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Cosgrove, Shady Associate Professor, Creative Writing

Faculty Member

  • Faculty of the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
  • School of the Arts, English and Media

Overview

Dr Shady Cosgrove is a novelist and academic, with research interests in prose fiction and narratology. Her most recent novel, What the Ground Can't Hold (Picador Australia, 2013), chronicles the lives of nine people trapped in the Andes after an avalanche. Unbeknownst to them, all of the characters are linked by Argentina's Dirty War. The work explores multiple point of view schemas and themes of hope, survival and forgiveness. Shady's memoir She Played Elvis was published by Allen and Unwin in 2009, after being shortlisted for the Australian Vogel Literary Prize. The work chronicles Shady's pilgrimage across America to Graceland to honour the twenty-fifth anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, and explores the themes of family, loss and belonging. Her short fiction has appeared in Southerly, Antipodes, Overland, Best Australian Short Stories as well as Spineless Wonders publications like Flashing the Square, Small Wonder and Out of Place. She regularly presents at the Australasian Association of Writing Programs annual conference and is a member of academic honour society Phi Betta Kappa.

Top Publications

    Year Title
    2013 What the Ground Can't Hold
    2009 She Played Elvis
    2008 Reading for peace? Literature as activism - an investigation into new literary ethics and the novel
    2007 Literary Ethics and the Novel, or Can the Novel Save the World?

Research Overview

  • Shady Cosgrove is finishing her novel FREEFALL about a group of squatters in New York City who try to live 'outside' of money. Her 2013 novel What the Ground Can't Hold (Picador Australia) chronicles the lives of nine people trapped in the Andes after an avalanche, and explores themes of hope, survival and forgiveness. In 2007, her creative non-fiction manuscript 'She Played Elvis' about a pilgrimage across America was shortlisted for the Australian Vogel Prize and subsequently published by Allen and Unwin. Her short fiction has appeared in Southerly, Antipodes, Overland, Best Australian Short Stories, and Spineless Wonders publications.

    Shady has a background in journalism – she worked for John Fairfax Holdings at the Sydney Morning Herald and Illawarra Mercury, and covered the Sydney Olympic Games. She graduated from Vassar College, New York (1996) with departmental and general honours in Women Studies and English before completing her doctorate at the Australian National University in 2002. She is also a member of academic honour society Phi Betta Kappa. 

Selected Publications

  • Journal Article

    Year Title
    2021
    Liminality and process: strategies for the creative writing classroom
    Published In
    New Writing
    2020
    Controlling the clock–how showing and telling impact time in short-short fiction
    Published In
    New Writing: the international journal for the practice and theory of creative writing
    2018
    Size matters: class numbers and the creative writing workshop
    Published In
    TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Programs
    2017
    Both sides now: the fear-less exegesis
    Published In
    TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Programs
    2015
    Dumpster Diving: A Family Excursion
    Published In
    TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Programs
    2015
    Dumpster diving for dinner: do you have what it takes to eat ‘freegan’ food?
    Published In
    The Conversation
    2014
    Getting my hands dirty: research and writing
    Published In
    TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Programs
    2009
    WRIT101: ethics of representation for creative writers
    Published In
    Pedagogy

  • Chapter

    Year Title
    2018
    Narrative Structure – Is It Making Us Liars? Truth and Autobiography in She Played Elvis
    Published In
    Offshoot Contemporary Life Writing Methodologies and Practice
    Publisher
    Crawley, Western Australia
    2015
    Masturbating with Prostitutes
    Published In
    Minding the Gap Writing across Thresholds and Fault Lines
    Publisher
    http://www.cambridgescholars.com/minding-the-gap

  • Conference Paper

    Year Title
    2018
    Constructing Time: Reading and writing time in short-short fiction
    Published In
    The Radiance of the Short Story: Fiction from Around the Globe: Selected Conference Papers
    2017
    Too Short to Bother With? A Case for Microfiction
    Published In
    Influence and Confluence: East and West
    2016
    One page and counting – beginnings and narrative construction
    Published In
    21st Annual Australasian Association of Writing Programs Conference (AAWP 2016)
    2015
    Writing the (Othered) Self: Cultural Exchange and Creative Writing Pedagogy
    Published In
    20th Conference of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs: Writing the Ghost Train: rewriting, remaking and rediscovering
    2013
    Discoursing love: The classroom. A fictional response to Roland Barthes
    Published In
    The Creative Manoeuvres: Making, Saying, Being Papers – The Refereed Proceedings Of The 18th Conference Of The Australasian Association Of Writing Programs, 2013
    2012
    Can we inhabit (narrative) time?
    Published In
    The Encounters: Place, Situation, Context Papers. The Refereed Proceedings of the 17th Conference of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs
    2011
    Radical Uncertainty: Judith Butler and a theory of character
    Published In
    The Ethical Imaginations: Writing Worlds Papers - The Refereed Proceedings of the 16th Conference of the Australasian Association of Writing program, 2011
    2008
    Reading for peace? Literature as activism - an investigation into new literary ethics and the novel
    Published In
    Activating Human Rights and Peace: Universal Responsibility Conference 2008
    2008
    Uncertainty and Praxis in the Creative Writing Classroom
    Published In
    Conference of the Australian Association of Writing Programs
    2007
    Literary Ethics and the Novel, or Can the Novel Save the World?
    Published In
    'and is' papers: proceedings of the 12th conference of the Australian Association of Writing Programs

  • Other Publications

    Year Title
    2020
    Last Day of Term
    2020
    Magic Show
    2020
    Risk
    2018
    Insect Wisdom
    2018
    Self-Medication
    2018
    The Coat
    2017
    Sanctuary
    2016
    The Guitar
    2015
    Dim Sum
    2014
    Call an ambulance
    2014
    Lightning Ridge
    2014
    My past is shopping At Woolworths
    2013
    What the Ground Can't Hold
    2012
    After School
    2012
    Visiting
    2009
    She Played Elvis

Advisees

  • Graduate Advising Relationship

    Degree Research Title Advisee
    Doctor of Creative Arts Curated Fiction: Intersections of Truth and Voice in the Composition of a Contemporary Australian Novel Hindrum, Cameron
    Doctor of Creative Arts The Horse-Human Bond in Literature: Healing Metaphors and Victims of Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse. Kroll, Jeri
    Doctor of Philosophy 'The plants may use the meter of eternity. We do not know': An Enquiry into Environment in Australian Science and Speculative Fiction. Barber, Tess
    Doctor of Philosophy Let the Dead Speak: An Exploration of the Depiction of the Victim in Detective Fiction Barton, Naomi
    Doctor of Philosophy But wait there’s more: counter-mapping place to disrupt local histories Saunders, Jen

Full Name

  • Shady Cosgrove

Top Publications

    Year Title
    2013 What the Ground Can't Hold
    2009 She Played Elvis
    2008 Reading for peace? Literature as activism - an investigation into new literary ethics and the novel
    2007 Literary Ethics and the Novel, or Can the Novel Save the World?

Research Overview

  • Shady Cosgrove is finishing her novel FREEFALL about a group of squatters in New York City who try to live 'outside' of money. Her 2013 novel What the Ground Can't Hold (Picador Australia) chronicles the lives of nine people trapped in the Andes after an avalanche, and explores themes of hope, survival and forgiveness. In 2007, her creative non-fiction manuscript 'She Played Elvis' about a pilgrimage across America was shortlisted for the Australian Vogel Prize and subsequently published by Allen and Unwin. Her short fiction has appeared in Southerly, Antipodes, Overland, Best Australian Short Stories, and Spineless Wonders publications.

    Shady has a background in journalism – she worked for John Fairfax Holdings at the Sydney Morning Herald and Illawarra Mercury, and covered the Sydney Olympic Games. She graduated from Vassar College, New York (1996) with departmental and general honours in Women Studies and English before completing her doctorate at the Australian National University in 2002. She is also a member of academic honour society Phi Betta Kappa. 

Selected Publications

  • Journal Article

    Year Title
    2021
    Liminality and process: strategies for the creative writing classroom
    Published In
    New Writing
    2020
    Controlling the clock–how showing and telling impact time in short-short fiction
    Published In
    New Writing: the international journal for the practice and theory of creative writing
    2018
    Size matters: class numbers and the creative writing workshop
    Published In
    TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Programs
    2017
    Both sides now: the fear-less exegesis
    Published In
    TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Programs
    2015
    Dumpster Diving: A Family Excursion
    Published In
    TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Programs
    2015
    Dumpster diving for dinner: do you have what it takes to eat ‘freegan’ food?
    Published In
    The Conversation
    2014
    Getting my hands dirty: research and writing
    Published In
    TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Programs
    2009
    WRIT101: ethics of representation for creative writers
    Published In
    Pedagogy

  • Chapter

    Year Title
    2018
    Narrative Structure – Is It Making Us Liars? Truth and Autobiography in She Played Elvis
    Published In
    Offshoot Contemporary Life Writing Methodologies and Practice
    Publisher
    Crawley, Western Australia
    2015
    Masturbating with Prostitutes
    Published In
    Minding the Gap Writing across Thresholds and Fault Lines
    Publisher
    http://www.cambridgescholars.com/minding-the-gap

  • Conference Paper

    Year Title
    2018
    Constructing Time: Reading and writing time in short-short fiction
    Published In
    The Radiance of the Short Story: Fiction from Around the Globe: Selected Conference Papers
    2017
    Too Short to Bother With? A Case for Microfiction
    Published In
    Influence and Confluence: East and West
    2016
    One page and counting – beginnings and narrative construction
    Published In
    21st Annual Australasian Association of Writing Programs Conference (AAWP 2016)
    2015
    Writing the (Othered) Self: Cultural Exchange and Creative Writing Pedagogy
    Published In
    20th Conference of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs: Writing the Ghost Train: rewriting, remaking and rediscovering
    2013
    Discoursing love: The classroom. A fictional response to Roland Barthes
    Published In
    The Creative Manoeuvres: Making, Saying, Being Papers – The Refereed Proceedings Of The 18th Conference Of The Australasian Association Of Writing Programs, 2013
    2012
    Can we inhabit (narrative) time?
    Published In
    The Encounters: Place, Situation, Context Papers. The Refereed Proceedings of the 17th Conference of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs
    2011
    Radical Uncertainty: Judith Butler and a theory of character
    Published In
    The Ethical Imaginations: Writing Worlds Papers - The Refereed Proceedings of the 16th Conference of the Australasian Association of Writing program, 2011
    2008
    Reading for peace? Literature as activism - an investigation into new literary ethics and the novel
    Published In
    Activating Human Rights and Peace: Universal Responsibility Conference 2008
    2008
    Uncertainty and Praxis in the Creative Writing Classroom
    Published In
    Conference of the Australian Association of Writing Programs
    2007
    Literary Ethics and the Novel, or Can the Novel Save the World?
    Published In
    'and is' papers: proceedings of the 12th conference of the Australian Association of Writing Programs

  • Other Publications

    Year Title
    2020
    Last Day of Term
    2020
    Magic Show
    2020
    Risk
    2018
    Insect Wisdom
    2018
    Self-Medication
    2018
    The Coat
    2017
    Sanctuary
    2016
    The Guitar
    2015
    Dim Sum
    2014
    Call an ambulance
    2014
    Lightning Ridge
    2014
    My past is shopping At Woolworths
    2013
    What the Ground Can't Hold
    2012
    After School
    2012
    Visiting
    2009
    She Played Elvis

Advisees

  • Graduate Advising Relationship

    Degree Research Title Advisee
    Doctor of Creative Arts Curated Fiction: Intersections of Truth and Voice in the Composition of a Contemporary Australian Novel Hindrum, Cameron
    Doctor of Creative Arts The Horse-Human Bond in Literature: Healing Metaphors and Victims of Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse. Kroll, Jeri
    Doctor of Philosophy 'The plants may use the meter of eternity. We do not know': An Enquiry into Environment in Australian Science and Speculative Fiction. Barber, Tess
    Doctor of Philosophy Let the Dead Speak: An Exploration of the Depiction of the Victim in Detective Fiction Barton, Naomi
    Doctor of Philosophy But wait there’s more: counter-mapping place to disrupt local histories Saunders, Jen

Full Name

  • Shady Cosgrove

Visualisations

  Publication History
 

Research Areas