In 1964, newly appointed to the Department of English at the very new Monash University, I was uncertain about nearly everything. But as I unpacked my books in a pristine, sparsely furnished office, I found reassurance in the empty filing cabinet. I knew exactly how to fill its three drawers. As soon as I had some notes and a stack of manila folders, I would put poetry in the top drawer, fiction in the middle and drama down below. These three genres corresponded with the three terms of the academic year, as I had known it as a student. It was the natural order of things. That there might be a fourth drawer for biography, or even a space in the lecture programme for life writing, would not have occurred to me. This was the Leavis era – late Leavis indeed, but still preoccupied with close reading of literary texts. D.H. Lawrence’s mantra ‘never trust the teller, trust the tale’ seemed sufficient warrant for bypassing the teller altogether.