I've just stumbled across The View from Elsewhere courtesy of FXHolden at From A Lan Downunder whom I meet in Melbourne. From what I can gather the author works an educational institution in Alice Springs is on creative writing staff and publishes creative writing rather than research papers. The creative writing appears to be creative non fiction (CNF), which involves some Masters writing course in the US.

This insertion of yourself into the essay would seem to be an interesting way to come to grips with the interplay between the lives of white and indigenous people. Referring to the Americans it is observed:

I really liked the fact that they had a clear sense of the essay and of the personal essay as an entity. I'm not sure that we do have a strong sense of the personal essay: it does seem to me there's often a sense of it being subordinate or inferior to the political essay, or that if you've written something more up the personal end of the spectrum, you just haven't developed your political analysis enough. Coming from a policy background, the analysis has always seemed to me like the easy, straightforward part to write: it's refracting the political aspects through people's experience that's more difficult, and showing up how partial reality is, etc. But perhaps I'm wrong in suspecting this bias. It would be interesting to have a look at some of the Best Australian Essays series and see what types of essay are prioritised.

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Posted by: Perezoso | September 19, 2007 06:33 AM

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