Behind The Text

Behind the Text is a celebration of the often forgotten genre of creative nonfiction, through research about and interviews conducted with eleven prolific award-winning Australian creative nonfiction authors, including Paul McGeough, Doris Pilkington Garimara (the last interview before her death in 2014), David Leser, Kate Holden, Greg Bearup and Anna Goldsworthy.

Joseph has written an account of each author/journalist, including their writing processes, as well as any ethical dimensions in their work. They are located in Australian settings around the country. The Australian creative nonfiction literary landscape is rich and vital, read with relish by Australians, and deals with important and burning national issues. Yet creative nonfiction in Australia is rarely discussed as a cohesive genre. This is the first definitive Australian text which brings together a disparate group of Australian creative nonfiction writers, recognising them and their writing in a way they would be recognised in the USA and Europe.

Sue Joseph has been a journalist for more than 35 years, working both in Australia and the UK. She has published three other books: She's My Wife; He's Just Sex, The Literary Journalist and Degrees of Detachment: An Ethical Investigation, and Speaking Secrets, which focuses on literary journalism and ethics. Joseph now teaches print journalism and writing at the University of Technology, Sydney.

'Sue Joseph's fine writing and her magnificent ability to bring the colour, the textures and voice(s) of life into text make her another great Australian creative nonfiction writer.' - Isabel Soares, President of International Association for Literary Journalism Studies

'I was totally entranced by Behind the Text. I finished reading the book and simply started again!' - Graeme Harper, Editor, New Writing: the International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing

'Sue Joseph is one of Australia's leading thinkers on creative nonfiction.' -Matthew Ricketson, Professor, University of Canberra and President of the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia