Asking writers to choose: Clive James and the tensions of multimodal authorship

Over the past decades, there has been a marked change in the expectations on writers to maintain public profiles and to participate in the marketing and dissemination of their work in a wide range of contexts. In contrast to an enduring myth of authors as solitary in their lives and singular in their writing, many writers today engage with readers and audiences across a number of media platforms. At the same time, the critical reception of varied writing practices does not necessarily support writers as they attempt to do so. This article discusses the career of Australian author Clive James (1939–2019), whose practice was particularly varied in nature, and an example of a writer adapting their writing to different and emerging forms and genres. While James was commonly praised for the range of his artistic pursuits and the quantity of his publications, the conflicted critical reception of his writing reveals the enduring nature of concepts of authorship that privilege authors’ separation and specialisation ahead of social engagement and multimodality. I argue that a more sympathetic approach is one that analyses and supports multimodal practice in terms that reflect its aims and unique contributions, and so acknowledges the ways in which a multimodal practice can benefit writers, both artistically and practically