1562 TEXT Journal of Writing and Writing Courses 1327-9556 Australasian Association of Writing Programs Website: TEXT 28960 10.52086/001c.28960 Special Issues: scholarly article Nonfiction now: a (non)introduction Carlin David 1 Rendle-Short Francesca 1 RMIT University https://ror.org/04ttjf776

David Carlin is a writer, associate professor and co-director of the nonfictionLab at RMIT University. He is author of the widely acclaimed memoir Our father who wasn’t there (Scribe, 2010), and his creative essays and articles have appeared in Griffith Review, Overland, Text, Newswrite, Victorian Writer, Continuum and other journals.

Francesca Rendle-Short is an associate professor at RMIT University, Program Director of Creative Writing, and co-director of the nonfictionLab. She is a novelist and essayist. Her most recent book Bite your tongue (Spinifex Press, 2011) was shortlisted for the 2012 Colin Roderick Literary Award. She is the recipient of the 2013 International Writers Fellowship to the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program.

 30 10 2013 2013 17 Special 18 Nonfiction Now, edited by David Carlin and Francesca Rendle-Short 1 15

This essay seeks to explore the tensions in the paradoxical location of ‘non-fiction’ — or the de-hyphenated ‘nonfiction’, as we prefer — as a literary/artistic category, one that is built upon a negation. The opposition set up in the term by the operation of the ‘non’ upon the ‘fiction’ suggests a steadfast binary. However the friction between the two sides of this binary, and the inherent resistance embodied in the close proximity and conjoining of the two parts, accounts for much of the energy and interest in contemporary nonfiction writing. Here we bring together etymologies and theoretical topographies to problematize the intriguing situation of ‘nonfiction now’.

 Creative writing Nonfiction Essay Memory Negation Creative Nonfiction Collage Documentary Memoir Reportage