a postcolonial
Nigerian literature and, indeed, cultivating interest in postcolonial literatures, more
generally. Oxford University Press also contributed to the popularisation of
postcolonial literature, most notably in Africa in the 1960s and ‘70s; its involvement
and the involvement of publishing houses like it has been attributed to ‘the new African
nations’ investment in education’ and the money they expected could be made from this
development.731 In other words, changes in the larger field of cultural production
spurred this development. Similarly, changes in government policy with regard to
literature and the arts played a significant role in shaping critical and popular interest in
the subjects of regionalism and regional literature in Australia. As was mentioned in
Chapter 3 of this thesis, the formation by the Australian Government of the Literature
Board in 1973 brought a four-fold increase in literature funding to just over one million
730Anecdotal evidence of this phenomenon comes in the form of anxieties expressed during interviews for
this thesis by several residents of the town of Broome in Western Australia’s far north Kimberley region.These anxieties concerned recent depictions of the Kimberley region by noted Western Australian writersWinton and Drewe (in their novels Dirt Music and Grace, respectively). The residents were only too
happy to claim Winton and Drewe as Western Australian writers and expressed a considerable affinity forthis category, so long as these two writers did not venture too far from the geographical areas with whichthey have well-known associations, mainly Perth, its suburbs, and the southwest of Western Australian.Within the aforementioned hierarchy, it would seem it is acceptable to write from a more marginalised to
a less marginalised (or even central) position, but the inverse is somehow less acceptable. An Australianwriter of Anglo-Celtic descent writing a story from the perspective of an Indigenous narrator might elicita similar reaction, although the intensity of the response is variable depending on the communitiesinvolved.731Caroline Davis, ‘The Politics of Postcolonial Publishing: Oxford University Press’s Three CrownsSeries 1962–1976’, Book History 8 (2005): 229.
336
dollars.732 This funding ‘played a major role in the encouragement of cultural
diversification’ in Australia, in particular the interest in regional literature.733 New
avenues for publication were opened with the help of Literature Board funding,
including several specifically devoted to the promotion of regional interests.
This thesis is not, however, exclusively concerned with history and historical
detail; it also aims to make a case for the contemporary relevance of the ideas raised
concerning regionalism and regional literature. Yet, there has been no recent change in
the field of cultural production comparable to Africa’s investment in education or
Australia’s investment in literature that sparked an interest in postcolonial and regional
literatures respectively, which would make these ideas seem particularly relevant to the
present moment. Instead, the contemporary relevance of regionalism and regional
literature depends on factors similar to those that gave rise to arguably the most famous
regional literature in the world—the literature of the American South, in particular in
the 1920s and ‘30s:
The regionalists of the interwar years were not the first to awaken to thepossibilities of a regionally differentiated nation. ... But it was under thepressures of modernization and industrialization, especially in thenineteenth and twentieth centuries, that the personal landscape of theregion began to assume for a long line of artists and intellectuals a certainutility as a device for art, social commentary, and political expression.734
It was noted in the Introduction to this thesis that regional literature first emerged in the
United States in a form roughly approximating a genre in the period following the
conclusion of the Civil War, a time of great change and, more specifically, rapid
modernisation. It was also noted that there was a resurgence of interest in regional
literatures in the United States in the 1920s (carrying over into the 1930s), another
period of concentrated modernisation following the conclusion of World War I. Indeed,
732Shapcott, The Literature Board, 8.
733Headon, xix.734Robert L. Dorman, Revolt of the Provinces: The Regionalist Movement in America, 1920–1945 (ChapelHill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), xiii.
337
regional literature has been characterised as ‘an early expression of what became a
widespread cultural resistance to the colonizations of modernity’.735
The contemporary relevance of regionalism and regional literature is not located
as a ‘resistance to the colonizations of modernity’, per se, but rather as a resistance to
and critique of the processes associated with globalisation. Of course, both
modernisation and globalisation represent challenges to the notion of ‘cultural
pluralism’.736 Modernisation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States
was strongly associated with industrialisation, which was perceived as a threat to local
cultures, since it placed a premium on efficiency resulting from regulation and
homogenisation. Globalisation is seen as fulfilling much the same role in the early 21st
century, even though its methods differ. Thus,
to the extent that ... cultures could be identified not merely as ‘American’but only in their association with particular geographic and historicalregions of the country, the regionalist ethic of pluralism became moredirectly an ideological construct, commenting on the distribution ofpower among and within the various sections of the nation, andupholding heterogeneity over homogeneity.737
This concept of ‘upholding heterogeneity over homogeneity’ is paramount to the
concerns of regionalism and regional literature. Therefore, ‘one response’ to
homogeneity (in whatever form it presents itself—globalisation, modernisation, and so
forth) is
resistance and even a kind of cultural reversion. ... Surrender to the lawsof the global village is not the only available option. On the contrary ...one viable response to feelings of being marginalized is to build on themargins, to root one’s thinking precisely in the sense of beingdisempowered and different.738
This excerpt captures the sentiment of a significant conclusion expressed in Chapter 4
of this thesis: the book publishing industry in Western Australia could benefit from
735Donovan, 8.736Dorman, xii.737Ibid.738Richard Gray, ‘Writing Southern Cultures’, in A Companion to the Literature and Culture of theAmerican South, ed. Richard Gray and Owen Robinson (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 6–7.
338
recreating that ‘sense of being disempowered and different’—that is, recreating its
regional identity. Individuals associated with this industry often place too much
emphasis on the influence of other instruments in the field of cultural production, such
as changes in government funding and book retailing practices, and not nearly enough
emphasis on the very significant contributions that publishing houses themselves are
capable of making as instruments of cultural production. A publishing house committed
to presenting an image of itself and its native region, not to mention the inhabitants of
that region, as different and somehow special, is going to contribute to the establishment
and direct the future growth of a larger culture that values that difference. And not just
that difference, but a culture that values difference more generally.
The conceptual framework for understanding regionalism and regional literature,
which has been outlined in this thesis, is of potentially great importance to the book
publishing industry in Western Australia. Moreover, this framework contributes to a
much larger conversation about power and influence in the literary field of cultural
production, especially as these dynamics manifest themselves in relation to geography.
Thus, this thesis has implications for the book publishing industry not only in Western
Australia, but also in other regional areas of Australia. Its conclusions can, furthermore,
be generalised to address relevant issues in Australia as a whole, as well as other
culturally marginalised parts of the world (including in particular all postcolonial
societies, since geography uniformly combines with race and other factors to abet their
cultural dislocation and marginalisation).
The implications of these conclusions should not, however, be misconstrued as
relevant only in a trade or industry context. This concern is reflective of an awareness
that, ‘until recent years, publishing has constituted the academy’s medium for research
dissemination rather than its explicit subject’.739 However, the field of publishing
739Simone Murray, ‘Publishing Studies: Critically Mapping Research in Search of a Discipline’,
Publishing Research Quarterly 22, no. 4 (2001): 3.
339
studies ‘is currently experiencing a sense of urgency arising from both scholars and
their institutions to reconfigure itself as a critical—rather than merely a descriptive or
vocational—field’.740 In order to accomplish this goal, the scholarly study of the
publishing industry must overcome a major institutional hurdle:
Frequently, work analysing contemporary book publishing industrydynamics exists at the periphery of academic sub-disciplines such asliterary studies, bibliography and librarianship, communication, mediaand cultural studies, sociology, history, or in research centres focussedupon interdisciplinary topics such as gender, sexualities or nationalidentities. As a result, research about contemporary book publishing isoften in the ignominious position of being regarded as a fringeintellectual undertaking by groups themselves wedded to the principle ofinterdisciplinarity.741
With no single, clear-cut disciplinary home, studies of the publishing industry risk being
marginalised within the scholarly community. Yet, it is important for this community to
recognise the publishing industry, not to mention scholarly study of the publishing
industry, for what it is—‘an agent in complex global cultural flows’ which has profound
implications for virtually every scholarly endeavour, not to mention on culture when it
is more broadly conceived as the ‘way of life and manner of living of a people’.742 It
would seem, however, that there is still a long way to go in this regard:
Despite ‘the history of the book’ and similar projects, it is still possible tothink of these aspects of production, distribution and governance asinessential, almost accidental, in relation to literature—even opposed toliterature—in ways that do not even begin to make sense in other fieldsof culture. In short, we have scarcely begun to talk about literature as aform of public-commercial-aesthetic institution comparable to cinema,television or popular music. More precisely, we have consideredliterature this way, and uncontroversially, when it has been removed fromthe realm of immediate cultural value: the further removed from culturalcapital the texts are the more easily we read them historically—hence thereally interesting ongoing work on the nineteenth century in Australia.743
740Ibid.741Ibid.742Ibid., 6.743David Carter, ‘Good Readers and Good Citizens: Literature, Media and the Nation’, AustralianLiterary Studies 19, no. 2 (Oct. 1999): 141.
340
Clearly, the study of contemporary book publishing occupies particularly tenuous
territory in the scholarly realm.
Book history, print culture studies and publishing studies, along with literary
studies and cultural studies, roughly approximate a disciplinary map of the types of
research that constitute this thesis. The former three disciplines or sub-disciplines, in
particular, are regarded as ‘a fringe intellectual undertaking’; when applied to the
subject of contemporary book publishing, as in the case of this thesis, they are further
marginalised. Literary studies and cultural studies, on the other hand, are better
established as academic disciplines and fields of scholarly research. Yet, their primary
application in the context of this thesis—the subject of regionalism and regional
literature—is at least as peripheral as publishing studies.
Regionalism is a topic of peripheral interest, at least as far as scholarly research
and academia are concerned, because those who are most likely to be affected by and
thus interested in the topic, are also those who are most disempowered as a result of its
attendant dynamics. The ‘power of place and region’ is vested with those most
disempowered, with the marginal and peripheral. In his foreword to Raymond D.
Gastil’s Cultural Regions of the United States, Nathan Glazer writes,
Gastil points out sadly ‘how small a constructive role academics play inthe regions in which they reside’. He ascribes this charitably to theirmobility. One may also point to the features of their disciplines andrecruitment patterns which set the eyes of academics on distant andabstract topics rather than the vivid reality around them.744
Perhaps a majority of academics also subscribe to the widespread belief that, ‘with the
Internet and modern telecommunication and transportation systems ... it is no longer
necessary for people who work together to be together, so they won’t be’.745 However,
as Richard Florida goes on to explain, ‘never has a myth been easier to deflate. ... Place
744Nathan Glazer, foreword to Cultural Regions of the United States, by Raymond D. Gastil (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1975), x.745Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 219.
341
and community are more critical factors than ever before. And a good deal of the
reason for this is that ... the economy itself increasingly takes form around real
concentrations of people in real places.’746 Florida is not alone in this observation: ‘The
only indispensable material factor in the generation of power is the living together of
people. Only where men [sic] live so close together that the potentialities for action are
always present will power remain with them.’747 Academics regularly employ
universities as physical sites around which power (in the form of knowledge and
disciplinary expertise, but also funding, grant administration, and so forth) concentrates,
and yet there exists little evidence in the literary scholarly record of ‘the region’ being
highly valued as a research topic. In Australia, this interest scarcely extends outside the
bounds of a single decade, the 1980s, and a small group of critics. One possible reason
for this oversight is that some of the structures of power that prop them up, are the same
structures that hinder the cause of regionalism.
However, the literary scholarly community ignores ‘the power of place and
region’ at its own peril, as it is a highly valued feature in society at large: ‘A 2002
survey of 4,000 recent college graduates, reported in The Wall Street Journal, found that
three-quarters of them identified location as more important than the availability of a
job when selecting a place to live.’748 Also, ‘in a survey of 960 people looking to switch
jobs, reported in The Wall Street Journal in July 2001, location ranked second only to
salary (chosen by 25 percent versus 32 percent) as the prime motivation for
switching’.749 Florida attributes the high value ascribed to place to the fact that
place provides an increasingly important dimension of our identity.Fewer people today find lifelong identity in the company for which theywork. We live in a world where many traditional institutions have ceasedto provide meaning, stability and support. ... The combination of where
746Ibid.747Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 201.748Florida, xix.749Ibid., 96.
342
we live and what we do has come to replace who we work for as a mainelement of identity.750
Place as an increasingly important and even a ‘main element of identity’ is perhaps the
best possible explanation for the contemporary relevance of regionalism and regional
literature.
Of course, ‘a perceived grouping based upon place and similar ways of life
represents one form among many’.751 Furthermore, ‘the existence of a “regional group”
may defy clear definition from the objective measures of a social scientist’; in other
words, a certain type of critical or scholarly examination may raise questions about the
validity of claims regarding the existence of an identifiable region and derivative
regional identity.752 An example of this perspective was quoted in the Introduction to
this thesis, where it was observed that ‘many cities have indulged in some interesting, if
rather desperate, ploys to proclaim their, and thus their inhabitants’, particularity’.753
The same author, Wilbur Zelinsky, insists that ‘many cities, towns, and other
localities ... have reacted to the perils of placelessness and labor to sustain or fabricate
some semblance of distinctiveness’ (emphasis mine).754 Yet, even if, as Zelinsky seems
to suggest, some regions exist only as the collective figment of their inhabitants’
imagination, these regions ‘may nonetheless be “real” as a relatively subjective
phenomenon that appears to influence human actions’.755
The following excerpt concerning regions and regional identities in the United
States illustrates one way in which regions ‘influence human actions’:
Southerners are, arguably, the most self-conscious and distinctive of themajor American regional groups and have therefore received moreattention than the others, at least explicitly. (Certainly we know a great
750Ibid., 229.751J. Nicholas Entrikin, The Betweenness of Place: Towards a Geography of Modernity (Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University Press, 1991), 54.752Ibid.753Zelinsky, 141.754Ibid., 138.755Entrikin, 54.
343
deal about the Northeast, but studies of that region are seldom seen as‘regional’; they are, rather, thought to be ‘American’.)756
Overlooking one region while assuming that another is representative of the nation—
assuming it is not, in fact, a ‘region’ but the ‘whole’—is a particularly influential form
of human action. This dynamic has shaped the development of cultural industries in
Western Australia, which in turn shape a regional or Western Australian identity. The
three publishing houses detailed in this thesis are notable examples of this cycle of
influence; they are disadvantaged by many of the forces associated with their
geographical distance from the traditional centres of book publishing, while at the same
time producing a regional literature that serves as a platform from which the state
broadcasts its distinctive contributions to the cultural landscape and to a wider
understanding of concepts like space, place and belonging. The results benefit not only
Western Australian writers and their personal economies, but also all residents of
Western Australia, as well as readers-at-large who benefit by virtue of a diversification
of the literary voices they receive.
756John Shelton Reed, 15.
344
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