Roxanne Bodsworth

3pm Thurs Dec 8

It was while hand-rearing seventeen merino lambs, each colour-coded with cat collars to tell me what formula they were on, that I was screaming “this is not what I want to be doing with my life!” Hence the decision to return to study and undertake a PhD by Creative Project with a feminist reconstruction of Irish mythology using a hybrid interweaving of poetry and prose. Though I achieved my PhD in 2020 from Victoria University, I am still also a merino sheep farmer raising orphaned lambs. Despite the great dearth of support and resources for my academic and creative pursuits, I want to exist in both worlds and demonstrate that it is possible to do so. As a feminist, a poet, and a sheep farmer, I have found a way to flourish in the cracks and crevices between the rural/city divide, and the creative/academic divide. We have to be tough to survive but survive we do. And our creativity has particular subtleties, the colours of camouflage and unexpected beauty, the nuances of life lived in the crevices. Recent research (2020; 2022) by Cathy Stone and colleagues examines the obstacles and challenges for those undertaking higher education by distance, most of whom are rural students. In this paper, I present an autoethnographic study that examines the challenges faced by those of us who take on creative and academic challenges in rural communities, and what can be gained by recognizing that what we have to offer may be invaluable to a vibrant academic ecology.

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