Bachelor of Creative Industries (Creative Writing) (Hons), QUT

The Artful Life Story: Oral History and Fiction

(PhD 2009-2011)

Abstract

Traditionally, oral history is a tool used by historians. In the early stages of oral history scholarship, it was seen as a resource that could verify facts and allow the inclusion of silenced voices in historical accounts. Traditional historians’ emphasise oral history as evidence (Finnegan 2006, 48).  However increasingly, oral history is being embraced by artists and creative writers. Writers such as M.J. Hyland (2009), Padma Viswanathan (2008), Dave Eggers (2005) and Terry Whitebeach (2002) acknowledge that oral histories inform their novels. In such contexts, oral histories are not valued so much for their factual content but as sources that are at once dynamic, evolving, emotionally authentic and ambiguous.

This practice-led research functions as a practitioner’s account, documenting a methodology for fictionalising oral history through investigating some of the narrative and linguistic markers present in fiction that are not generally present in oral history. The thesis will have two outcomes. The first will be an exegetical work that investigates some of these narrative and linguistic markers. The exegesis draws on self-reflective practice and textual analysis to reveal how these markers operate in my own and others’ writing.  It will explore what an understanding of strategies present fiction but not generally in oral history brings to the process of fictionalising oral history transcripts.

The second outcome will be a novel based on oral history interviews and other historical document, set in Brisbane. The creative work aims to access the cultural and temporal spaces of the interviews, retaining the core aspects of the account, such as voice, the conversational texture and key scenes. At the same time, I draw on fictional techniques to create a vivid, readable and accessible work.

Biography

Ariella grew up in a small country town and is still recovering. She moved to Brisbane to take a Bachelor of Creative Writing at QUT in 2005. She then went on to study honours. Her honours project investigated the fictionalising of oral histories. She is currently undertaking a PhD that builds on the research she began during her honours year. In late 2010, she became the president of the Oral History Association, Queensland branch. She also tutors in the Creative Industries faculty, QUT.  She is interested in using fictional techniques in life writing; how imagination can shed light on the past; and the compelling nature of storytelling.

Supervisors

Mr. Craig Bolland (Principle)

Dr. Kari Gislason (Association)

Publications

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/view/person/Van_Luyn,_Ariella.html