The Australian Association of Writing Programs

Hi all

there is a very interesting document at http://www.dur.ac.uk/postgraduate.english/pgf.htm, now pretty old (1999) but still apposite; it sums up a conference for postgraduates in the UK, and says some sensible and goes through publishing, teaching, etc, and how to place oneself for one's future career. Probably worth five minutes of your time

For lack of anyting better to share I figured I's post my musings on my career:

Currently doing a Ma in Art History I was considering doing a PhD, and I began to wonder why? What really are the benefits beyond Kudos, calling yuorself Dr and being able to look more fancy in a teaching job.

Why do people do them? 

I'll ponder some more...

My regular blog can be found here: http://lyndahawryluk.livejournal.com/ In it, I write about my life, my hobbies, my passions and my love of mispelled captioned photos of cats doing stupid things. Occasionally I write about writing too.

Being a long-time blogger, I'm still finding navigating the blog section of this website a little tricky. First of all, the mainpage for the blog sections (http://www.writingnetwork.edu.au/blog) makes it unclear how old they are and who posted them.

‘I don’t want to do praxis,’ my fellow student said to a room scattered with post grads.  During our regular seminar this student was discussing her exegesis, the theoretical component that is attached to her creative thesis, in her case a novel.
‘I want my exegesis to be as creative as my fiction, and for this reason I need to go deeper.’

It's a question every PhD student hates. I had an epiphany about it recently: I realised that the response I usually feel is called for - a painfully honest assessment of progress against my timetable - probably isn't even necessary. People ask the question as a conversation-opener; they are nodding in the direction of an all-consuming preoccupation, not initiating an interrogation about whether you're likely to finish on time. It would be sufficient - and more pleasant for both parties - to recount some recent triumph, like finishing a chapter or sending off an article to a journal.

MUSE 4: Better Sorry Than Safe

Now inviting SUBMISSIONS

Chances are that you have accidentally hit the closed captioning button on your remote control before. If so, you have an idea of what closed captioning is all about. Generally speaking, this is when words are displayed on the screen so individuals who cannot hear can still enjoy the television. With that being said, closed captioning is not something that happens automatically. In other words, there is a lot that goes into this process.

SWAMP – An Online Magazine for Creative Writing Post-Grads – is a new publication brought to you by the Creative Writing Post-Graduate Workshop of the University of Newcastle.

The magazine will appear three times a year, starting in June 2008.

I'm reading the work of three students quite closely at the moment - two PhD students writing novels and an honours student writing about magic realist literature. As a newly qualified supervisor, it's interesting how challenging it is to be switching between three huge chunks of writing in a week and trying to read them each as their authors need me to read them.

Also interesting how enjoyable this part of my job is.

Walking at 6am through a world full of mist, I was accompanied by Inga Clendinnen, reading her lovely lucid prose into the earpieces of my iPod. She deftly defined the essay form; she reminisced about the freedom of children and dogs when she was growing up seventy years ago; she waxed playfully paranoiac about the wayward nature of laptop computers.