Abstract

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.

"This is a great book, and perfect for anyone interested in creative writing - whether you're a creative writer teaching creative writing or you are a student creative writer This book is readable, thought-provoking and innovative. Wonderful!"

Graeme Harper is Professor of Creative Writing at Bangor University and Director of the National Institute for Excellence in the Creative Industries™. Editor-in-Chief of the journal New Writing: the International Journal forthe Practice and Theory of Creative Writing, his most recent creative works are:Small Maps of the World (Parlor, 2006), and Moon Dance (Parlor, 2007). His most recent critical book in the field of creative writing is Teaching Creative Writing (Ed. Continuum, 2006). In the wider academic community, he is the Creative Writing member of Great Britain's Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Steering Committee on Practice-led Research and an honorary Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Bedfordshire. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) and of Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) (RSA), he holds such awards as the NBCAward for New Fiction (Aust.), among others.

Born in New York City, Jeri Kroll completed her Ph D at Columbia University and taught in the U.S. and England before moving to Australia. She is Professor of English and Program Coordinator of Creative Writing at Flinders University as well as immediate past President of the Australian Association of Writing Programs. On the editorial boards of NEW WRITING and TEXT, among other journals, her critical publications cover children's literature, Samuel Beckett, contemporary poetry and the pedagogy and theory of creative writing. She has published over twenty books for adults and young people, including poetry, picture books (two Children's Book Council Notable Awards), novels and anthologies, released both in Australia and overseas. Her most recent are Mickey's Little Book of Letters (novel/audiobook) and The Mother Workshops (poetry and prose).