Iced vovos: a one act play [Play script]

This script was developed through a collaborative process. A work of stream-of-consciousness prose reflecting on Iced VoVos, an iconic Australian confectionery, penned by Janet McDonald constitutes the heart of the script. This piece was adapted to script form by Dallas Baker, who created characters through which Janet's prose could come to life. The explorative questions that emerged when Dallas and Janet began discussing the adaptation of the text focussed on memory and embodied experience. As the collaboratively led inducement of material developed, the period of ‘handing over’ the prose for adaptation engaged ghosting that resisted what Diana Taylor calls ‘the archive’. This is a place relegated in theatre to where performative ideas take concrete form, often as a written script that can be ‘published’, and therefore maintains an emphasis on discourse to manifest creative enterprise, rather than the lived experience of the performance of the work. What emerged from the collaboration was a script that took the prose in a different, unexpected yet intriguing, direction. This research was therefore more about exploring the relational aspects of working together. In this sense the knowledge produced by this research collaboration manifests Taylor's ‘repertoire’ (rather than ‘archive’) of performance and relates to the richness of both collaborative experience and the creative outcomes arising from that experience

Publishing and identity: gender, sexuality and race

This chapter explores the intersections between identity and publishing. Specifically, it discusses notions of gender identity, sexual identity (sexuality) and race in book publishing and how certain critical theories might be applied in Publishing Studies to illuminate these significant social and cultural notions. The concepts and issues discussed here intersect with our everyday experience. We are all implicated in gender, sexuality and race in intimate ways. Because race, gender and sexuality are at the heart of how we think and feel about ourselves, they also are at the heart of the narratives we produce, publish and disseminate. All books, both fiction and non-fiction, present an idea, or a construction, of race, gender and sexuality, sometimes explicitly, sometimes in ways that are more subtle

Queer life writing as self-making

This chapter engages with the notion of queer life writing. I say the notion of queer life writing because, as yet, a distinct queer life writing has not emerged as a robust literary genre or practice. Queer life writing at this stage is largely a proposition, an unfulfilled promise. At the heart of this promise is a life writing that contains a critical and radical deconstruction of identity, of heteronormativity and of binary gender and sexual norms. A queer life writing cannot be just autobiography or memoir produced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people but writing by any person that consciously works against phallogocentric norms and also foregrounds the processes and practices of conscious self-making. Such a life writing would work against the idea that there is any essential or lasting nature to subjectivity and would counter the notion that certain subjectivities or identities are somehow inherently or meaningfully linked to certain (corresponding) bodies and biological sexes. As queer life writing is, for the most part, still only a promise, this chapter focuses on the theoretical context of such a writing rather than specific writing practices or examples

Publishing should be more about culture than book sales

This article argues that publishing should be studied as a social and cultural practice rather than merely a business

We need creative teaching to teach creativity

This article discusses whether or not creativity can be taught

Play scripts as knowledge objects

This paper outlines the ways that play writing acts as a research method and plays can be understood as knowledge objects or research outcomes. It also argues that Playwriting Studies, an emerging research field, is best conceived as a sub-discipline situated within the Creative Writing discipline

Self-publishing matters – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise

This article argues that self-publishing is a significant cultural and economic phenomena that needs further scholarly attention

Improving the Resilience of SMEs: Succession Planning for Canadian Family-Run Small Businesses

Canadian Family-Run Small Businesses, the most prevalent business type in the private sector economy, are increasingly undergoing succession planning, with the support of advisors. Yet, there is limited available research of their distinct characteristics, needs, behaviours, and actions as they navigate this critical business process. This paper seeks to increase knowledge of and suggest improvements to succession planning for Canadian family-run small businesses and their advisors. Alongside a literature review, the paper provides three mini case studies of family-run small businesses in Ontario, Canada who are currently or have undergone succession planning within the last five years. It also incorporates the perspective of accredited advisors who provide succession planning services to Canadian family-run small businesses. The paper unlocks three key areas of findings. First, the paper identifies that ownership, employee loyalty, family dynamics, and reliance on the business for income are distinct characteristics of Canadian family-run small businesses which influence their succession planning. Second, a proposed step-by-step process is shared for planning which starts when the successors are young, leverages sensemaking as a key planning tool, and recognizes the role of advisors in enabling stakeholders to reconcile economic and non-economic goals and complete the succession. Third, the paper stresses further efforts to understand the role of gender and advisory bias in the process as well as the emergence of interest amongst exiting Canadian-family run small business owners in employee ownership as a viable model

Exquisite Cadaver: useful writing experiment or just a good game?

This article discusses whether and in what ways the useful cadaver online writing experiment revealed anything about writing practice, specifically collaborative writing practice