ARTS UNIKEN August 2003 • 15
rubric’s cube
by Christine Kearney
For a group of writing students, the attractions of publishing a creative writing journal online were obvious – no printing costs, no distribution hassles and a sophisticated design which would be prohibitive in hard copy.
     More importantly, going online would allow them to publish work which wouldn’t sit easily within the pages of a paper journal.
     “Every writing program tends to have its own anthology and journal to showcase student work,” says English lecturer Paul Dawson, who teaches in UNSW’s graduate creative writing programs.
     “What I wanted to do was have one with work of the highest quality, and have work that other journals won’t touch because it’s too long or unconventional,” he says.
     rubric – UNSW’s first online creative writing journal – does just that.
     The journal, which is hosted by the school		 of English, is the brainchild of Dawson and media student, Matt Wall-Smith. They thrashed out the idea of starting an online magazine last year. Dawson mentioned the project to his students, who formed an editorial team, including Wall-Smith as managing editor and technical supremo. They called for submissions from students across the University and received over 100 works.
     The 12 pieces chosen for the first edition range from poetry of a conventional length, to collage-like narratives such as infamous which includes diary notes, first person observation and a short story.
     “We’re publishing things that you just wouldn’t get published in print,” says member of the rubric editorial team and business manager at the Australian Taxation Studies Program (Atax), Peter Lewis.
     “The poem love song is nearly 40 pages of		 narrative poetry. It’s not going to get published in any poetry anthology that you can think of, but online, what does it hurt to have a few more pages that you can flick through?” says Lewis.
     “Going online offers you incredible scope and at the same time you don’t have the overheads of publishing.”
     The editors hope to push the online boundaries even further with future editions, exploring how “the written word can enhance and be enhanced by cybermedia”, says Lewis. “We’re trying to open up new ways of reading and viewing writing,” adds fellow editor, Meg Garven.

rubric is calling for submissions from students and alumni for its second 2003 edition. Check www.arts.unsw.edu.au/english/rubric or email rubric@unsw.edu.au. Submissions close September 7.
Postcards from Utopia is on show at UNSW’s Hutcheson gallery from August 18–22. Fowler will   also lead a two-hour film sets workshop on August 6 from 12–2pm in the Blockhouse.

Mary O’Malley
Untitled 5 by Hayden Fowler, from his Postcards from Utopia exhibition, which incorporates installation, performance art, a slideshow and photography.
     A COFA graduate, Fowler is the University Union’s artist-in-residence for second session.
     Classic evocations of utopia – grass, animals and the naked human body – are juxtaposed with the dream modern lifestyle conveyed by the tools of mass media.
     “I’m playing on this idea of commercialism and how it tries to sell us this vision of what utopia is,” says Fowler. “I’m mixing that up with older ideas of utopia as a natural world.”
     His distorted utopia, he says, is a reminder of how we are ridding ourselves of our natural habitat and traditional ways of socialising, leaving us with a bleak sense of displacement.