This paper explores the dream-inspired poetry and video poetry of award-winning Brisbane poet Ann... more This paper explores the dream-inspired poetry and video poetry of award-winning Brisbane poet Anna Jacobson. Jacobson’s surreal poetic narratives draw on memory, dreams, desires and destiny, using simple language and vivid imagery to evoke strong emotional responses. Her manner of exploring dreams in a number of poetic and narrative forms allows whimsical, gentle but also vigorous creative work of personal resilience and understanding. Her work is framed also by explorations of her Jewish culture and family and driven by unbridled imagination. In particular, the paper investigates Jacobson’s process of interweaving visions and memories for the purpose of tracing personal histories lost through periods of mental illness, exploring how she mines dreams for the purpose of writing and healing. It questions how her poetic process allows her to reclaim agency through unpacking experiences she wants to recover or further understand. Distilled from a series of interviews with the poet, the ...
Frank investigates book towns as sustainable culture-led rural regeneration projects through expl... more Frank investigates book towns as sustainable culture-led rural regeneration projects through exploring key motivations for the support of book towns by governments and development agencies as ‘edge-of-the-map’ attractions that ‘create something out of nothing’, as Landry recommends (2008). She identifies the peripherality of book towns and their distance from urban centres of culture as intrinsic to their success. Unlike in cities, entrepreneurs and booksellers can afford spacious unoccupied properties that, grouped together, create specialized book clusters. Case studies of book towns in Clunes, Australia and Sedbergh, England, are presented, demonstrating the attraction of book towns to change makers and other talented individuals as well as the culturally savvy wishing to travel to be part of literary and intellectual dialogues.
Frank concludes her study of the international Book Town Movement by arguing that while urban cen... more Frank concludes her study of the international Book Town Movement by arguing that while urban centres play an important role in contemporary print culture, and more broadly in cultural life, that the ways in which people engage with arts and cultural debates are in a process of transformation. Less conventional spaces on the periphery—book towns—are emerging as vital hubs of artistic creation, festival culture and consumption. Fundamental to this shift, Frank argues, is that book towns are both linking mechanisms and symbolic entities, and the book a device that synthesizes aspects of our culture and history: the places where we live, our understandings of ourselves, our cultural industries that bring vitality. Frank argues that book towns will continue to fulfil important social, cultural and economic needs in society.
Frank examines the juncture between book towns as attractive destinations and the emergence of th... more Frank examines the juncture between book towns as attractive destinations and the emergence of the Slow Movement in the late 1980s to further explain how book towns developed as sites of cultural renewal. The chapter explores bookshops and book towns as third places that encourage relaxation, creative interaction, inclusivity and community unification. Frank emphasizes that book festivals and fairs in book towns operate as secular forums for considering not only book-related issues, but broader societal and ethical concerns. She identifies them as places deserving of policy focus for their value of historic heritage, as cultural tourism drawcards and as destinations for nomadic travellers that heighten their social and economic potential. The chapter incorporates case studies of book towns in Wigtown, Scotland and Featherston, New Zealand.
This article discusses Sunshine Coast writer Inga Simpson's nature writing in three recent no... more This article discusses Sunshine Coast writer Inga Simpson's nature writing in three recent novels, Mr Wigg (2013), Nest (2014b) and Where the Trees Were (2016c). It addresses Simpson's self-categorisation as a nature writer, and shows how the recurrent motif of sacred trees allows three introspective protagonists to reach new understandings of universal themes: loss of love and innocence, ageing, inheritance, childlessness, sexuality, death, ancient cultures, cultural integrity and preservation of the environment. The article considers Simpson's ‘anti-Gothic’ approach to landscape in her novels, yet also shows how her ‘realist’ depictions of place evoke unease surrounding the issue of white belonging in Australia. Simpson's metaphoric self-identification with trees, particularly the Australian ironbark, is pivotal to the quiet power of her fiction's exploration of belonging in the Australian landscape.
Frank draws attention to the popularity, growing importance and expanding functions of book towns... more Frank draws attention to the popularity, growing importance and expanding functions of book towns, locating them at the intersection of a number of local and global trends that impact on consumption of book culture. She deploys the concept of book culture to foreground the intertwined relationship between books, collecting, themed communities and specialized tourism practices that positions book towns as significant mechanisms in contemporary life for regional and cultural vitality. The chapter links a number of agendas for book town formation including European unification and UNESCO’s global creative policy-making strategies with other key factors including economic models for specialized retail clusters, the development of online organizational networks and desirability of celebrating book culture in utopian locales with a strong community dynamic.
This paper explores the dream-inspired poetry and video poetry of award-winning Brisbane poet Ann... more This paper explores the dream-inspired poetry and video poetry of award-winning Brisbane poet Anna Jacobson. Jacobson’s surreal poetic narratives draw on memory, dreams, desires and destiny, using simple language and vivid imagery to evoke strong emotional responses. Her manner of exploring dreams in a number of poetic and narrative forms allows whimsical, gentle but also vigorous creative work of personal resilience and understanding. Her work is framed also by explorations of her Jewish culture and family and driven by unbridled imagination. In particular, the paper investigates Jacobson’s process of interweaving visions and memories for the purpose of tracing personal histories lost through periods of mental illness, exploring how she mines dreams for the purpose of writing and healing. It questions how her poetic process allows her to reclaim agency through unpacking experiences she wants to recover or further understand. Distilled from a series of interviews with the poet, the ...
Frank investigates book towns as sustainable culture-led rural regeneration projects through expl... more Frank investigates book towns as sustainable culture-led rural regeneration projects through exploring key motivations for the support of book towns by governments and development agencies as ‘edge-of-the-map’ attractions that ‘create something out of nothing’, as Landry recommends (2008). She identifies the peripherality of book towns and their distance from urban centres of culture as intrinsic to their success. Unlike in cities, entrepreneurs and booksellers can afford spacious unoccupied properties that, grouped together, create specialized book clusters. Case studies of book towns in Clunes, Australia and Sedbergh, England, are presented, demonstrating the attraction of book towns to change makers and other talented individuals as well as the culturally savvy wishing to travel to be part of literary and intellectual dialogues.
Frank concludes her study of the international Book Town Movement by arguing that while urban cen... more Frank concludes her study of the international Book Town Movement by arguing that while urban centres play an important role in contemporary print culture, and more broadly in cultural life, that the ways in which people engage with arts and cultural debates are in a process of transformation. Less conventional spaces on the periphery—book towns—are emerging as vital hubs of artistic creation, festival culture and consumption. Fundamental to this shift, Frank argues, is that book towns are both linking mechanisms and symbolic entities, and the book a device that synthesizes aspects of our culture and history: the places where we live, our understandings of ourselves, our cultural industries that bring vitality. Frank argues that book towns will continue to fulfil important social, cultural and economic needs in society.
Frank examines the juncture between book towns as attractive destinations and the emergence of th... more Frank examines the juncture between book towns as attractive destinations and the emergence of the Slow Movement in the late 1980s to further explain how book towns developed as sites of cultural renewal. The chapter explores bookshops and book towns as third places that encourage relaxation, creative interaction, inclusivity and community unification. Frank emphasizes that book festivals and fairs in book towns operate as secular forums for considering not only book-related issues, but broader societal and ethical concerns. She identifies them as places deserving of policy focus for their value of historic heritage, as cultural tourism drawcards and as destinations for nomadic travellers that heighten their social and economic potential. The chapter incorporates case studies of book towns in Wigtown, Scotland and Featherston, New Zealand.
This article discusses Sunshine Coast writer Inga Simpson's nature writing in three recent no... more This article discusses Sunshine Coast writer Inga Simpson's nature writing in three recent novels, Mr Wigg (2013), Nest (2014b) and Where the Trees Were (2016c). It addresses Simpson's self-categorisation as a nature writer, and shows how the recurrent motif of sacred trees allows three introspective protagonists to reach new understandings of universal themes: loss of love and innocence, ageing, inheritance, childlessness, sexuality, death, ancient cultures, cultural integrity and preservation of the environment. The article considers Simpson's ‘anti-Gothic’ approach to landscape in her novels, yet also shows how her ‘realist’ depictions of place evoke unease surrounding the issue of white belonging in Australia. Simpson's metaphoric self-identification with trees, particularly the Australian ironbark, is pivotal to the quiet power of her fiction's exploration of belonging in the Australian landscape.
Frank draws attention to the popularity, growing importance and expanding functions of book towns... more Frank draws attention to the popularity, growing importance and expanding functions of book towns, locating them at the intersection of a number of local and global trends that impact on consumption of book culture. She deploys the concept of book culture to foreground the intertwined relationship between books, collecting, themed communities and specialized tourism practices that positions book towns as significant mechanisms in contemporary life for regional and cultural vitality. The chapter links a number of agendas for book town formation including European unification and UNESCO’s global creative policy-making strategies with other key factors including economic models for specialized retail clusters, the development of online organizational networks and desirability of celebrating book culture in utopian locales with a strong community dynamic.
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Papers by Jane Frank