1. WRITING PORTFOLIO
Ashleigh Stonehewer

2. Lines of My Life
(Published in the first issue of a UQ journal, Jacaranda)
A picture may speak a thousand words but a woman’s body tells a thousand stories.
In every contour and mark there is tale waiting to told, a battle or achievement worthy of
respect.
Our bodies are a tale of all that we have faced; they are a trophy of all that we have
won. I see the lines of a rocky road I have battled to travel down, a road that I am still
travelling. I see the shape of the body they adorn, and I witness all that I have achieved.
My life is mapped by a series of lines, and for a long time those lines defined me.
There is a stranger in my room. She stands as I stand; she wears what I wear; she moves as I
move. I feel like I have known her my whole life, yet she is a stranger to me. My life can be
mapped by a series of lines that her body wears, but she is a stranger to me.
Looking in the mirror, I see myself. I see the lines that mark my skin, the stretch
marks that I once called imperfections. Scars on my hips, thighs, and stomach: all reminders
of everything I fought so hard to lose.
I don’t remember the first moment I felt fat, but I will always remember the last. I had
fallen victim to the modern devil that gives with one hand and takes with the other:
Facebook. A photo posted on Facebook for all to see—for me to see.
At first I couldn’t find myself in the image. When I did, there wasn’t a sound in my
room, but my head was alive with noise. Nothing coherent: random words. My face burned
with shame. My body shook with self-loathing. You never truly see yourself until it is
through someone else’s eyes.
I was beginning to explore the possibility of a new future. I was ready to embrace a
new life. It started with a promise to always see myself through the eyes of a stranger,
because I never wanted to be blindsided again; I never wanted to be tripped by my inability to
see the real me.
I remember the day I stood alone, in the middle of the field. Everyone stared at my fall—my
failure. Defeat was all that waited for me. Yet, I gritted my teeth, tested my weight on my
injured legs, and ran again. Nothing hurt as much as my wounded pride.
As I crossed the finish line that day, and my ears rang with the cheers of the crowd, I
was enveloped in hugs and swept away with praise; I felt like I had won. When the winner of
the race was awarded their medal, I looked down at my bloody knees and knew that I had the
best trophy of all.
I start to wish that I had changed sooner, but I stop when the girl in the mirror offers me a
knowing smile, a bright smile. It’s new: I like it. A shake of her head reminds me that you
have to let certain things go—for hindsight is the friend who is always fashionably late.
Looking in the mirror I see scars on my knees. They are small and pale, less
prominent than those above. They are the ghosts of an incident long forgotten.
At nine years old I knew an important life lesson that I would soon forget, one that
would take me over twelve years to learn again.

3. My body is a work of art; it tells a thousand stories. My scars tell a tale of victory and
strength. I earned them. I will wear them. They are the lines of my life, but they do not define
me.

4. We’re All Muggles in a Wizarding World
Every child across the world will forever hate their eleventh birthday. I spent the day waiting
for the arrival of an owl delivering my letter, and then the night waiting for a half-giant to
burst down my door, give my brother a pigs tail, and tell me those famous words: you're a
wizard, Harry (even though my name is not Harry and I am not a boy).
J.K Rowling did not just write a book. She created a world. It is a world that has taken a
whole generation under its cloak (of invisibility) and ensured that the magic of words are not
lost on those who are at constant risk of losing their souls forever to the real world dementor:
technology.
The Harry Potter franchise has become much more than a fictional world. It has embedded
itself in our reality. The characters have been brought to life by the films; Quidditch has
become a real sport—yes, broomsticks are included; and The Wizarding World of Harry
Potter means that it is now possible to visit the Weasley’s joke shop, drink Butterbeer, and eat
vomit flavoured sweets.
Harry Potter blurs the lines between fiction and reality; it makes us believe that the
impossible is possible. Harry Potter is magic: Rowling is the magician.
Thanks to J.K. Rowling, eleventh birthdays are no longer a celebration, but rather a day to
mourn the dreams that are lost. It was the day I went to bed, hugging my copy of Harry Potter
and the Philosopher’s Stone, facing the heart breaking truth: you’re a muggle, Ashleigh.

5. Five Reasons Why an Arts Degree Isn’t Easy
(Specifically from the perspective of an English Literature major)
People have this opinion that a Bachelor of Arts degree is easy, but I have one thing to say
those people: give it a go if you think it’s so easy!
English literature is not as easy people seem to assume. Here are just five reasons why:
1) Reading Workout
I’ll be the first to admit that part of the reason that I chose to study English Literature was
because I love to read—I can’t see how anyone would survive the duration of their degree if
they didn’t—and I can usually be found with my head in a book. However, literature courses
take it to the extreme! The amount of material we are expected to read (and analyse) is
bordering on ridiculous (and spare a thought for the idiot behind these words who lumbered
herself with THREE lit courses this semester). Each course, depending on how lovely the
course convener is, usually expects you to read approximately one novel a week, plus critical
sources. Some of the novels I have had to study can take the average reader up to 18 hours to
read (shout out to the naturally slow readers, like me; it’s an unfair world); that’s longer than
the time we spend in class and the amount of time we will probably spend on assignments.
So if you have ever wondered why the arts students don’t have as many contact hours, spare a
thought for the fact that we are probably tucked away in a quiet corner buried beneath a pile
of books. Between the reading load, classes, assignments, and jobs… goodbye social life.
Please meet my new best friend: The Novel.
2) Physical Workout
Believe it or not, English Literature is a work out. As most university students can appreciate,
classes can be spread all over campus—and some campuses are not small—but literature
students have to juggle a stack of books on their journey, and some of them aren’t small
either! If you never have to see, let alone carry, any of the various Norton Anthology books,
consider yourself lucky.
In the long run I may appreciate my newly toned arms, but in the mean time I do not
appreciate the effort it takes. Hey, if I wanted a workout I would have taken up sports.
3) It’s a Marriage
If you undertake further studies in English literature you are signing your life away. Literary
theories and analysis become a ball and chain that will forever be weighing you down. You
might think I am sounding a little dramatic, but like any marriage literature studies becomes a
life-long commitment to always reading between the lines. A novel will never simply be a
novel again. An author is not simply an author. Words are magic and the writer is a magician.
Novels are puzzles that need to be taken apart and pieced together time and time again. They

6. are mazes of intricate designs that lead and mislead; challenge and betray; give and take.
Nothing is an accident; everything must always have a purpose because a word cannot be just
a word, a bird cannot be just a bird, and red is not a colour but something greater.
A literature student signs away their freedom to enjoy a book simply for being a story. It will
always be something more, even when we don’t want it to be.
4) It’s Not All Make Believe—it’s Hard-core!
It is not a book club! The readings are not just physically heavy; they are mentally heavy, too.
Take, for example, The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism. Did you know that fiction
isn’t just something people read for fun? Apparently there are theories and criticisms (2700
pages of them in this book alone), which are most certainly not fun! We literature students
have to read them, close read them, and then analyse the way in which they support argument
for the literary works of fiction we have already had to read, close read, and analyse. Try
thinking about the theories behind the theories of literature… Sounds like a barrel of laughs,
right?
Right?
5) No One Believes Us!
The hardest part about an arts degree is probably the fact that no one believes that this degree
is hard. It’s hard work trying to convince people that we don’t have it easy, especially when
you know that when you applied for the degree you did so with the same naïve thinking: I
like reading, so it’ll be easy. If you had read a post like this you probably would have laughed
it off because, no, seriously, I really like reading. I’ll be fine.
Yeah. Right. Good luck with that one and meet my new frenemy: Hindsight.
Still don’t agree with me? That’s fine, but give it a go and then tell me it’s easy.
I dare you.

7. Review: Black Mountain by Venero Armanno
As I finished the final page of Black Mountain, I felt as though I was emerging from my own
great journey in the shadows of Sicily’s Mount Etna: filthy, grubby, and exhausted to the
point of madness. Venero Armanno thrusts his readers into a world of Sicilian sulphur mines
and recreates an often forgotten, unknown, or even ignored history of abusive child labour
and greed. Then in a twist so unexpected that I considered suing for whiplash, Armanno
introduces the futuristic scientific possibility that the human desire for unending “health and
youth and longevity” (266) could lead to a world full of “useless egoists who’ll never die”
(266). The vivid retelling of real life events juxtaposed with the sci-fi concept of eugenics is a
clever exploration into the battle between human nature and human desire: what we are
designed to do versus what we choose to do.
Through the literary device of metafiction, Armanno uses the diaries of Cesare Montenero, as
a symbol of this battle. After writing a screenplay based on a repeated nightmare, Mark Alter
is accused of plagiarising a book written by Montenero, whose diaries Alter discovers. The
reader is led to the discovery that the diaries are the memories of Montenero, and, therefore, a
version (or past version) of Mark Alter’s own life: “So you’ve found me. And that means
you’ve found yourself” (30). The metafiction suggests that if we are to live lives that are
plagiarised from those before us, if we are genetically given lives “from one hand to the next”
(266), we have to learn from the past in order to craft our own future.
The connection made in Black Mountain between plagiarism and eugenics is a fascinating
one. The novel raises questions of identity, ownership, and parentage: if one is to
unknowingly repeat the work of another, does it make it any less theirs? What Montenero
learns, the lesson he wants to share, is that it is not where you come from, it is not the origins
from which something, or someone, derives, but rather the choices they make that define
them—it is the choice to “be who you are” (170) that defines an individual.
The names of the novel’s protagonist should not go unnoticed. In the beginning, as a young
slave boy with no memory of his parents or a past, he is given the name Sette, which means
seven. By being given a name, even one that is supposed to signify his lack of identity, Sette
begins to build his own life, away from expectation and design; there is an ironic sense of
freedom in his slavery that can only be appreciated on reflection.
The name of the novel also supports the idea that it is important to be who you are. Note how
the novel is not named after something that links it to the theme of eugenics, but rather after
something that defines Cesare as an individual, by connecting to a battle that he fought and
won, a life that he lived. The novel takes its name from Cesare’s self-appointed surname,
Montenero, again focusing on the idea of choosing who you want to be. In saying that
though, there is irony in him being named after the roman emperor, Ceasar. This suggests that
there is very little in the modern world that is not influenced or shaped by the past, whether it
is done so deliberately through science or naturally through nurture.
So now that I have completed Black Mountain, I will take to my bed for a few days to rest my
weary brain, but I know there is very little I can do to clean myself of all that I have learned
about being human.
Who are you?

8. Who am I?
Am I really me?

9. The Adverb Road to Hell
As a creative writing student, I was conditioned to fear the use of adverbs, with many of my
teachers sharing the wise words of Stephen King: “I believe the road to hell is paved with
adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops”i. I will not argue that effective and efficient
sentences require cautious use of adverbs, but that does not mean that they have no place in
writing.
There is a time and place for adverbs. In Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing, Leonard
suggested that a writer “never use an adverb after the verb ‘said’”ii. This is an important
lesson that should be applied to most verbs, because it is the speech and action that surrounds
the verb that should qualify the way in which the words are spoken. An adverb used in those
cases could imply that either the reader is not competent enough to deduce the meaning, or
that the author is not creative enough to create the scene around the verb. Let’s take the
adverb “angrily”. If two characters are in the middle of an argument, and the author has
sufficiently built up the scene, or if a stronger verb than “said” is used to indicate the
emotions, then the anger would surely be implied, and an adverb would be redundant.
From Leonard’s rule, we can determine that adverbs are least important when describing how
a verb acts than when or where a verb acts. For example, “he ran slowly” could be improved
by changing the verb to “jogged”; however, “he ran yesterday” and “he ran downstairs” use
adverbs that are essential to the meaning.
An adverb is a tool for writing and its effectiveness depends on the artist wielding it. Perhaps
King’s adverb-paved road leads to a place reserved for those who have not quite mastered the
skill. I admit that I may find myself walking that road, as I struggle each day to control my
addiction to adverbs. But I have realised that there is nothing wrong with adverbs in general;
our fight should be against adverbs that are used unnecessarily.
So, if the road to hell is paved with adverbs, then I shall take the road happily—and I will
shout that from the rooftops.
i http://www.brainpickings.org/2013/03/13/stephen-king-on-adverbs/
ii
http://www.writingclasses.com/InformationPages/index.php/PageID/304

10. What University Taught Me
When I first signed up to major in writing at university I knew that it would be hard to avoid
the grammar courses, but I pushed them to the back of my mind and locked them in a box
labelled things around which to get. If I’m honest, it was grammar about which I was most
concerned because, despite being something with which I thought I was familiar, I knew I
would come across rules of which I had never heard.
When I first signed up to major in writing at university I knew that it would be hard to avoid
the grammar courses, but I pushed them to the back of my mind and locked them in a box
labelled things to get around to . If I’m honest, it was grammar that I was most concerned
about because, despite being something I thought I was familiar with, I knew I would come
across rules I had never heard of.
What I learned, however, was that many of the grammar rules that I thought I already knew
were myths—myths that at some point became truths. The preposition rule was an example
of this.
At school I was taught that a preposition should always precede a noun or pronoun to show a
relationship, which meant that sentences most definitely should not end in a preposition.
Even the origin of the word preposition comes from the idea of “putting before”[i]. Who was
I to argue? However, I found that rewriting sentences to follow this rule made my writing
sound contrived and pretentious (see paragraph 1), which in itself is something writing should
avoid.
When I graduated this summer and people asked me what I learned at university, this was my
answer:
Remember all those grammar rules your teachers told you at school? Forget them because
they’re not true. I learned about the preposition rule this year—the preposition rule that isn’t a
rule at all because, believe it or not, a sentence can end in a preposition. Like most things, it’s
a matter of taste.
So, to borrow the words of Winston Churchill, “this is the type of arrant pedantry up with
which I will not put.” [ii]
[i] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/preposition
[ii] http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14033.Winston_S_Churchill