Authors to draw inspiration from the Outback

Poets, writers and literary scholars will gather to stretch their imaginations across the “borderlands" of Australian literature, at a conference this week.

Charles Darwin University will host the event for academics, postgraduate students, writers and teachers in literary fields alongside the Association for the Study of Australian Literature on 8 and 9 February at the Waterfront campus.

Creative Writing Lecturer Dr Christian Bok said the theme of “Desert Lines: Interventions in the Borderlands of Australian Literature”, would focus on creative writing beyond the boundaries of the canon and its mainstream readership.

“The conference will draw on the imagination of scholars working in the fields of Australian literature, paying particular attention to writing beyond coastal centres and representing the Outback of the Australian imagination,” Dr Bok said.

Dr Bok, a prominent literary academic, will deliver a keynote address on his current project “The Xenotext” in which he is endeavouring to encode a poem into the genome of a germ (Deinococcus radiodurans), in a bid to create “a living poem”.

“I will showcase some of the ways that this work has allowed me to cross boundaries between many disciplines,” he said.

Other scholars will present on topics pertaining to the Darwin region including runner up in this year’s Judith Wright poetry award Dr Lachlan Brown and 2013 winner of the Adrien Abbott Poetry Prize Bronwyn Lovell.

Other presenters will include CDU Lecturers Raelke Grimmer and Ben van Gelderen, and Literary Studies and Creative Writing PhD candidate Leonie Norrington.

Dr Bok also will run a creative writing master class on the theme “Writing Beyond the Lyric” where he will share the principles behind techniques for teaching creative writing at the “borders” of the discipline.

The masterclass will be held on Thursday 8 February, which will be followed by the seminar on Friday 9 February at the CDU Waterfront campus. For more information contact Dr Adelle Sefton-Rowston E: adelle.sefton-rowston@cdu.edu.au or visit W: conference-desert-lines.mimid.cdu.edu.au/