Writing as Endurance Performance Art

Writing as performance art. An endurance performance. Have written and not yet published so many books, the thought of it gives one vertigo. I have talked about how I wanted to publish the novel I have written which is closer to the truth of what happened in Adelaide in the early 80s when I lived there, and not the entirley fictional book that I have published (interwoven with some recognisable features). Now I am wanting to do this again, to publsih the book on the "underground art scene" (ironic term) and no extremes of crime, murder, aristocratic connections or fugue as such. My first novel Australian Fugue: The Antipode Room is a metaphor for the fugue of unknowing that I lived in for a long time, as I have spoken of in the video. How many books can one publish, the one I want to publish now is shorter, and is more realistic. I could do this then the second main book, set in Northern Ireland soon after. I see writing and publishing as my art, as an artist not in the traditional mode of relations between author and publisher. So this is some advance information, another written work on art is imminent.

What drives me as a writer? this will become more apparent with my novel set in Northern Ireland, and with my non fiction book The Writer's Fugue, soon to be published online.
I will talk about it when these are available online, soon. Ultimately is is to share and communicate through literary writing, a form of processing and transformation, to share what I have learned through experience of working through aftereffects and moving on from the affects of life and death traumas.

Ruth Skilbeck, 25.6.15

Ruth Skilbeck was born in London, and has lived and worked in Dublin, London and Sydney as a freelance journalist for many publications, and radio including as a writer/presenter on the BBC World Service’s Book Choice, and as a part-time academic. She holds a Ph.D. and Master of Arts in Writing from UTS (University of Technology, Sydney), and B.A. Honours in Philosophy from Birkbeck, University of London. She is author of The Writer’s Fugue, a musico-literary study.