![Associate Professor Helen Marshall](/sites/default/files/profiles/24412.png)
Overview
Background
Dr. Helen Marshall is an acclaimed writer, editor and book historian. Her first collection of fiction, Hair Side, Flesh Side, takes its name from the two sides of a piece of parchment—animal skin scraped, stretched and prepared to hold writing. Gifts for the One Who Comes After, her second collection, borrows tropes from the Gothic tradition to negotiate issues of legacy and tradition. Collectively, her two books of short stories have won the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror and the dark fantastic.
Her research as both as a creative practitioner and a scholar emerges out of the recent interest in “weird” fiction, a sub-genre of fantasy which blends supernatural, mythical, and scientific writing. Using modern theories of cognition, my work posits weird texts as “emotion machine[s]” (Tan 1996) designed to defamiliarize traumatic experiences so they can be more easily managed. Her debut novel The Migration (Random House Canada/Titan UK, 2019) exemplifies this. It finds parallels between the emergence of the Black Death in the fourteenth century and the ecological crises of the twenty-first century—that is, periods when humanity has had to confront the possibility of widescale loss of life. What interests her about the topic is not its bleakness but its interrogation of how change might take place, particularly for young people. The Migration explores these challenges. It initially presents metamorphosis as a major crisis, terrifying in its transfiguration of death. But, as the novel progresses, it shows the potential for hopeful and radical change.
Over the last five years notions of the apocalypse have emerged as a theme in her work. Her second collection, Gifts for the One Who Comes After addressed the shaping and persistence of memory in the wake of dangerous upheaval. Rather than taking the long view of history in my first collection, it negotiated very personal issues of legacy and tradition, creating myth-infused worlds where “love is as liable to cut as to cradle, childhood is a supernatural minefield, and death is ‘the slow undoing of beautiful things’” (Quill & Quire, starred review). Likewise her most recent edited collection The Year’s Best Weird Fiction argues that the techniques of defamiliarization used by contemporary authors such as Jeff VanderMeer and China Miéville offer routes for engaging in an increasingly destabilized world.
As a creative practitioner she has worked with interdisciplinary teams using narrative skills, worldbuilding and gamification for the UK’s Ministry of Defence (future threat prediction), the Diamantina Institute (storytelling and empathy for medical researchers), CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (future technologies), and the Department of Defence (innovation and AI – funded $260,000). She has led international workshops to research how creative skills might be applied to wicked problems and she has led a project to apply these skills to technology foresight for the Defence Science Technology Group (Web 3.0 - funded $89,097).
She has further interests in both modern and medieval publishing cultures. Her PhD examined the codicology and palaeography of late medieval manuscripts from England, looking at how Middle English “bestsellers” such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and the anonymous Prick of Conscience made use of traceable networks of production and dissemination. This work builds upon the practical experience she gained working in the publishing industry as the Managing Editor for ChiZine Publications, Canada’s largest independent genre press, where she was involved in all aspects of production including editing, marketing and business management. In 2016 she undertook a research project to investigate the publishing history of Stephen King’s Carrie (1974), which provided a snapshot of the changing social, economic and cultural environment of the publishing industry when key editorial and marketing decisions fashioned the King brand.
Her current projects explore worldbuilding, franchise writing, and the application of creative arts methodologies for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary ideation.
Availability
- Associate Professor Helen Marshall is:
- Not available for supervision
- Media expert
Fields of research
Qualifications
- Bachelor (Honours), University of Guelph
- Masters (Coursework), University of Toronto
- Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toronto
Research interests
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Creative practice
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Creative foresight methodologies
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Science fiction, fantasy, weird fiction and apocalyptic literature
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Short stories, novels and poetry
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Medieval and contemporary book cultures
Research impacts
In March 2020, Dr. Helen Marshall and Associate Professor Kim Wilkins launched "Wish You Were Here": Postcards from Future Queensland, a community arts project that empowers Queensland communities to imagine a better future after the Covid-19 crisis, through storytelling. Supported by UQ's School of Communication and Arts, Centre for Critical and Creative Writing, AustLit and Corella Press, this project provides a series of short video lectures and writing challenges, inviting people of all ages across the state, with a particular focus on high school and university students, to contribute short written submissions--our postcards from future Queensland.
Works
Search Professor Helen Marshall’s works on UQ eSpace
Featured
2019
Other Outputs
The Migration
Marshall, Helen (2019). The Migration. Toronto, Canada: Random House Canada.
Featured
2018
Book Chapter
"Lothly thinges thai weren alle": imagining horror in the late Middle Ages
Marshall, Helen (2018). "Lothly thinges thai weren alle": imagining horror in the late Middle Ages. New directions in supernatural horror literature: the critical influence of H. P. Lovecraft. (pp. 101-126) edited by Sean Moreland. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-95477-6_6
Featured
2014
Other Outputs
Gifts for the one who comes after
Marshall, Helen (2014). Gifts for the one who comes after. Toronto, Canada: ChiZine Publication.
Featured
2012
Other Outputs
Hair side, flesh side
Marshall, Helen (2012). Hair side, flesh side. Toronto, Canada: ChiZine Publication.
2023
Other Outputs
What IF Consortium reports: envision, engage, empathise, inhabit
Anderton, Joanne, Marshall, Helen and Wilkins, Kim (2023). What IF Consortium reports: envision, engage, empathise, inhabit. Brisbane, QLD Australia:
2023
Journal Article
Science fiction for hire? Notes towards an emerging practice of creative futurism
Jennings, Kathleen, Marshall, Helen and Anderton, Joanne (2023). Science fiction for hire? Notes towards an emerging practice of creative futurism. Text, 27 (2). doi: 10.52086/001c.89087
2023
Journal Article
Support, Structure and Speed: Key Concepts for the Digital Delivery of Creative Foresight Workshops
Marshall, Helen, Wilkins, Kim, Bennett, Lisa, Ivanova, Ksenia and Anderton, Joanne (2023). Support, Structure and Speed: Key Concepts for the Digital Delivery of Creative Foresight Workshops. Journal of Futures Studies.
2023
Journal Article
Calibrating possibility
Wilkins, Kim, Bennett, Lisa and Marshall, Helen (2023). Calibrating possibility. Possibility Studies & Society, 1 (1-2), 275386992311664-235. doi: 10.1177/27538699231166486
2023
Conference Publication
Story thinking in practice
Marshall, Helen (2023). Story thinking in practice. ANU Futures Hub Quarterly Meeting, Canberra, ACT, Australia, 28 March 2023.
2023
Journal Article
Story thinking for technology foresight
Marshall, Helen, Wilkins, Kim and Bennett, Lisa (2023). Story thinking for technology foresight. Futures, 146 103098, 103098. doi: 10.1016/j.futures.2023.103098
2023
Other Outputs
Project Ursula speculative fiction techniques for technology foresight: facilitator handbook
Marshall, Helen, Wilkins, Kim, Bennett, Lisa, Anderton, Joanne and Ivanova, Ksenia (2023). Project Ursula speculative fiction techniques for technology foresight: facilitator handbook. Brisbane, QLD Australia: What If Lab; The University of Queensland. doi: 10.14264/c6a0989
2023
Other Outputs
Web 3.0 technology impacts and future scenarios
Anderton, Joanne, Ivanova, Ksenia, Marshall, Helen, Wilkins, Kim, Bennett, Lisa and Scott, Haley (2023). Web 3.0 technology impacts and future scenarios. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Human and Decision Sciences Division, Defence Science Technology Group.
2023
Other Outputs
The Ursula Project: Conceptual Framework
Marshall, Helen , Wilkins, Kim , Bennett, Lisa and Anderton, Joanne (2023). The Ursula Project: Conceptual Framework. Brisbane, Australia: The What If Lab, The University of Queensland. doi: 10.14264/9a5e903
2022
Other Outputs
The bone girl
Marshall, Helen (2022). The bone girl. Brisbane, QLD, Australia: QML City Symphony.
2022
Book Chapter
Emerging writers/established publishers: a ten-year study of the Hachette Manuscript Development Program
Wilkins, Kim, Marshall, Helen and Tulic, Marina (2022). Emerging writers/established publishers: a ten-year study of the Hachette Manuscript Development Program. Creative writing scholars on the publishing trade: Practice, Praxis, Print. (pp. 19-32) edited by Sam Meekings and Marshall Moore. Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781003041559-2
2022
Other Outputs
The gold leaf executions
Marshall, Helen (2022). The gold leaf executions. London, United Kingdom: Unsung Stories.
2021
Other Outputs
The Happy Medium
Marshall, Helen (2021). The Happy Medium. There Is No Death, There Are No Dead: Tales of Spiritualism Horror. (pp. 33-54) edited by Jess Landry and Aaron J. French. New York, NY, United States: Crystal Lake Publishing.
2021
Conference Publication
Storytelling, worldbuilding problems, and how science fiction can save the world
Marshall, Helen (2021). Storytelling, worldbuilding problems, and how science fiction can save the world. ‘The stars look very different today’: Migration and Exile in Science Fiction, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 12 June 2021.
2020
Journal Article
What can we learn about research narratives from professional storytellers?
Wilkins, Kim and Marshall, Helen (2020). What can we learn about research narratives from professional storytellers?. The STEAM Journal, 4 (2) 11, 1-4. doi: 10.5642/steam.20200402.11
2020
Journal Article
A flare of light or ‘the great clomping foot of nerdism?’: M John Harrison’s radical poetics of worldbuilding
Marshall, Helen (2020). A flare of light or ‘the great clomping foot of nerdism?’: M John Harrison’s radical poetics of worldbuilding. Text, 24 (2), 1-24. doi: 10.52086/001c.18569
Funding
Past funding
Supervision
Availability
- Associate Professor Helen Marshall is:
- Not available for supervision
Supervision history
Current supervision
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Master Philosophy
Graham of Morphie and the Kelpie: The Australian Gothic and the Silencing of Female Characters
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Stephen Carleton
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Doctor Philosophy
Metamorphosis: Where Fact Becomes Fiction
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Natalie Collie, Dr Tom Doig
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Master Philosophy
Through a Glass, Darkly: A Novella and Accompany Exegesis
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Fiona Foley
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Doctor Philosophy
The Realness of Unreal Things
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Kim Wilkins, Dr Tom Doig
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Master Philosophy
What we hear when we read: sound, ekphrasis and the novel
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Tamlyn Avery
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Doctor Philosophy
Tell Me Everything In The Whole World: Modern Gothic Literature, Non-Linear Mnemonic Time as a Lens to Explore Women's Lives
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Natalie Collie
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Doctor Philosophy
Shifting Sands: Constructions of past, present, and future in contemporary Australian eco-gothic playwriting.
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Stephen Carleton
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Doctor Philosophy
Creative writing and the creation of a new Australian novel genre
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Kim Wilkins
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Doctor Philosophy
Literature in a Changed Publishing Environment
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Leah Henrickson, Professor Kim Wilkins
Completed supervision
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2023
Doctor Philosophy
The Girl with the Titanium Heart: The Effect of Bringing Magic Realism to Young Adult Trauma Fiction
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Venero Armanno
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2022
Master Philosophy
The Winter Spring and the Genius Loci: Crafting Gothic Low-Fantasy Settings that Enable the Fantastic
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Richard Newsome, Associate Professor Venero Armanno
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2020
Doctor Philosophy
The Theatre of Death and riding the slipstream: A study of the migration and metamorphosis of real-world matter into the Fantastic.
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Kim Wilkins
Media
Enquiries
Contact Associate Professor Helen Marshall directly for media enquiries about:
- dystopian literature
- fantasy
- horror
- popular fiction
- science fiction
- short stories
- Stephen King
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