Willa McDonald | Macquarie University (original) (raw)
Books by Willa McDonald
http://www.amazon.com/Writers-Reader-Understanding-Journalism-Non-Fiction/dp/0521700337
Book Chapters by Willa McDonald
Profile feature articles are a staple of the modern media, but their origins can be traced to the... more Profile feature articles are a staple of the modern media, but their origins can be traced to the character sketch. In line with literary trends in the USA and Europe, several models of non-fiction character sketches emerged in Australia in the nineteenth century, with writers and journalists experimenting with different forms, and the boundaries between the styles often blurred. The most evident versions of the Australian character sketch, included:
• The satirical sketch, of the unnamed local identity, for example, as done anonymously in the 1820s by Australia’s first essayist and novelist, the convict forger Henry Savery, and later by a range of journalists including Theodore Emile Argles (Harold Grey) and Caroline Dexter.
• The sketch of character ‘type’. This form of character sketch was linked to the task of nation building in colonial Australia and took the form of both fictional typological sketches and those that ‘profiled’ known people. William Baker’s early journal Heads of the People (1847/8) is an example of the latter; it ran sketches of a range of Sydneysiders from the prominent to the humble in its search for representative Australian characters.
• The sketch as exemplar – this was common in the Australian colonial literary culture as elsewhere at the time, but the missionary Christina Smith’s sketches of individual Booandik tribespeople (1880) are an unusual and moving elegiac and ethnographic application of this form.
• The style closest to the modern profile, the ‘illustrated interview’ as sketch of a local or visiting celebrity. Cosmos magazine under Annie Bright’s editorship (1894-1896) prioritised character sketches of dignitaries and entertainment celebrities that included interviews and accompanying illustrations.
The publications explored here have been chosen because they help to demonstrate the varieties of non-fiction character sketch that led to the development of the modern profile. Far from being definitive, these are representative examples of some of the forms of non-fiction character sketch practiced in the rich and varied journalistic culture of nineteenth century Australia.
Papers by Willa McDonald
... Not surprisingly, issues of belonging have found expression in Australia's non-Indigenou... more ... Not surprisingly, issues of belonging have found expression in Australia's non-Indigenous literaryjournalism. ... Subject Keyword 200200 Cultural Studies Subject Keyword 200500 Literary Studies Subject Keyword creative non-fiction writing Subject Keyword ...
Routledge eBooks, Apr 12, 2019
Interview by Willa McDonald of author Kevin Chong about his book "Neil Young nation : a ques... more Interview by Willa McDonald of author Kevin Chong about his book "Neil Young nation : a quest, an obsession (and a true story)"
This text is teaching-based research that examines the craft of writing non-fiction from journali... more This text is teaching-based research that examines the craft of writing non-fiction from journalism to literary and personal essays. It contains 19 examples of non- fiction writing by a range of international and Australian authors, as well as fou contextualising essays, plus nine interviews, co-conducted by us, with a sample of the writers/journalists feature The interviewees include: Robert Fisk, David Marr, Barry Siegel, Greg Bearup, Malcolm Knox, John Birmingham, Helen Garner, Ashley Hay and Pico Iyer.5 page(s
The Australian author, 1997
This text is teaching-based research that examines the craft of writing non-fiction from journali... more This text is teaching-based research that examines the craft of writing non-fiction from journalism to literary and personal essays. It contains 19 examples of non- fiction writing by a range of international and Australian authors, as well as fou contextualising essays, plus nine interviews, co-conducted by us, with a sample of the writers/journalists feature The interviewees include: Robert Fisk, David Marr, Barry Siegel, Greg Bearup, Malcolm Knox, John Birmingham, Helen Garner, Ashley Hay and Pico Iyer.4 page(s
We love to read life stories. We read them to escape. We read them to better understand ourselves... more We love to read life stories. We read them to escape. We read them to better understand ourselves and the world we live in. We read them to find out how other people manage life, filled as it always is with hardships, challenges and joys. Described as an interrogation of consciousness rather than of fact, memoir is the form of the personal essay that most directly tries to explore and convey a history of the writer's own life and experiences - a job usually done in a more disguised form by fiction.5 page(s
Third Text, 2009
Book review of Suzanne Falkiner's biography, "Joan in India". Published by Australi... more Book review of Suzanne Falkiner's biography, "Joan in India". Published by Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2008, ISBN 9781740971621
Profile feature articles are a staple of the modern media, but their origins can be traced to the... more Profile feature articles are a staple of the modern media, but their origins can be traced to the character sketch. In line with literary trends in the USA and Europe, several models of non-fiction character sketches emerged in Australia in the nineteenth century, with writers and journalists experimenting with different forms, and the boundaries between the styles often blurred. The most evident versions of the Australian character sketch, included:
• The satirical sketch, of the unnamed local identity, for example, as done anonymously in the 1820s by Australia’s first essayist and novelist, the convict forger Henry Savery, and later by a range of journalists including Theodore Emile Argles (Harold Grey) and Caroline Dexter.
• The sketch of character ‘type’. This form of character sketch was linked to the task of nation building in colonial Australia and took the form of both fictional typological sketches and those that ‘profiled’ known people. William Baker’s early journal Heads of the People (1847/8) is an example of the latter; it ran sketches of a range of Sydneysiders from the prominent to the humble in its search for representative Australian characters.
• The sketch as exemplar – this was common in the Australian colonial literary culture as elsewhere at the time, but the missionary Christina Smith’s sketches of individual Booandik tribespeople (1880) are an unusual and moving elegiac and ethnographic application of this form.
• The style closest to the modern profile, the ‘illustrated interview’ as sketch of a local or visiting celebrity. Cosmos magazine under Annie Bright’s editorship (1894-1896) prioritised character sketches of dignitaries and entertainment celebrities that included interviews and accompanying illustrations.
The publications explored here have been chosen because they help to demonstrate the varieties of non-fiction character sketch that led to the development of the modern profile. Far from being definitive, these are representative examples of some of the forms of non-fiction character sketch practiced in the rich and varied journalistic culture of nineteenth century Australia.
... Not surprisingly, issues of belonging have found expression in Australia's non-Indigenou... more ... Not surprisingly, issues of belonging have found expression in Australia's non-Indigenous literaryjournalism. ... Subject Keyword 200200 Cultural Studies Subject Keyword 200500 Literary Studies Subject Keyword creative non-fiction writing Subject Keyword ...
Routledge eBooks, Apr 12, 2019
Interview by Willa McDonald of author Kevin Chong about his book "Neil Young nation : a ques... more Interview by Willa McDonald of author Kevin Chong about his book "Neil Young nation : a quest, an obsession (and a true story)"
This text is teaching-based research that examines the craft of writing non-fiction from journali... more This text is teaching-based research that examines the craft of writing non-fiction from journalism to literary and personal essays. It contains 19 examples of non- fiction writing by a range of international and Australian authors, as well as fou contextualising essays, plus nine interviews, co-conducted by us, with a sample of the writers/journalists feature The interviewees include: Robert Fisk, David Marr, Barry Siegel, Greg Bearup, Malcolm Knox, John Birmingham, Helen Garner, Ashley Hay and Pico Iyer.5 page(s
The Australian author, 1997
This text is teaching-based research that examines the craft of writing non-fiction from journali... more This text is teaching-based research that examines the craft of writing non-fiction from journalism to literary and personal essays. It contains 19 examples of non- fiction writing by a range of international and Australian authors, as well as fou contextualising essays, plus nine interviews, co-conducted by us, with a sample of the writers/journalists feature The interviewees include: Robert Fisk, David Marr, Barry Siegel, Greg Bearup, Malcolm Knox, John Birmingham, Helen Garner, Ashley Hay and Pico Iyer.4 page(s
We love to read life stories. We read them to escape. We read them to better understand ourselves... more We love to read life stories. We read them to escape. We read them to better understand ourselves and the world we live in. We read them to find out how other people manage life, filled as it always is with hardships, challenges and joys. Described as an interrogation of consciousness rather than of fact, memoir is the form of the personal essay that most directly tries to explore and convey a history of the writer's own life and experiences - a job usually done in a more disguised form by fiction.5 page(s
Third Text, 2009
Book review of Suzanne Falkiner's biography, "Joan in India". Published by Australi... more Book review of Suzanne Falkiner's biography, "Joan in India". Published by Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2008, ISBN 9781740971621
Entry for Dorothy Auchterlonie Green in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
Australian Journalism Review, Australian Journalism Review, Vol. 34, No. 1, 2012: 114-115.
Review of: Storycraft: The complete guide to writing narrative non-fiction, by Hart, J. (2011), C... more Review of: Storycraft: The complete guide to writing narrative non-fiction, by Hart, J. (2011), Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, ISBN-10 0226318141, ISBN-13 978-0226318141, hbk, 26pp, $US25.
Literary Journalism Studies;Fall2011, Vol. 3 Issue 2, p101
The article reviews the book "The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories, China From the Bottom Up," by... more The article reviews the book "The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories, China From the Bottom Up," by Liao Yiwu, foreword by Philip Gourevitch, and translated by Wen Huang.
Scan Magazine, Macquarie University, Jul 20, 2006