‘Reading in the Mallee’ is an ARC-funded project exploring the literary history of the Mallee region in collaboration with Mallee readers.
The Mallee has captured the imaginations of scores of writers and storytellers, yet this rich and diverse literary heritage is little known both outside and within the region itself. This project will create a dialogue between writers, readers and place in order to bring Mallee literature to life for a wider audience and to create the first account of Mallee literary history through collaborations with Mallee readers.
The project is especially interested in how a sense of place might anchor and orientate readers and groups in relation to the book or stories at hand. A major aspect of the project is its encouragement of local communities to add to the project’s findings through reading events with Mallee residents, including book groups, shared reading events, literary walks and community reading spaces.
We understand ‘the Mallee’ in an expansive sense, not limited by local government boundaries. While our focus is the Victorian Mallee, the many histories that have fed into the making of this region extend it imaginatively beyond this and connect it to many places elsewhere.
As we track these connections, we also build Mallee literary history and re-position this usually marginal interest at the heart of how communities know and understand their places, and how these places continue to be made.
This project is funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) from 2021-2023.