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Found poetry borrows from other writers—from different writings, artefacts, and sources—always attributing and referencing accurately. In this paper, regional daily newspapers and their front page headlines are privileged as primary texts, the Found Poetry performing as nonfiction lyrical collage, with applied rules, nestling beside them. Considering the notion that contemporary poetry ‘inhabits language’, this paper uses three forms of Found Poetry – erasure, free-form and research – to test and demonstrate both literally and metaphorically, its veracity. Implicitly nonfiction, these poems create a nuanced and rhythmic lineated transcript of Australian life, derived from regional legacy newspapers, while they endure. Furthermore, using a comparative textual method, the aesthetics of Found Poetry is established visually. This paper is the second in a series derived from the beginnings of a research project into Australian legacy newspaper stories and Found Poetry. The first was a sequence of prose poems; this second collection is lineated and contributes to the notion of poetry mediating and enriching our understanding of the reality of the everyday.

This paper tracks the trajectory of a life writing project through tertiary education to publication, and beyond. From a rocky pedagogical beginning, with clinical ramifications, student and academic discuss their individual experiences of the process, and trace the lessons learnt, from each perspective. The memoir was written and published under a pseudonym at the time. The former candidate discusses that decision and why she would make a different one today. As such, she continues the incremental ownership of her life writing story of the systematic abuse when she was a child, growing up in Melbourne, at the hands of an extended family member. The paper looks at the writing as therapy literature as a means to demonstrate that it may not have immediate affect on life writers, but incremental. The former candidate’s memoir, when first published, became a top seller of a large Australian bookstore chain for many weeks.

As a journalist for more than 30 years, his face and voice are immediately recognisable. But throughout the 1990s to many in Australia – watching Stan Grant anchor a commercial television current affairs programme every night as they ate their dinner – no one could guess at his untold story. He has written two memoirs. The first is the voice of a confused, angry, perhaps fearful young man. This voice melds his personal story as quest – of family, loves, pain, career and torment – into the national race narrative. For Stan Grant is a proud Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi man and his story importantly ‘untells’ much of the white Australian history of central and south western NSW, before disclosing his own struggle with race and racism in his land. Ten years later and in response to a notorious moment in 2013 on an Australian sporting field, Grant writes a newspaper column which attracts more than 100,000 hits on social media. He follows this with his second memoir. This voice is calmer, less angry but perhaps sadder. It performs as a collective and cultural remembering of the Australian First Nations and implicitly, an advocacy manifesto to a nation still struggling with racial tensions. Through textual analysis of both texts, and with the inclusion of further paratextual material, including his Quarterly Essay, this paper sets out to discuss Grant’s application of life writing/memoir practice to penetrate the race debate in Australia in an attempt to effect change.

This chapter argues for a taxonomic Gonzo ethnography spanning more than a century, beginning with Jack London and George Orwell, through the pivotal Hunter S. Thompson and onwards to Barbara Ehrenreich, finally claiming a space for Elisabeth Wynhausen's work within this genealogy. Contextualizing Wynhausen's text with tho e of the other authors, this chafJter a1'gues that her auto-ethnographic rendering talus on a Gonzo mantle because of her idiosyncratic voice and its socio-political impetus. Both drive the narrative in Dirt Cheap: Life at the Wrong End of the Job Market, creating an acerbic Australian contemporary commentary on power class, and the invisible underclasses that she johis brle y

Resolving the binary oppositions of loyalty/betrayal and privacy/shared ownership frequently problematizes the practice of those writers producing patriographical/matriographical texts. David Leser is an award-winning journalist, one of Australia's most prolific profile and feature writers. He has worked as a Middle East and Washington DC correspondent, and as feature writer for the Murdoch, Packer and Fairfax organizations. David Leser's professional writing career spans decades so he is familiar with the forms and audiences shaping and driving the publication industry. Reflecting on the therapeutic nature of writing memoir, Leser decides in the end that the reading of books/the act of reading books can be just as therapeutic. There are few moments where a memoirist can escape the interconnectivity between their own story and the story of another - the assertion of their own voice while simultaneously considering the possible violation of someone else's privacy. And of course, an ethical memoirist gives due consideration to harm minimization.

Found poetry is lyrical collage, with rules. Borrowing from other writers – from different writings, artefacts, sources – it must always attribute and reference accurately. This paper is derived from the beginnings of a research project into Australian legacy newspaper stories and found poetry as prose poetry, explaining the rationale behind the bigger project. Ethnographic in texture at its edges, the research project sets out to create poetic renditions of regional news of the day, circumnavigating the continent. My aim is to produce a cadenced and lyrical nonfiction transcript of Australian life, inspired by and appropriated from regional legacy media, while it still exists.The beginning of the research was a recce journey to the centre of Australia in 2016. Currently, the outcomes of the recce are six poems, five of which are nonfiction prose poems. Contextualising found poetry within the prose poetry genre – a long debated and hybrid space – the theoretical elements of this paper underpin its creative offerings.

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation. Miller and Tougaw observe, “If every age has its symptoms, ours appears to be the age of trauma”. Their observation may help explain the emergence of memoir and autobiographical or autoethnographic creative works, not just commercially but also within the tertiary sector. Almost all of this work is appearing within journalism, English and creative writing schools as students turn to creative practice degrees as a means to write through traumatic events. The focus of this paper is to report on the findings of a qualitative research project where a range of Australian academics supervising trauma narrative HDR candidates were interviewed regarding what their needs are in relation to the ethical supervision of their candidates. This paper will also contribute to a better understanding of the supervisory relationship pertinent to candidates undertaking their own personal trauma narrative research and the ways in which academics can provide a safer space for both themselves and Research by Higher Degree students.

Behind the Text is a celebration of the often forgotten genre of creative nonfiction. Paired with Joseph’s rich descriptions of person and place, this collection of candid interviews brings together some of the best Australian authors, covering everything from traumatic wartime journalism and burning national issues to Middle Eastern spices. In this definitive work, eleven influential authors explore their writing process, ethical dilemmas and connection to the capacious genre. As the first collection of its kind, this work brings Australian creative nonfiction into the literary spotlight.

As memoir and autobiographical/ autoethnographic texts flourish in the market place, so this emergence is reflected in the tertiary sector. Mostly sited within journalism, English and creative writing schools, accordingly a proportion of these texts incorporate trauma narrative as students turn to creative practice degrees as a means to write through disruptive autobiographical events. Accordingly, supervisors of HDR candidates undertaking long form trauma narrative find themselves more and more immersed in the trauma, bearing witness to their students’ potential unease. We argue that this type of supervision may potentially necessitate a differentiated management approach, with the establishment of additional protocols, informed by the potential dangers of re-traumatisation of the candidate; and vicarious traumatisation of the supervisor. The aim of this paper is to report on some of the preliminary findings of a qualitative research project [1] where a range of Australian academics supervising Higher Degree Research (HDR) candidates writing about traumatic experiences were interviewed regarding supervisory protocols and practices. Here we focus on selected insights from supervisors who responded to one of the interview questions: ‘what do you consider the potential risks for a student and a supervisor involved in HDR projects framed by trauma narrative?’ We anticipate this paper will provide helpful perspectives from experienced academics for early career supervisors about to embark on trauma shaped projects.

“It felt like a personal experience that someone else wanted to participate in and didn’t deserve to participate in.” Brian Williams enjoyed the trust of his organisation and audience for 10 years as NBC’s Nightly News anchor and Managing Editor. But on the night of January 30, 2015 during a broadcast, his high profile status began to unravel. Venerated as a reliable news source, Williams was forced to explain his legendary story of survival one day in the skies above the Iraq War. His version of an attack on a Chinook helicopter he was travelling in was circulated and valorised by his own corporation for 12 years. But when American soldier Lance Reynolds and other military challenged the veracity of his version of historical events, the corporation was forced to suspend him. Williams equates his rewriting and false reporting of this historical event as an act of ‘misremembering’. This assertion is a clear breach of how the Society of Professional Journalists missions its American members: ‘ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough. An ethical journalist acts with integrity’. NBC responded to this breach by suspending Williams for six months. However, the focus of this paper is audience response and the ways in which the production of new online texts, in the form of satirical memes, ubiquitously serves to critique and ridicule Williams’ claim of ‘misremembering’. And as such, the circulation of these online memes which re-appropriate historical moments, lend themselves in turn to the manufacture of parodic artefacts.

On October 9, 2012, the then Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard rose to her feet in Canberra’s Parliament House, and in response to a motion tabled by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, delivered her blistering Misogyny Speech. Although Gillard’s speech was met with cynicism by the Australian Press Gallery, some accusing her of playing the ‘gender card’, it reverberated around the world and when the international coverage poured back into the country, ordinary Australians stood up and listened. One of them was author, essayist, classical concert pianist and mother, Anna Goldsworthy. Shortly after the delivery of The Misogyny Speech, Quarterly Essay editor Chris Feik approached Goldsworthy to write the 50th essay for the Black Inc. publication, his idea to view it through a cultural lens. It took several months to research and compose, resulting in Unfinished Business: Sex, Freedom and Misogyny. The issue was launched at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne on July 1, 2013, five days after Julia Gillard was deposed from her Prime Ministership. This paper takes a look back at the 50th issue of the Quarterly Essay, to discuss with its author her essay-writing process and the aftermath of publication. Goldsworthy is erudite as she looks at the construction of the essay, its contents and her love of essay writing. Although she confesses to not having a definition for the form, she believes it does not matter; that its fluidity is a basic constituent element. Her love of language and music inform both the breadth of her essay, as well as its narrative – there is lyricism to her sentences and a musicality to her structure. This paper also contextualises Unfinished Business as an example of the crucial long form essay contribution that Black Inc.’s Quarterly Essay performs in the Australian literary/ political/ cultural/ intellectual environment. There were critics of Goldsworthy’s essay, and these are assessed as a component of how ‘the essay’ can function in a liberal First-World society, as demonstrated by the Quarterly Essay periodical.

I prefer that laughter shall take me unawares. Only so can it master and dissolve me (Beerbohm 1921: 42).A thing is funny when—in some way that is not actually offensive or frightening—it upsets the established order. Every joke is a tiny revolution(Orwell 1945).More than a quarter of a century ago, Australian comedian, journalist and author Wendy Harmer compiled and wrote the first book on Australian women’s humor, (1989).In the preface, she claims that she is seeking ‘to redress the balance’ (Harmer 1989: 7) of the missing canon on Australian female comedians. Where there were copious texts on humor and men, women were conspicuous due to their absence. This chapter, firstly discussing humor through a scholarly lens, goes back to claims and observations made in compiling her book, to interrogate a life spent in the comedic spotlight (including being Editor-in-Chief of , an online web news magazine for women) and compare what she believed then to what she believes now from lived experience.Harmer has been an enduring comedic voice in Australia since the 1980s, first recognized in 1983 for the comedy show series , with Maryanne Fahey. Then she was asked to write for the with John Clarke from 1984–1985 on (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) television. In 1989, she was the first woman to host her own television comedy show, (1989–1992), based on the British TV show .

Defining research methodologies within the creative practices has been a controversial and fraught issue throughout Australian tertiary programmes. Academics appropriate existing conceptual theoretical paradigms to greater and lesser degrees; while other academics argue that ‘practice’ itself is the heart of the research, putting practice-led research forward as the discipline’s core methodology. The latter is harder to argue in terms of a government funding model, causing ongoing frustration throughout the creative Australian academy. Attempting to create a third approach, this paper argues that the techniques of an ‘enactive methodology’ within practice-led and creative higher degree research are also applicable and viable, potentially providing a solid model akin to scientifically reproducing ‘results’. Subsequently, this paper also looks briefly at the ethical imperative of supervising students interrogating their own trauma narrative in a tertiary institution, flagging a pedagogical model of ethical supervision. Focussing on written long form trauma narrative through the HDR supervision process, this paper interrogates six enactive methodologies utilised by four students within their creative component, then interrogated in the exegetical component of candidate research constellating notions of: living with an alcoholic parent; death of a parent; child sexual abuse; and life as a child refugee.

Australian literary journalism has neither a discrete nor recognisable community of authors as compared to the United States and the United Kingdom. In Australia, writers in the field do not label themselves as such and indeed, most are surprised when it is suggested their work falls within the parameters of Northern Hemisphere specificities for the genre. Commensurate with contemporary international examination, more than thirteen years ago in Australia, preliminary debate was initiated about the term ‘creative non-fiction’ in an attempt to identify an Australian canon. In more recent years, two other terms – book length or long form journalism – have been offered. But, similar to the rest of the global polemic, none ever seem to settle. The determination to find a label has its genesis within the academy and mostly, only those writers who work within the academy or have worked within the academy are really privy to the debates. Australian academic, award-winning journalist and author, and social commentator Margaret Simons prefers to speak of a ‘disinterested’ and ‘dirty’ journalism rather than using the term ‘literary’. Ironically, she is one of Australia’s leading literary journalists. This paper is based on an interview with Simons which interrogated her own extensive literary journalism as a sub-genre within the overarching frame of creative non-fiction and an analysis of one of her award winning texts. As both an academic and a journalist, her perspective is multi layered.

Much has been written on differing paradigms of supervisor and Higher Degree Research candidate relationship, particularly at the doctoral level. According to the literature, varying models of supervision result in varying experiences but a consistent thread within the comparatively newer discipline of creative practices in Australia is a desire to understand this relationship and develop a uniform quality assurance. But this paper argues that different types of candidate work within creative practices entails different types of supervision. We arrive at this statement experientially through a supervisory/student relationship spanning two degrees and four to five years, interrogating notions of grief and death, framed by trauma. In the final year of a doctorate, we instigated a mini lateral research project, looking at our own practice, as both supervisor and candidate. Within the qualitative frame of narrative inquiry, we individually devised a set of questions, and undertook to rigorously investigate how the other regards the process we have been living for the past four years. In a bid to both articulate and then reflect upon this relationship, we hope in some small way to contribute to the growing canon within the creative practices on supervisor/candidate relationships, particularly pertinent to the writing and supervision of trauma narrative.

Leading Australian literary journalist Margaret Simons (1960) is an award-winning freelance and the author of ten books and many essays and articles. As a social and political commentator in Australia, she is regarded as one of the best. In 2003, her book The Meeting of the Waters: The Hindmarsh Island Affair, brokered both heated debate and revelation. Her investigation into the battle between local Aboriginal people living on Hindmarsh Island in South Australia, and developers wishing to build a bridge between the mainland and the island during the 1990s, is both beautifully written and starkly troubling. This story, I believe, goes beyond the immediate telling, reflecting the troubled divide between indigenous and white Australia – a metaphor, so to speak, of a simmering but still current disconnect.

After an interval, usually no longer than a night (and often far less; if we’re feeling particularly restless, we might only manage ten or fifteen minutes) we interrupt whatever we are doing to check the news — Alain de Botton In his recent contribution to public discourse, Alain De Botton’s text The News: A User’s Manual critiques the privileged position that news now occupies in a ‘news addicted’ age. He references a time when the main ways an audience accessed news was via ‘thirty pages of a paper’ or ‘half an hour of a bulletin’. 2 Obviously, media convergence and the 24-hour news cycle have crossed these containment lines to produce boundless data—we deliberately employ the word data here as opposed to the mediation of meaningful information that is often sacrificed in the commodification and commercialisation of news as product. The more traditional editorial practice used to determine whether a storyline constitutes ‘news’ involves a mapping to at least one or more standard news values. These now often run second to the pressing agenda of media entities needing to present something, or anything, continuously to the public domain. Taking as our case study the disappearance of Air Malaysia’s MH370 flight, 3 this paper explores the ethical intervention of Misha Ketchell, managing editor for The Conversation, in deciding early in the news cycle not to post any more stories on the missing plane until there was something more newsworthy to report.

Book length or long form is where much of Australia’s literary journalism is sited. As such, this paper will examine three long form contributions to the recent Australian gender discourse garnered by the prime ministership of Julia Gillard. Julia Gillard was Australia’s 27th – and first female – prime minister. She came to office determined that gender had not – and would not – play a part in her tenure. She left office embroiled in a gender struggle of acts and words and images unimaginable before they occurred. The media, the Opposition, members of her own party and ordinary Australians took part in a collective denigration of her reputation professionally, politically and personally. It went on unabated for three years, growing in intensity, and only towards the end of her leadership, was it truly comprehensively contested in the public sphere; and then, mainly by women writers, writing in the long form. Between April and July, 2013, six texts appeared, all either written or edited by women, constellating the notions of gender during and in the wake of Prime Minister Gillard’s leadership. This paper will examine three of them, long form counterpoints to the popular and electronic media vilification of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard. In so doing, it will examine the usage of the words ‘sexism’ and ‘misogyny’ as they were applied in Australia throughout this time.

Australian creative practice researchers are not alone in their quest for an appropriate framework for human ethics research committee consent. Globally, there seem to be similar tensions. Although Australia's National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research was revamped in 2007 to be more inclusive of specific creative practice research, including long-form journalism and other creative non-fiction writing, many tertiary Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs) have not evolved with it. Instead, a conservative stasis pertaining to the previous medical/scientific paradigm remains the default position. This paper details a submission to an Australian university's HREC calling for a human ethics application process that more appropriately contextualises creative practice human research. Additionally, it proposes an informed consent letter that addresses tensions around the withdrawal of data based on the journalistic practice of on the record/off the record. The revised Australian National Statement has given creative practice-led academics the ability to improve the ethical clearance processthe mechanisms are there within the National Statement. By highlighting the counter-productive restraints and constraints some conservative HRECs still place on the functioning of journalistic and other creative non-fiction writing research within universities, this paper calls for a uniform and national collaboration to investigate review other than by HREC as a matter of urgency for all Australian journalism and creative practice researchers, based on the more intuitive and streamlined content model already utilised at a UK university.

Defining research methodologies within the creative practices has been a controversial and fraught issue throughout Australian tertiary programmes. Academics appropriate existing conceptual theoretical paradigms to greater and lesser degrees; while other academics argue that ‘practice’ itself is the heart of the research, putting practice-led research forward as the discipline’s core methodology. The latter is harder to argue in terms of a government funding model, causing ongoing frustration throughout the Australian academy. Attempting to create a third approach, this paper argues that ‘enactive methodology’ within practice-led and creative higher degree research is also applicable and viable, potentially providing solid models akin to scientifically reproducing ‘results’. Subsequently, this paper also looks briefly at the ethical imperative of supervising students interrogating their own trauma narrative in a tertiary institution, flagging a pedagogical model of ethical supervision. Focussing on written long form trauma narrative through the HDR supervision process, this paper interrogates six enactive methodologies utilised by four students within their creative component, then interrogated in the exegetical component of candidate research constellating notions of: living with an alcoholic parent; death of a parent; child sexual abuse; and life as a child refugee.

Memoir writing and publishing has surged in recent years and this pattern is reflected in a surge in the number of students seeking to undertake degrees in auto-ethnographic creative non-fiction writing within tertiary institutions, specifically in relation to their own personal trauma. This paper discusses attempts to implement a pedagogical model to facilitate the supervision of students seeking to write trauma narrative, positing that because of the nature of their writing, they are closer to further psychic injury throughout the process than students not undertaking trauma writing. The result is that specialised attention is warranted and necessary, and indeed without specialised care, the offering of such degrees within tertiary settings could be framed as ethically fraught. The paper will discuss the current pedagogical model, and its implementation. But then will look at a case study where the model fell dramatically short. The ensuing argument is that the model should only ever be regarded as a default to be constantly developed. It argues that students choosing to undertake life writing around personal trauma are exposed to further psychic danger as a direct result of their studies, and must be seen as individuals, with specific and hyper-vigilant supervision needs.

In the wake of the News of the World hacking scandal, there was a metaphorical and self-righteous global sigh that here, finally, was concrete and over-arching 'proof' to substantiate the ubiquitous discourse that indeed journalists, and their profession, behave unethically to get their stories; often criminally. The collective rationale made sense at the time, and as its more than 300 witnesses streamed to give evidence at The Leveson Inquiry: Culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press in London throughout nine months of investigation, this rationale was not simply proven; substantive elements were extended. The Leveson Inquiry testimony and findings are not only as shocking as was suspected; they are worse. And as a treatise of how a hierarchy of power manages to exert an insidious downwardly vertical pressure, manifesting at the feet of sometimes the most vulnerable in a newsroom, it makes compelling reading. Concurrently but not as lengthy, and certainly not as broad, the Finkelstein Report in Australia has led to some of the most hotly debated notions of press freedom in this country for many decades. Politicians, academics, analysts, social commentators and members of the public weighed into a media legislation debate, still to be resolved. But where does that leave journalism practitioners now? Still tenaciously wedged between the people and government agencies; the people and the 'big' business end of town; the people and bureaucracy; the guardians, and attendant to that, the gatekeepers of the free flow of information between the people and the institutions, and policy makers who make the decisions. Is there a universal public interest test that can be rendered and applied, across the board, to shore up the existing journalism code of ethics, ironically so easily side-stepped with the existing public interest 'out clause'? To date, evidence suggests that media self-regulation is a notion regarded with an almost contemptuous arrogance, leaving risk of legislation with a potential to eat away at the edges of what many view as the bedrock of press freedom, and its more than notional fundamental function within healthy democratic process. It begs the question so elegantly pronounced by Justice Leveson on his inquiry's opening day in London: "Who guards the guardians?"

Janet Malcolm penned the infamous `morally indefensible' phrase more than twenty years ago concerning journalism practice and, despite the length of time, its application is a bench-marking filter through which ethical journalism must still emerge. Drawing on my experience of being interviewed by the media, I examine the performative aspect of profile writing, seeking a model of variant `morally defensible' positions dependent on a public interest test. In seeking to subvert the notion of a popular trauma culture that deems a subject a victim for mass media consumption for no good reason other than entertainment - a `morally indefensible' space - this paper suggests that in an interview focusing on a trauma narrative, when handled ethically and empathetically, both the subject and the journalism practitioner have an opportunity to metaphorically converge. They eventually leave any notion of performance and identity construct behind, as the power of the narrative creates a transparent space. When handled ethically according to the telling by the subject, both the impulse by the trauma subject to tell and the empathetic responses and re-renderings of the journalist join to form a type of advocacy journalism - in the public interest.

There is often a moment or moments during an interview where the subject's deeply personal experience intersects with the narrative process; "an eloquent episode" on which the central significance of an entire story resonates. Drawing on a sequence of interviews with subjects telling deeply hidden, long held secrets, this paper will examine a series of micro moments within each account, both for their narrative power as well as their fundamental consequence to the narrative or macro process. Many of the buried stories in this paper are of traumatic memory, circulating around sexuality, or sexual and violent secrets. Attendant to this is the ethical management of such moments at the time of interview, as well as their subsequent reduction to written words by the interviewer. Incorporating a reflective practice into the text in combination with the undertaking of an ethical practice is to only increase the power of the story, and authenticate further the voice of the secondary story teller. By focusing on "the eloquent episode" or micro moment, and expanding its bounds, it is the intention of this paper to highlight it as a literary device that reinforces the power of the telling of the story, authenticating not just the voice of the primary storyteller but the narrative. http://www.textjournal.com.au

Journalism and writing academics from around the country are evaluating the best method to tackle problematic encounters with Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs). Discussion is focussing on the management of the ethics approval process within universities pertinent to their roles as researchers and as supervisors to their Higher Degree Research students. The National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research was revamped in 2007 to be more inclusive of specific research practices within these fields, but it seems the flow on effect to many university HRECs has not evolved with it. Instead, a conservative stasis pertaining to the previous medical/scientific paradigm remains the default position. Pre-empting upcoming ethics applications flowing from the creation of a newly formed journalism graduate school, this paper will detail a submission that was made by the author to a university's HREC in a bid to expedite the process for non-traditional and creative researchers within the new school. It will also propose a more appropriate and applicable model of the informed consent letter that addresses tensions around the withdrawal of 'data'. The HREC response and subsequent outcome will also be examined. This paper seeks to add to the debate around this issue by detailing how the revised National Statement has indeed given creative practice-led academics the ability to improve the ethical clearance process - on close reading, the mechanisms are there within the Statement. http://aawp.org.au/publications-aawp

Speaking Secrets is a non-fiction work which explores voicelessness and the media. It focuses on sexuality secrets and explores what happens when these secrets become public property. Each chapter is written in a literary journalistic style. The genre is used here to intimately explore stories which have - for various reasons - fallen below the radar of mainstream journalism, despite some prior media exposure. This is a book of interviews with people who have disclosed publicly, sexual and sexuality secrets within their lives after sometimes as many as 50 years of never talking about these matters. The interviews in Speaking Secrets, all conducted in Australia, incorporate rape, disability, racism, illness, child sexual abuse, and sexual reassignment. Each interview is framed by the media and secrecy and disclosure. The chapters are first person literary journalism, accompanied by black and white photos. Some of the subjects are well known - others not - but each has reached out publicly via the media to tell and retell their stories, for various and varied reasons.

Figures confirm that Australians avidly read their creative non-fiction. But most would be unable to name the genre; it is not as widely defined or discussed in Australia as it is in the USA and UK, where it is actively debated and anthologised. This paper goes to the heart of the genre in Australia, investigating through narrative interview why there is not more of an Australian voice in this international debate. It examines the perspectives and views of twelve of the country's most widely read, awarded and respected creative non-fiction authors, drawing them into the discussion. There appears a wide spread disinterest from those who write creative non-fiction in this country to label it as such. But a disinterest in categorisation does not discredit the validity of the writing - indeed, this disinterest lends itself to an idiosyncratic character, or one of many 'different national manifestations' around the world. The writings of creative non-fiction authors in Australia are an integral part of a social history, and as such must be studied and collated as our own 'cultural pathway'. The international debate is an important one to take part in, as a collective impetus grows to legitimise the genre as a collection of differing national cultural assets.