Publications

We are researchers in life writing, auto/biography, memoir, letters, diaries, graphic texts, documentary, & social media.

2023

Cardell, K., Harous, C., Maguire, E., and Woodyatt, L. (16 Feb. 2023). How can publishers support the authors of trauma memoirs, as they unpack their pain for the public? New research investigates. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/how-can-publishers-support-the-authors-of-trauma-memoirs-as-they-unpack-their-pain-for-the-public-new-research-investigates-189251

Douglas, K., Cardell, K., Deller, M., & Hill, E. (2023). Reading objects, watching YouTube, writing biography, and teaching life writing: Student engagement when learning online during Covid-19. Life Writing, 20(2). 367-382. 10.1080/14484528.2022.2030979

2022

Bryant, K. (2022). Historical figures, archives and Australian disability life writing: Reading Jessica White’s Hearing Maud and writing Hysteria. Australian Literary Studies, 37(1). https://doi.org/10.20314/als.867e51f1b7

Cardell, K. (Ed.) (2022). Essays in life writing. Routledge, Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003216827

Cardell, K. (31 Oct. 2022). Living with complex illness and surviving to tell about it: Anna Spargo-Ryan’s chronic optimism. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/living-with-complex-illness-and-surviving-to-tell-about-it-anna-spargo-ryans-chronic-optimism-189135

Cardell, K., & Douglas, K. (2022). Youth and travel narration: Exploring the Jade Hameister archive. In B. Korte, & A. K. Sennefelder (Eds.), Travel, writing and the media: Contemporary and historical perspectives (Routledge Studies in Cultural History ; Vol. 116). Routledge, Taylor and Francis.  https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003056133-11

Deller, M. (2022, Dec. 23). Friday essay: 1 in 25 Australians have been estranged from their families. True stories about this can make people feel less alone. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-1-in-25-australians-have-been-estranged-from-their-families-true-stories-about-this-can-make-people-feel-less-alone-191443

Deller, M. (2022, Jul. 19). Compulsory heterosexuality and the healing power of queer historical fiction. Archer. https://archermagazine.com.au/2022/07/compulsory-heterosexuality-queer-historical-fiction/

Deller, M. (2022, May 16). How to write about broken trust in a memoir? Janine Mikosza’s Homesickness maps trauma in bold new ways. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/how-to-write-about-broken-trust-in-a-memoir-janine-mikoszas-homesickness-maps-trauma-in-bold-new-ways-179086

Douglas, K. (2022). Children and biography: Reading and writing life stories. Bloomsbury.

Douglas, K., Hill, E., Sandford, S., & Linsenmeier, J. (2022). ‘With this first cigarette, I kissed childhood goodbye’: Girlhood in crisis in Persepolis. Textual Practice, (published online 30 Nov, print forthcoming) https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2022.2150677

Gold, S. (2022, May 5). Le Revé. Baby Teeth. https://www.babyteethjournal.com/home/stefaniegold

Peters, S. (2022). Stuck. Produced by Prospect Theatre for Young People, Adelaide Fringe Festival.

Sandford, S. (2022). ‘Loading memories…’: Deteriorating pasts and distant futures in Stuart Campbell’s These Memories Won’t Last. TEXT, 26(69), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.52086/001c.57765

Spencer, R. (2022). ‘Hell is other people’: Rethinking the Socratic method for quiet law students. The Law Teacher, 56(1), 90-104. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069400.2021.2005305

2021

Bryant, K. (2021). Speculative biography and countering archival absences of women clowns in the circus. Life Writing, 18(1), 31-44. https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2021.1866777

Cardell, K. (2021). Burning shame, decolonizing (his)tory, and writing illness and disability: The year in Australia. Biography – An Interdisciplinary Quarterly44(1), 13-19. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2021.0003

Cardell, K. (2021). Essays in life writing. Life Writing18(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2021.1878570

Cardell, K. (2021). ‘Like a novel’: Literary aesthetics, nonfiction ethics, and the S-Town podcast. Australian Literary Studies36(1). https://www.australianliterarystudies.com.au/articles/like-a-novel-literary-aesthetics-nonfiction-ethics-and-the-s-town-podcast

Deller, M. (2021, April 15). Brittany Higgins’ memoir will join a powerful Australian collection reclaiming women’s stories of trauma. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/brittany-higgins-memoir-will-join-a-powerful-australian-collection-reclaiming-womens-stories-of-trauma-here-are-four-158960

Maguire, E. (2021). Facebook society: Losing ourselves in sharing ourselves by Roberto Simanowski (review). Biography, 44(4). pp. 672-676. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2021.0046

Maguire, E. (2021). Rev. of Witnessing girlhood: Toward an intersectional tradition of life writing, a/b: Auto/Biography Studieshttps://doi.org/10.1080/08989575.2021.1983223

Peters, S. (2021). Eternity. Australian Script Centre, Australian Plays Transform

Peters, S. (2021). Blister. Australian Script Centre, Australian Plays Transform

Sandford, S. (2021, Aug 11). ‘Graphic medicine’: How autobiographical comics artists are changing our understanding of illness. The Conversation. theconversation.com/graphic-medicine-how-autobiographical-comics-artists-are-changing-our-understanding-of-illness-164789

Sandford, S. (2021). ‘You can’t combat nothing’: Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half and reframing mental illness through webcomics. On_Culture: The Open Journal for the Study of Culture, 11, 1-26. https://doi.org/10.22029/oc.2021.1224

2020

Bryant, K. (2020). Hysteria: A memoir of illness, strength and women’s stories throughout history. NewSouth Publishing.

Bryant, K. (2020). Book review: In search of the woman who sailed the world. Life Writing, 18(4) pp. 623-625. https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2020.1812022

Cardell, K. (2020). From puritans to Fitbit: Self-improvement, self-tracking, and how to keep a diary. In B. Ben-Amos, & D. Ben-Amos (Eds.), The diary: The epic of everyday life (pp. 399-410). Indiana University Press.

Cardell, K. (2020). Life writing when the world is burning: The year in Australia. Biography – An Interdisciplinary Quarterly43(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2020.0001

Cardell, K., & Douglas, K. (2020). Circuits of children’s testimony: Reading Syrian children’s drawings of home. Life Writing17(4), 493-502. https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2020.1769257

Cardell, K., & Douglas, K. (2020). Emma González, silence and youth testimony. Women: A Cultural Review31(1), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/09574042.2019.1676057

Cardell, K., & Douglas, K. (2020). Life writing and conflict: Love wins. In J. Gildersleeve (Ed.), The Routledge companion to Australian literature (pp. 344-352). Routledge, Taylor and Francis.

Clode, D. (2020, September 29). Friday essay : Who was Jeanne Barret, the first woman to circumnavigate the globe? The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-who-was-jeanne-barret-the-first-woman-to-circumnavigate-the-globe-146296

Clode, D. (2020). In search of the woman who sailed the world. Picador.

Douglas, K., & Cardell, K. (2020, July 20). Reading during coronavirus: Books can be triggering, but difficult texts teach us resilience, too. The Conversationhttps://theconversation.com/reading-during-coronavirus-books-can-be-triggering-but-difficult-texts-teach-us-resilience-too-141114

Douglas, K. (2020). @Alabedbana: Twitter, the child, and the war diary. Textual Practice34(6), 1021-1039. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2018.1533493

Douglas, K. (2020, Oct 23). Why we need children’s life stories like I Am Greta. The Conversationhttps://theconversation.com/friday-essay-why-we-need-childrens-life-stories-like-i-am-greta-148178

Douglas, K. (2020). Youth, trauma and memorialisation: The selfie as witnessing. Memory Studies13(4), 384-399. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698017714838

Peters, S. (2020). A reflective practitioner case study researching verbatim theatre. The Qualitative Report, 25(9). https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2020.3744

Presley, J. (2020, February 6). Cherry blossoms in my hair. Kill Your Darlings. https://www.killyourdarlings.com.au/article/cherry-blossoms-in-my-hair/

Spencer, R. (2018). Troubling narratives of true crime: Helen Garner’s This House of Grief and Megan Norris’s On Father’s Day. TEXT 22(50). https://doi.org/10.52086/001c.25598

2019

Barnwell, A., & Douglas, K. (2019). Research methodologies for auto/biography studies. (1st ed.) Routledge, Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429288432

Bryant, L. & Bryant, K. Memory work. In P. Liamputtong (Ed.), Handbook of research methods in health social sciences (pp. 527-540). Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5251-4_88

Cardell, K. (2019). Drawn to life: the diary as method and politics in the comics art of Gabrielle Bell and Julie Doucet. In T. Oksman, & S. O’Malley (Eds.), The comics of Julie Doucet and Gabrielle Bell: A place inside yourself (pp. 122-142). University Press of Mississippi.

Cardell, K. (2019). Essays as life writing: The year in Australia. Biography – An Interdisciplinary Quarterly42(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2019.0001

Cardell, K. (2019). Life narrative methods for working with diaries. In K. Douglas, & A. Barnwell (Eds.), Research methodologies for auto/biography studies (1st ed., pp. 90-95). (Routledge Auto/Biography Series). Routledge, Taylor and Francis.

Cardell, K., & Maguire, E. (2019). Sluts and sex objects: Memoir and the millennial journalist. In S. Joseph, & R. L. Keeble (Eds.), Sex and journalism: Critical, global perspectives (pp. 37-45). (Bite-Sized Public Affairs Book; Vol. 18). Bite-Sized Books.

Douglas, K. (2019). Autobiographical writing for children: Ahn Do’s The Little Refugee and Malala Yousafzai’s Malala’s Magic Pencil. In J. Parnell (Ed.), New and experimental approaches to writing lives (1st ed., pp. 204-219). Red Globe Press.

Douglas, K. (2019). Curating childhood: Youth, heritage and the ante-autobiography. In Children’s voices in the past: New and historical perspectives (pp. 60-68). Palgrave Macmillan.  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11896-9_8

Douglas, K. (2019). Girl, Interrupted (1993) by Susanna Kaysen. In G. T. Couser, & S. B. Mintz (Eds.), Disability experiences: Memoirs, autobiographies, and other personal narratives (Vol. 1, pp. 281-285). Macmillan Reference.

Douglas, K. (2019). Reading the life narratives of children and youth. In K. Douglas, & A. Barnwell (Eds.), Research methodologies for auto/biography studies (1st ed., pp. 140-148). Routledge, Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429288432-19

Gold, S. (2019, December 5). Painting on my skin: EB and me. Kill Your Darlings. https://www.killyourdarlings.com.au/article/painting-on-my-skin-eb-and-me/

Kavanagh, P., & Douglas, K. (2019). Sanctioning subjectivity: Navigating low-risk human ethics approval. In K. Douglas, & A. Barnwell (Eds.), Research methodologies for auto/biography studies (1st ed., pp. 193-199). Routledge, Taylor and Francis.

Douglas, K. (2019). To move with quick, gentle steps. Text56http://www.textjournal.com.au/speciss/issue56/Douglas.pdf

Barnwell, A., & Douglas, K. (2019). What we do when we do life writing: Methodologies for auto/biography now. In K. Douglas, & A. Barnwell (Eds.), Research Methodologies for Auto/biography Studies (pp. 1-10). Routledge, Taylor and Francis.

Douglas, K. (2019). YouTube apologies and reality TV revelations: The rise of the public confession. The Conversationhttps://theconversation.com/friday-essay-youtube-apologies-and-reality-tv-revelations-the-rise-of-the-public-confession-114970

Douglas, K. (2019). ‘Share the shame’: Curating the child’s voice in Mortified Nation! In K. Moruzi, N. Musgrove, & C. Pascoe Leahy (Eds.), Children’s voices from the past : New historical and interdisciplinary perspectives (1st ed., pp. 191-207). (Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11896-9_8

Douglas, K. (2019). Sharing the shame: Curating the child self in Mortified Nation. Journal of Modern Life Writing Studies10, 216-227.

Maguire, E. (2019). Constructing the “instagirl,” deconstructing the self-brand: Amalia Ulman’s Instagram hoax. European Journal of Life Writing, 8, pp. 12-32. https://doi.org/10.21827/ejlw.8.35546

Maguire, E. (2019). Girls’ auto/biographical media: the importance of audience reception in studying undervalued life narrative. In K. Douglas, & A. Barnwell (Eds.), Research methodologies for auto/biography studies (pp. 200-207). Routledge, Taylor and Francis.

Peters, S. (2019). The pedagogy of pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago written into performance. In Stephanie Springgay and Sarah E. Truman (Eds.) Walking in/as publics, special issue of Public Pedagogy Journal (4). https://jpp.vu.edu.au/index.php/jpp/article/view/1176/1663

Peters, S. (2019). Verbatim theatre and a dramaturgy of belonging in Head Full of Love and Ladies Day. Australasian Drama Studies (74), 39-63. https://search.proquest.com/docview/2229865604?accountid=10910

Spencer, R. (2019). Reflecting on reflection: A dialogue across the hemispheres on teaching and assessing reflective practice in clinical legal education. The Law Teacher, 53(4), 458-474. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069400.2019.1667085

2018

Cardell, K. (2018). Is a Fitbit a diary? Self-tracking and autobiography. M/C Journal21(2). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1348

Cardell, K., & Douglas, K. (2018). Why literature students should practise life writing. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education17(2), 204-221. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022216635825

Cardell, K., Douglas, K., & Brien, D. L. (2018). Life narrative in troubled times. Text50(1), 1-9. http://www.textjournal.com.au/speciss/issue50/content.htm

Cardell, K., Douglas, K., & Maguire, E. (2018). ‘Stories’: Social media and ephemeral narratives as memoir. In Mediating memory: Tracing the limits of memoir (pp. 157-173). Routledge, Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315107349

Clode, D. (2018). Connecting collections and collecting connections: Reconstructing the life of Mrs Edith Coleman. Unlikely: Journal for Creative Arts, (3). https://unlikely.net.au/issue-04/connecting-collections

Clode, D. (2018) The wasp and the orchid: The remarkable life of Australian naturalist Edith Coleman. Picador.

Douglas, K. (2018). Do young people keep diaries anymore? Instagram as life narrative. Text50http://www.textjournal.com.au/speciss/issue50/content.htm

Douglas, K., & Cardell, K. (2018). Visualising lives: “the selfie” as travel writing. Studies in Travel Writing22(1), 104-117. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645145.2018.1463843

Kennedy, U., & Maguire, E. (2018). The texts and subjects of automediality. M/C Journal, 21(2). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1395

Maguire, E. (2018). Girls, autobiography, media: Gender and self-mediation in digital economies. Palgrave Studies in Life Writing. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74237-3

Peters, S. (2018) The function of verbatim theatre conventions in three Australian plays. Drama Australia, 41(2), 117-126. https://doi.org/10.1080/14452294.2017.1429188

2017

Cardell, K., & Robertson, R. (2017). Essay now: The contemporary essay in Australia and beyond. Text39, 1-8. https://www.textjournal.com.au/speciss/issue39/Cardell&Robertson.pdf

Cardell, K. (2017). Modern memory-making: Marie Kondo, online journaling, and the excavation, curation, and control of personal digital data. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies32(3), 499-517. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989575.2017.1337993

Cardell, K. (2017). The future of autobiography studies: The diary. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies32(2), 347-350. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989575.2017.1288979

Douglas, K. (2017). Childhood and youth. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies32(2), 303-306. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989575.2017.1288949

Faini, M., Lael Netzer, O., & Maguire, E. (2017).  Collaboration. Auto/Biography Studies, 32(2). pp. 247-250. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989575.2017.1288026

Faini, M., Lael Netzer, O. and Maguire, E. (2017). Students and new scholars: A conversation. Auto/Biography Studies, 32(2). pp. 383-384. https://doi.org./10.1080/08989575.2017.1289017

McNeill, L., & Douglas, K. (2017). Heavy lifting: The pedagogical work of life narratives. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies32(1), 5-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989575.2017.1250061

Cardell, K., & Douglas, K. (2017). Locating lives: Life writing and the Asia Pacific. Life Writing14(4), 419-423. https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2017.1366817

Douglas, K. (2017). Malala Yousafzai, life narrative and the collaborative archive. Life Writing14(3), 297-311. https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2017.1328299

McNeill, L., & Douglas, K. (2017). Risky business: Teaching “fails” in the auto/biography classroom: An introduction. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies32(1), 97-100. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989575.2017.1241510

McNeill, L., & Douglas, K. (Eds.) (2017). Teaching lives: Contemporary pedagogies of life narratives. (1st ed.) Routledge, Taylor and Francis.

Peters, S. (2017). The impact of participating in a verbatim theatre process. Social Alternatives, 36(2), 32-39. https://socialalternatives.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/peters.pdf

Peters, S. (2017). Bald heads & blue stars. Australian Script Centre, Australian Plays Transform.

Peters, S. (2017). Twelve2twentyfive. Australian Script Centre, Australian Plays Transform.

Spencer, R. (2017). Dignifying the poisoned chalice: the ethical challenges of using archival material in a narrative about death and arsenic. TEXT, 21(45). https://doi.org/10.52086/001c.25831

2016

Douglas, K., & Poletti, A. (2016). Life narratives and youth culture: Representation, agency and participation. Palgrave Macmillan.

Cardell, K., & Douglas, K. (2016). Travel blogs. In The Routledge companion to travel writing (pp. 298-307). Routledge, Taylor and Francis.

Maguire, E. (2016, October 25). Who should have the body? A confession about listening to rape testimony. Feminartsy.

2015

Douglas, K. (2015). Ethical dialogues: Youth, memoir and trauma. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies30(2), 271-288. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989575.2015.1085262

Douglas, K. (2015). Margaux Fragoso and the limits of abuse memoir. In Telling tales: Autobiographies of childhood and youth (pp. 40-54). Routledge, Taylor and Francis.

Cardell, K., & Douglas, K. (Eds.) (2015). Telling tales: Autobiography of childhood and youth. (1st ed.) Routledge, Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315771748

Cardell, K., & Maguire, E. (2015). Hoax politics: Blogging, betrayal, and the intimate public of A Gay Girl in Damascus. Biography-An Interdisciplinary Quarterly38(2), 205-221. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2015.0021

Clode, D. & Argent, S. (2015). Choose your own gender: Reader assumptions in second-person adventure stories. Poetics, 55, 36-45. 10.1016/j.poetic.2016.01.002

Maguire, E. (2015). Potential: Ariel Schrag contests (hetero)normative girlhood. In Cardell, K., & Douglas, K. (Eds.) Telling tales: Autobiography of childhood and youth (1st ed., pp. to 54-66). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315771748

Maguire, E. (2015). Self-branding, hotness, and girlhood in the video blogs of Jenna Marbles. Biography, 38(1). pp. 72-86. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2015.0006

Spencer, R. (2015). Crime. In M. de Zwart, B. Richards & S. Le Mire (Eds.), Law and popular culture in Australia (pp. 81-97).

2014

Cardell, K. (2014). Creating the creative subject: The 1000 Journals Project, creativity and autobiographical identity. Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies28(4), 545-557. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2014.907872

Cardell, K. (2014). Dear world: Contemporary uses of the diary. (Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography). University of Wisconsin Press.

Clode, D. (2014). This essay mixes styles: Is personal and scholarly. New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing, 11(2), 307-316.

Douglas, K., & Poletti, A. (2014). Rethinking ‘virtual’ youth: Young people and life writing. In Mediated youth cultures: The internet, belonging and new cultural configurations (pp. 77-94). Palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137287021

Douglas, K., & Barnett, T. (2014). Teaching traumatic life narratives: Affect, witnessing and ethics. Antipodes: A North American Journal of Australian Literature28(1), 46-62.

Maguire, E. (2014). Home, about, shop, contact: Constructing an authorial persona via the author website. M/C Journal, 17(3). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.821

Spencer, R. (2014). Do members of the public have a ‘right to know’ about similar fact evidence? The Emily Perry story and the ‘right to know’ in the context of a fair re-trial. Oñati Socio-legal Series, 4(4), 740-760. https://opo.iisj.net/index.php/osls/article/view/324/470

Spencer, R. (2014). First they tell us to ignore our emotions, then they tell us to reflect: the development of a reflective writing pedagogy in clinical legal education through an analysis of student perceptions of reflective writing. International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, 21, (2). https://doi.org/10.19164/ijcle.v21i2.386

Spencer, R. (2014). Private lives: Confronting the inherent difficulties of reflective writing in clinical legal education. International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, 21(2). https://doi.org/10.19164/ijcle.v21i2.387

2013

Douglas, K., & Graham, P. (2013). Go back to where you came from: Stunt documentary, conversion narrative, and the limits of testimony on Australian television. Biography-An Interdisciplinary Quarterly36(1), 124-147. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2013.0000

Cardell, K., & Douglas, K. (2013). Indecent exposure? Margaux Fragoso and the limits of abuse memoir. Prose Studies35(1), 39-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/01440357.2013.781347

Douglas, K. (2013). Silence speaks: Shaun Tan’s The Arrival. In Telling stories: Australian life and literature 1935-2012 (pp. 546-551). Monash University Press.

Cardell, K., & Douglas, K. (2013). Telling tales: Autobiographies of childhood and youth. Prose Studies35(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1080/01440357.2013.781340

Maguire, E. (2013). Potential: Ariel Schrag contests (hetero-)normative girlhood. Prose Studies, 35(1). pp. 54-66. https://doi.org/10.1080/01440357.2013.781411

2012

Cardell, K. (2012). Comics growing up (book review). LiNQ: Literature in North Queensland39(12).

Cardell, K. (2012). “Read my lips”: Genre, rhetoric, and the Baghdad Diaries of Nuha al-Radi. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies27(2), 316-337.

Cardell, K., & Kuttainen, V. (2012). The ethics of laughter: David Sedaris and humour memoir. Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature45(3), 99-114. https://doi.org/10.1353/mos.2012.0027

Douglas, K. (2012). Ayen’s Cooking School for African Men: Mediating life narratives of trauma. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies27(2), 242-261.

Douglas, J. (2012). Read, preach, defend: One woman’s search for literary credibility. Kill Your Darlings, (4), 140-150.

Spencer, R. (2012). Legal ethics and the media: Are the ethics of lawyers and journalists irretrievably at odds? Legal Ethics, 15(1), 83-110. https://doi-org/10.5235/146072812801292764