The Australian Association of Writing Programs

Greetings all. I would have been on to this yesterday only we had a 10-hour blackout where i live. A sign of things to come?

I'd like to bring up a scandal that hasn't been mentioned yet, as far as i know, and use it as a window to look at some broader issues. My info comes from the collection Caitlin mentioned Who's Who?, an ALS special edition (2004) and a great companion for this workshop. I refer to Cath Ellis's exposition of the Marlo Morgan case; in brief: a white woman from Missouri travelled to Brisbane stayed for three or four months. Upon her return she began selling tea-tree oil products as part of a network marketing organisation and produced a story of Indigenous Wisdom to accompany her sales pitch. The gist of the story was that while she was in Australia, a group of Aboriginal people tricked her into travelling across the country and forced her to go walkabout, during which time she had enlightening experiences and treated her wounds with tea-tree oil. This developed into a self-published book with illustrations by Marlo Morgan's daughter and an ad for the tea-tree oil products, $10. Three years later she sold the publishing rights to HarperCollins for 1.7 million. Because a previous publishing deal had fallen through when Morgan couldn't allay their fears regarding the authenticity of her true story, HarperCollins knew what they had and printed a disclaimer in the form of a statement: 'This book is a work of fiction' at the beginning of the book. But they also invested heavily in marketing which included Morgan's speaking tour where she continued to present the book as she always has, as a true story.

This case interested Ellis because, she says, she often comes across international students for whom Morgan's book is one of their few points of refernce regarding Australia. Though little known here, such was its success in the USA that it is widely translated. Since reading Ellis's article i've had this experience myself, which is disconcerting to say the least. The suckers, in Ellis's reasearch and in my experience, are often well-meaning folk 'on an enlightened path', New Agers, broadly speaking. Whatever aspects of the New Age we may dabble in, there is a broad swathe that suffers from a lack of critical thinking. Morgan's and other's appropriation of Indigenous Wisdom is a prime example.

Whilst i have sympathy with Alex Miller's expression of the 'what gives me pleasure is mine' principle (ALR October 7 2009), in this case it plainly replays a dispossession still barely acknowledged. Bad, bad, bad. But, as Miller writes, it 'is not to ne understood by the  literal-minded, but can only be sensed amply. The gift of story is finally mysterious.' Of course he didn't mean Marlo Morgan's Mutant Message from Down Under. And yet we must account for our suckers.

Perhaps i'm drawing a long bow, but i see in New Agers of all varieties a similarity with those many book-buyers who will usually choose nonfiction (often lifewriting) over a novel. The sense i have is that these people (which is a great number of us in Australia) want the cake of learning, of productivity, of good-for-you, and the eat-it-too of narrative journey.  This is what many of the New Age narratives and lifestories have in common; they promise easy enlightenment. There is an assumption here that while fiction might be nice, it is not good. whereas a true story can be nice and good. i'm simplifying of course, trying to prod an attitude. when the true story is revealed to be fiction, people feel ripped off as well as foolish, because their chosen investment didn't pay off.