How do we know what to believe and does it really matter?

A short extract from an ongoing essay

By Helen Barnes-Bulley

Introduction: about the essay excerpt

I’m always interested in those divisions we make in literature between “real” and “true” stories and those we call “fiction”, and what kind of impact the labelling of stories has upon the potential reader. Good writing, some would say, is what really matters, and the genre or subject matter is merely the vehicle for an individual’s voice to compel the reader to travel with the text. Charlotte Wood recently wrote a fine essay about the difficulties of transforming the “real” into the “fictional”, which appeared in Meanjin.

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