TURCOTTE, Gerry 1960-

PERSONAL: Born May 22, 1960, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; son of Gérard (employed in a hardware store) and Ida (a homemaker; maiden name, Lawrence) Turcotte; married Kellinde Wrightson (an academic); children: Gérard. Ethnicity: "French Canadian." Education: McGill University, B.A. (with first-class honors), 1981; University of Ottawa, M.A., 1985; University of Sydney, Ph.D., 1991.

ADDRESSES: Home—7 Rose Parade, Mount Pleasant, New South Wales 2519, Australia. Offıce—English Studies Program, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales 2522, Australia; fax: 61-2-42-214-471. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia, associate professor of English studies, 1990—, head of English Studies Program, 1999-2002. University of Ottawa, visiting fellow, 1996; Université Rennes, visiting professor and head of creative writing at William Faulkner Center, 1997; guest on radio programs in Australia. International Council for Canadian Studies, member of executive committee, 1997—. Centre for Research into Textual and Cultural Studies, director, 1996-99; Institute of Social Change and Critical Inquiry, member of board management committee, 1996-2000; Banff Writers' Centre, guest writer, 1996; Varuna Writer's Centre, residential fellow, 1998; South Coast Writers' Centre, member of executive committee, 1999—. City of Wollongong, member of festivals committee and cultural advisory committee, 1999—.

MEMBER: Association for Canadian Studies in Australia and New Zealand (president, 1996-98).

AWARDS, HONORS: British Commonwealth scholar in Australia, 1986-90; travel fellowship for England, Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1994-95; winner of one-act play competition, Stanwell Park Arts Theater, 1999; teaching award, New South Wales Ministry for Education and Training and Australian College of Education, 2001; grants from Australian Research Council, International Council for Canadian Studies, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Educational Strategies Development Fund, and Canadian High Commission.

WRITINGS:

Neighbourhood of Memory: Poems, 1984-1990, Dangaroo Press (Denmark), 1990.

Flying in Silence (novel), Cormorant Books (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2001.

Winterlude, Brandl & Schlesinger (Australia), 2002.

Author of plays. Contributor to books, including Eight Voices of the Eighties: Stories, Journalism, and Criticism by Australian Women Writers, edited by Gillian Whitlock, University of Queensland Press (Queensland, Australia), 1989; Constructions of Colonialism: Perspectives on Eliza Fraser's Shipwreck, Leicester University Press (New York, NY), 1998; Seriously Weird: Papers on the Grotesque, edited by Alice Mills, Peter Lang (New York, NY), 1999; and Mongrel Signatures: Reflections on the Work of Mudrooroo, edited by Annalisa Oboe, Rodopi Press, 2001. Contributor of articles and reviews to periodicals, including Littcrit, Journal of Indo-Canadian Literature, Australian-Canadian Studies, Meanjin, Ariel, Antipodes, Westerly, World Literature Written in English, American Notes and Queries, and Australian and New Zealand Studies in Canada.

editor

Writers in Action: The Writer's Choice Evenings, Currency Press (Sydney, Australia), 1990.

Jack Davis: The Maker of History, Angus & Robertson/HarperCollins (Sydney, Australia), 1994.

(And contributor) Masks, Tapestries, Journeys: Essays in Honour of Dorothy Jones, CRITACS Press (Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia), 1996.

(With Lois Foster and Kate Burridge) Canada-Australia, 1895-1995: Toward a Second Century of Partnership, Carleton University Press (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1997.

Compr(om)ising Postcolonialisms, Dangaroo Press (Australia), 2001.

Coeditor, Australian-Canadian Studies: Journal for the Humanities and the Social Sciences, 1993-96; fiction editor, Kunapipi, 1997—; editor of special issues, Hermes, 1986, Thalia: Studies in Literary Humor, 1990, and New Literatures Review, 1992.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Research on gothic and speculative fictions and minority discourses.

SIDELIGHTS: Gerry Turcotte told CA: "In my new novel, Flying in Silence, set in both Australia and Canada, my principal character is a French-Canadian man torn between landscapes, languages, citizenships, and allegiances. I used the metaphor of 'persistence of vision,' that process in film through which we physiologically make sense of, or hold together, what should be a blurred, segmented, and impartial sequence of frequently unrelated images, to represent what was for me the central dilemma of the novel: reconciling memory and migration. Needless to say, as a migrant to Australia, and as a teacher of Canadian literature abroad, these are issues I have struggled with repeatedly. What is my responsibility to my country of origin? How do I remain an active citizen of both worlds? Has the shared/divided vision offered me a wider or more narrow view of the possibilities of cross-culturality? Finally, what is my responsibility—as an academic, a research director, a creative writer—toward the textualization and the representation of Canada abroad? My work, in very metaphoric terms, examines notions of migration and belonging, and concentrates on the idea of split allegiances. What do we do when we are trapped between worlds as citizens, as speakers, as individuals?"