The View From The Edge
★★★★★
This is a collection of stories produced at an Australian writing workshop held in the seventies. George Turner edits them together and provides an engaging commentary on each story - he doesn’t pull any punches:
“… Illustrates a weakness evident in all but two of our twelve writers - the inability to handle action sequences realistically”
His analysis is the most interesting aspect, giving an honest view into the strengths and weaknesses of each story which would be helpful to any writer. There are also two essays by the workshop tutors - Christopher Priest and Vonda MacIntyre, both focusing on the practice of running a workshop and sharing their feelings of imposter syndrome.
The stories themselves are only 2 or 3 pages long - more fragments than stories. They’re really technical writing exercises, but they give you a good feel for what participating in a writing workshop would be like. There’s nothing worth seeking out here, but for the slice of life record and Turner’s commentary, it’s an interesting curio.
