Creative Writing Studies

Practice, Research and Pedagogy

Graeme Harper, Jeri Kroll, Graeme Harper, Jeri Kroll

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781847696793
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Creative Writing
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The chapters in this book range across all three areas of its subtitle practice, research and pedagogy – testifying to the integrated nature of creative writing as a university discipline. Writers from the USA, the UK and Australia concentrate on the most critical issues facing this popular, fast-developing and sometimes embattled area of study: practice-led research in creative writing; the nature of higher degrees; the place of critical/theoretical discourse in the discipline; the best teaching methods at undergraduate and postgraduate levels; and the challenge of creative writers who are also university teachers. These exciting essays, thus, chart creative writing's evolution as a site of knowledge in the contemporary university.

Chapter 1

Creative Writing in the University

GRAEME HARPER AND JERI KROLL

1.

A triumvirate of practice, research and pedagogy defines Creative Writing as a subject in universities around the world. Writing is first and foremost a studio art, like its siblings – music, drama, dance, visual arts, and so on. The teaching of the arts and attendant critical understanding about how to communicate the intricacies of specific disciplines followed on the heels of their introduction into the academy at all levels. Although the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in the US is still, to some extent, thought of as primarily a practice-based (studio) degree, Masters and Doctoral study, generally, moved the discipline on to another plane because here the concept of Creative Writing as research began to be interrogated most vigorously. The movement of ideas between practice, research and pedagogy has now come full circle. Definitions of research and about the production of the type and forms of knowledge Creative Writing generates have begun to filter down to affect how Creative Writing is taught at undergraduate level in many institutions.

Witness the number of books published in recent years about the discipline. Likewise, research-led debates that in earlier times found their way occasionally into The Writer’s Chronicle, the long-established organ of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP), and slightly more so perhaps into Writing in Education, the publication of the UK’s National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE), are now able to be carried on regularly in independent specialist journals such as New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing. Newer organisations have also developed their own international journals with tertiary education focuses, such as TEXT: the Journal of the Australian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP, founded 1996), published biannually. Concomitantly, the research interests expressed in publications by NAWE, whose brief covers all levels of education from primary to tertiary, and in AWP publications as well, have increased.

The teaching of arts practice, and the attendant critical understanding of it, has long been a part of academe – in fact, since the birth of Higher Education. Yet, the formalising of education in The Arts – in Creative Writing in this specific case – has often led to questions about the nature of the intersection between practice, research into practice and the critical knowledge connected with it, and teaching. Constant movement of ideas between these three aspects – Creative Writing practice, university research and university teaching – is now more common in institutions worldwide, but it is not yet firmly established generally. Much work still needs to be done on the relationship between Creative Writing as a practice-led activity, critical understanding drawn from investigating that practice, and modes of teaching Creative Writing at university level. In other words, the principles, methodologies and theories underpinning the discipline are still emerging in a variety of cultural and institutional contexts.

Definitions of, and about, the production, types and forms of knowledge developed and used in Creative Writing have only just begun to filter down to the way Creative Writing is taught. With a strong international network now in place, new discipline-based knowledge can travel widely. That said, different arenas – international as well as within national borders – have seen alternative emphases at various times, and one of the most exciting elements of the now international sense of Creative Writing in universities is the scope and strength of debate.

2.

Prior to writing this chapter, we generated a number of questions. These were mostly concerned with what we might achieve in such a chapter in a book that would also present contributions about Creative Writing as a university discipline from the perspective of three geographical locations. Here are some of those questions that helped to demarcate what we believe are critical areas of investigation in the development of that site of knowledge called ‘Creative Writing’.

What do we perceive as the subject content of Creative Writing in universities? What is its specific subject matter and what is related to it, but perhaps not core to its interests? Who chooses to study it, and what are their expectations? What indeed are the results of this studying? Where within the university is Creative Writing activity most often taking place? What sort of activities does it cover? How is it defined in light of other subjects in the university? How is it valued, and by whom? How do we conceive of research in Creative Writing, and what is the relationship between creative practice and critical understanding that is integral to that research? What is knowledge of, and about, Creative Writing, and to what ends is it used? How does what occurs within universities relate to Creative Writing activities beyond universities? The list could go on.

Readers should note the inclusion of the word ‘studying’ in the paragraph above, as well as the word ‘within’. The reasons to use these two words are themselves twofold. Firstly, this is a chapter concerned with Creative Writing as it is studied in and around universities. Needless to say, it is not necessary to study Creative Writing in order to undertake some Creative Writing. Now and then, the question has been raised as to whether Creative Writing even benefits from being studied within universities at all. We’d be the last people to answer that question without bias. So, bias in hand, we might simply rephrase the question: ‘Does any field of knowledge not benefit from being studied within a university?’ There’s little doubt that Creative Writing in and around universities is impacted upon by the nature of the university environment, and that the discipline, in turn, impacts upon that environment. There is a myriad of ways that writers (and their students) are affected by this interpenetration and how, as a result, the discipline as well as the general practice of Creative Writing is advanced. Secondly, how Creative Writing is studied most often involves two elements: the act of writing creatively, and the act of critically considering that act and its results. In both cases, the ‘studying’ raises questions about how to marshal ideas and actions, how to employ discoveries, how to communicate information and how to evaluate understanding. In this sense also ‘within’ seems an appropriate addition to use in our discussions, and gives some indication of our focus and purpose.

3.

Let us explore the three areas of connected interest – practice, research and pedagogy – a bit more to illuminate the ideas being suggested here.

Creative Writing ‘practice’ is an all-encompassing term, and perhaps is the first that needs to be unpacked in order to reveal some elements of Creative Writing’s nature. Practice, in this case, means the practice of writing creatively; but this can, of course, entail a great many practices, some simple acts of inscription, some acts of recording, some acts of invention, interpretation or distillation, some acts of revisiting, rewriting or editing, and so on. And yet, in talking of practice there is some indication that we are not talking, as the primary focal point, about the finished artifacts that result from that practice. This is important. Creative Writing can refer to an action, or set of actions, and a consideration of both action and artefact. However, the focus in the subject of Creative Writing on action and process differentiates it from the critical study of ‘Literature’, ‘Theatre’, ‘Film/Media,’ for example, all of which can involve analytical acts regarding pieces of Creative Writing but are subjects largely undertaken without creative practice involved.

Thus practice here means an approach to a subject based on knowledge acquired through the act of creating. This knowledge is not superficial. It results from sustained and serious examination of the art of writerly practice and might include not only contemporary theoretical or critical models but the writers’ own past works as well as predecessors and traditions. In some incarnations, practice as research functions as the formal autobiography of an individual’s craft, taking into account the significant influences and methods. Even the relationship between a doctoral student and supervisor can be understood in this manner.

This knowledge, while intersecting with that acquired by the post-creation act of criticism, is fundamentally different in attitude because its purpose is primarily to inform the practitioner (and, by extension, other practitioners), and therefore give her or him better access to ideas and approaches that might enhance their own practice. Artists outside of an institutional context might do this sporadically or systematically, but they are not necessarily interested in disseminating their findings (contributing to a body of knowledge as a primary purpose, for example). Within the academy, writers function in the private sphere of their own practice, but also in the institutional sphere as teachers and in a more public sphere as authors. These identities interpenetrate and reflect back upon practice.

Some of the resulting knowledge could perhaps be called ‘applied knowledge’; however, such a term in Higher Education has tended to fall foul of a perceived intellectual hierarchy, with the ‘applied’ second in importance, and what might be called ‘blue skies’ knowledge situated in first place. What we are talking about here, to be clear, is higher learning attained through creative practice. It is in no sense second in importance to critical analysis detached from practice (what some might call ‘intellectual’ activity), and it is in no sense less capable of investigating the nature of the world, the individual or the culture. Practice here is taken to be an active engagement with knowledge producing creative results that embody levels of understanding and modes of communication. Perhaps here Creative Writing and other art forms have much to contribute to each other; however, in some cases Creative Writing has been excluded from relevant debates about practice as research. What Australia-based Paul Carter (2004: 177) deems ‘the “balkanisation“ of creative arts’ has had negative consequences in some arenas, because this phenomenon has prevented the arts ‘entering into dialogue with one another’ and, thus, building on each discipline’s insights. Nevertheless, Creative Writing scholars, as the ensuing chapters demonstrate, have not only been keen to explore resources both within and outside academe but have been innovative in their application.

The developing concept of practice situates itself well in the current history of Creative Writing in places of higher learning. The growth of the subject in universities over the past 10 to 15 years, and the slower but still considerable growth for the 40 or so years before this, has meant that Creative Writing practice is now undertaken in the university by individuals with a range of backgrounds and expectations. Universities were once far more elitist places; mass higher education has introduced notions of ‘access for all’, which naturally has opened up the number of possible individual ‘life plans’ that might exist in any one university.

So, for example, on the one hand most university students of Creative Writing – whether students in the sense of actual members of the university student body, or ‘students of the field’ in the more general sense of those Creative Writing proponents in academe – consider some element of recognised publication or performance of Creative Writing testimony to achievement in the subject. Practice therefore might be said to embody an ‘industry’ or ‘consumption’ ideal connected with ‘making a living’. On the other hand, this is one of the most debated areas of Creative Writing study, and there would be any number of those connected with Creative Writing in universities who would question whether the market is a defining component of practice and whether the considerations of the market for finished pieces of Creative Writing should be the motivation behind undertaking them – or indeed for benchmarking creative work. In higher degrees, in particular, ‘publishable’ as an evaluative term has been questioned, and in many cases discarded, in recent years. Part of the reason for this is the desire to develop courses where there are a variety of recognised ‘successful outcomes’ (i.e. from publication or performance, to simply a far greater understanding of the nature of excellent creative writing).

It is interesting to note that in the past decade or two, particularly with the evolution of doctoral degrees in Creative Writing, authors with established reputations in the market have returned to universities, or in some cases turned up for the first time, to undertake higher degree study. Something similar was seen, prior to the birth of the Creative Writing doctorate, at Masters level. This is undoubtedly connected with the idea of achieving formal qualifications that bolster the chances of a writer obtaining university employment. But it would be cynical to believe this is where the interest stops. There is much evidence, albeit often anecdotal, that supports the idea that writers with considerable market profiles have returned to universities to investigate and develop their practice within an environment that actively encourages knowledge acquisition and the application of that knowledge.

Practice, therefore, can be viewed as a mode of investigation, and a mode informed by individual and cultural circumstance. Also, as an act of acquisition and exchange, it is informed by critical understanding of a specific kind related to creative achievement, but not always to notions of ‘the market’. Writers in the university, conscious of their practice and context, are in a position even at a base level to theorise, along with their colleagues in other disciplines, about what they do if, as Terry Eagleton (2003: 2) suggests, ‘theory means a reasonably systematic reflection on our guiding assumptions’. In fact, Eagleton asserts, this activity is still ‘indispensible’ even though the age of high theory is past. The connection between this point of view and the idea of Creative Writing ‘Research’ is perhaps already plain.

In order to pursue new knowledge universities have long been the home of a great deal of research activity. Some of this has been practice-led, and such research has been fully recognised within institutions, and by governments funding research. To take a broad example, the Sciences are supported by a range of practice-led activities informed by theoretical positions, and hold a place within modern universities based on being well regarded as a mode of engagement with the world. Many universities have devoted vast portions of their estate to such scientific practice and defended the importance of doing so with regard to the future of human-kind. Alternatively, the Humanities and Social Sciences – subjects such as History or Theology, Literature or Philosophy, Sociology or Politics – have not seen practice as focal, but have instead highlighted the importance of critical modeling, theoretical positioning and comparative study. In this respect, universities have often devoted a great deal of their time, effort and budgets to such things as ensuring strong library collections, launching high-level conferences and seminars and appointing recognised critics and theoreticians.

When we come to the Creative Arts, the situation is not so clear. Creative Writing, as a creative art with little ‘site identity,’ is perhaps worse off than most. By ‘site identity’ we mean the subject’s material location in universities. That is, while Music, Theatre, the Fine Arts, Film-making and so on have a need for – and therefore an identity connected with – physical locations in the university, Creative Writing has long been undertaken in relatively low-impact, low-profile locations. This lack of a site identity has been the result, in part, of the myriad of departments or schools in which it has often been housed (e.g. Creative Writing, English, Creative Industries, Theatre, Literary Studies, Media and Film, Communications and Cultural Studies). Demanding little university estate, creative writers have pursued their practice-led research, informed by critical awareness, in between the edifices established for other Arts, Natural Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences. In order to facilitate that research, university administrators have not often seen the need to create studios or spaces to store equipment or, indeed, to dedicate a portion of the university’s information services grid to the discipline. In other words, the act of pursuing new knowledge of, and about, Creative Writing has gone on without change in most institutions’ immediate physical surroundings, and yet the discipline has impacted upon the life of academe to an amazing extent. In the simplest terms, just consider the number of students it attracts, and their involvement in the life of the university.

Needless to say this relative invisibility, yet considerable impact, raises questions about the kinds of activities that might be considered research in, and about, Creative Writing. It raises questions about how institutions, and indeed governments, assess the quality of that research – and therefore determine whether it is of value and should be financially supported. And, as contemporary universities are places of compartmentalisation and what might perhaps be awkwardly called ‘departmentalisation’, it also raises questions about the ways in which Creative Writing research differentiates itself from other research, and in what way it can be incorporated neatly into a pattern of university management. This dilemma has been exacerbated by the number of departments in which Creative Writing has been taught.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Creative Writing is an eclectic activity, drawing on knowledge from a vast range of fields. While some elements of the subject have relatively clear connections with other university subjects (for example, the background that the study of literature might provide for poetry and prose writers, or the potential models the study of film might provide for screenwriters), key elements of the subject are unique to it. The combination of willing, often enthusiastic, relations with other subjects, and a determination to use knowledge acquired in a specific creative way, continues to make Creative Writing a difficult prospect for university administrations and research funding bodies. Though this fact is increasingly addressed by the Creative Writing research community worldwide, there is still some way to go before Creative Writing research is properly understood by university administrations and those organisations that fund university research – which leads to the final component of this book’s subtitle: Pedagogy.

It is perhaps too obvious to relate here the general principles of university financial management: that is, if a subject can support itself through research income then its engagement with teaching can be carried forward with that as a backdrop. If, however, a subject is not heavily funded for its research, then it is teaching income that must support it. Creative Writing, currently bound up in the evolution of an understanding that has not yet reached all corners of university research funding, has mostly supported itself in Higher Education through the considerable interest of students. More often than not this has meant that creative writers in the academy have been keenly engaged with pedagogic innovation and often have been well-versed in ideas about the encouragement, support and development of learners. Not unsurprisingly, given the increased student interest and the extent ...