Spec fic research, writing, and the labour thereof
Jingi wallah, bugal mulligan,
Witha bayan?
Hello, good morning,
How are you?
Welcome to my research blog, a place for me to document my research and writing journey over the coming three years – which is the length of my new postdoctoral fellowship. (I have no plans for this blog or for my life beyond October 2026.)
About which: in April 2023 I was awarded a MUFIR, which stands for Macquarie University Fellowship for Indigenous Researchers. I was over the moon when I found out. The process of applying took months as the 30+ page application was a feral beast to wrangle. I had been approached by some Department of Indigenous Studies folks at Macquarie Uni (MQU) to apply back in 2021 but at the time I was still studying for my doctorate at the University of Sydney and so was ineligible. I told the lovely people at MQU that I’d be in touch once I’d passed my thesis examination.
About which (another rabbit hole): I submitted my thesis in December 2021, but was only passed in September 2022 – without corrections \m/ – as my supervisors had trouble finding two examiners who could commit to examining my thesis within three months. I mean, they found one who got it done nice and quick, but the other went AWOL, and so they had to find someone else, then give them the requisite three months. So, nine months after submission I passed with flying colours. I remember the day I got the email. I took the day off work and spent the morning reading through my examiner’s reports, and the afternoon re-reading my thesis. I was emotional and felt so validated to be examined so carefully by two First Nations writers and scholars whose work I’ve admired for years: Jeanine Leane and Natalie Harkin.
I was awarded the MUFIR for my research project Laying Down the Lore: a survey of First Nations speculative, visionary and experimental fiction. I’ll be writing a book – a scholarly monograph – which will feature a chapter on each subgenre of spec fic. Ie. one chapter dedicated to ghost stories and the gothic, one to climate fiction, one to the fantastic, etc. The book will also serve as a compendium of every published work within these genres.
About my project –
Over the next three years I’ll be undertaking a comprehensive survey of First Nations spec fic, a field which has exploded in recent years. Spec fic subgenres, such as climate fiction, are appealing to our writers and readers because they allow us to consider issues from our past, present and future in defamiliarised and inventive ways. This project will investigate how and to what ends our writers are employing spec fic to tell our stories. Investigating these themes through genre theory will reveal important things about contemporary First Nations cultural imagination and expression.
Spec fic, defined as a set of storytelling sensibilities and/or literary techniques, has always been used by Indigenous storytellers. In fact, all of our cultural stories have used spec fic tropes and devices for millennia, to entertain and to educate – for example, world-altering climate change, time warps, demons, spirits and ghosts are found in many of our stories.
In this light, our traditional and our contemporary stories must not be read as myths and legends, but as vital and relevant stories about our lives and our histories that document how we’ve lived on our ancient lands replete with spirits, ancestors and other energies since the beginning of time. Without culturally-informed scholarship arising around the creative work, our stories are at risk of being misconstrued and devalued, or otherwise subsumed and assimilated into non-Indigenous readings.
I deferred the MUFIR to November 2023 so I could wrap up my many other projects and to take care of some extended family business. I wanted to start with a clean slate – or near enough. So here we are. I have three years to write this book, and I thought I’d start a research blog to document my journey. I’m aiming to post here at the end of every month until my contract is up. So, there’ll be 36 posts in total, not including this statement of intention/welcome post.
I hope to achieve a few mostly community-minded things with this blog:
- I want to demystify the process of academic research so that others may find it less daunting to enter into. It’s a weird world, in turns baffling and beautiful, and it’s a shame there aren’t more mob running amok in these hallowed halls. But I get why. They want it that way, mostly.
- I want to share my research with those working with First Nations literatures and the spec fic community more broadly. No ivory towers here. Feel free to ask me anything research-related. I’ll share my database of First Nations spec fic stories and theory once I’ve firmed it up some more.
- I want to be part of things online but on my own terms. I love being a writer and belonging to the writing community. But I’m not a social media person. I much prefer the longer, slower cycles of blogging and commenting.
- I want to keep myself accountable through monthly check-ins about my work and processes – and this will include frank talk of labour and capital and other impolite things that normally make non-working class people squirm. Whether it be a long essay or a mere paragraph, come what may I will post at the end of every month.
- I want to keep a record of my publications and presentations. This is practical; I have a progress review every year and it’ll be easy to list my evidence of output by going through old posts.
All about which (sorry to keep doing this): I’ve had to grow myself a good work ethic to survive, especially when it comes to writing. Writing pays abysmally in Australia. I really had to hustle as a freelance writer to support myself over the last few years. But now I’m on a salary I’m entering my doing-less era.
I don’t want to work more, nor do I want to work harder, and I ain’t gonna do either now that I have financial security. I’m looking down the barrel of three years of job stability for the first time in my working life. (I started working in 1997 and have never stopped.) Now that I have such economic privilege I only want to do the bare minimum and do it well. In this spirit, I’ve been saying no to so much extra stuff lately – stuff I would have jumped at before this role – and fuck it feels good. So, I’ll be publishing less of the small stuff in anthologies and journals, and working more behind the scenes on big projects. Books! The good shit. And this blog. I don’t feel like I need to bargain every iota of my labour now I don’t have to invoice people to survive.
Still, while this MUFIR is my main job now, first and foremost in my heart and soul I am a creative writer, so even though I have less time for other projects I’ll still be working on a few manuscripts in the background as time allows. I’ll also share insights into any pieces I publish – nb many of these have been in the pipeline since before the MUFIR.
This MUFIR is a dream job – if one dreams of work, that is. Some don’t. I do. I’ve been working since I was 12 and I’ve always dreamed of financial stability and also, lately, since I’ve become a writer, I derive great satisfaction and esteem from my work. This fellowship allows me three years of reading and writing about what I love and getting paid for it. I’m not going to let other shit I don’t need to do eat into this privileged time. I’m just gonna focus on this project. I’m taking lessons from my doctorate here: the reason I loved my years of doctoral research so much is that I refused to overwork myself at the expense of study (even when extra money was tempting). The first year of study I lived in my van so I didn’t have to pay rent and didn’t have to work much. (I’d previously lived in my van for my Masters so knew how to do it, and I grew up poor and know how to live frugally.) The following years of my doctorate I shared rent in a series of cheap and shitty places. I was determined to keep my overheads low and enjoy my studies.
Sometimes there is a risk with desk research projects that not a lot of writing gets done throughout, and all is done in a mad rush at the end. I want to write as I go, and this blog will keep me accountable to this goal.
I also just love blogging. I began writing publicly as a blogger, on an anonymous and now deaded blog called Defender of The Faith (after the Judas Priest album). I had a post go viral a few years into it and I got shook at how far my words could travel. It made me more cautious about what I write. I don’t anticipate anything groundbreaking will come from this blog, but I do hope other researchers and writers find it useful.
Re: social media. I have private lurker accounts on every major platform but never post or engage these days. I refuse to make money for billionaires out of my free labour (likes, shares, comments) and let them profit off my data. I’m not interested in the town square set up of dancing within this fickle attention economy. Finally, more practically, I see a lot of silly people carrying on online and I just don’t trust myself to keep my two cents out of their comments section. And I don’t want to jeopardise my job with my big mouth. I have learnt to keep my personal and professional selves separate.
I begrudgingly set up a public Insta a few years back to promote a call for submissions for my anthology This All Come Back Now, and then I later changed the username and dedicated the account to the anthology once it was published. But one and a half years post-publication, I don’t have any new news to post about it anymore. I am currently using it to share information on how to support Palestine. And I’m too private a person and I’m too unmotivated to create content or turn myself into a brand for it to be of any use beyond that. So I will probably dead it soon, to free up more time and energy for this blog.
I also keep my personal life private for safety reasons so I won’t be talking about any of that stuff here. This is pure work. I don’t expect many people to read this blog, especially not every post, so the way I am writing is as if I am speaking into the void. The only audience I am writing for is me, while letting others listen in if they want to.
So, if you are listening in – welcome!
With love and thanks,
Mykaela
Thursday, 30th of November 2023
Mykaela Saunders 