Heterotopias: Writing and Location

Abstract

As a fiction writer I have a rather privileged role, in that when I'm required to give a paper or deliver a speech it is really as a writer that I do it, and as we all know, writers are full of multiple personalities, so I'm able to call upon a number of characters to fulfil this function; to take on simultaneously a number of different positions. At least, I'm not required to present a static self, but a self that is always in transition. One could say it's typical that writers get away with anything. There's no pressure to be a professional commentator. But in fact, it is sometimes a lot harder to be an amateur, for the burden that the amateur bears is that of the responsibility for one's inventions. And I suppose it is ultimately how Australians invent themselves that will determine their personal and collective futures.

The full text of this essay is available to ALS subscribers

Please sign in to access this article and the rest of our archive.

Published 1 October 1995 in Volume 17 No. 2. Subjects: Creative imagination, Crosscultural relations, Place & identity, Self perception, Utopianism, Writer's inspiration.

Cite as: Castro, Brian. ‘Heterotopias: Writing and Location.’ Australian Literary Studies, vol. 17, no. 2, 1995, doi: 10.20314/als.4b56e89d31.