Abstract

This book advances creative writing studies as a developing field of inquiry, scholarship, and research. It discusses the practice of creative writing studies, the establishment of a body of professional knowledge, and the goals and future direction of the discipline within the academy. This book also traces the development of creative writing studies; noting that as the new discipline matures—as it refers to evidence of its own research methodology and collective data, and locates its authority in its own scholarship—creative writing studies will bring even more meaning to the academy, its profession, and its student body.

Dianne Donnelly does a service to scholars in English studies by tracing in this important book the growth of creative writing scholarship, including relevant work by others alongside her own important investigation into the workshop.

This is a stunning challenge to MFA Programs! While critiques to the workshop method have been commonplace over the past decade, Donnelly provides a compelling argument for the creation of a new academic discipline: Creative Writing Studies. Bringing intellectual rigor to creative writing programs will do more than provide a seat at the table of literary critics and composition scholars: it will reinvigorate the workshop method and creative writing classroom. This is a must read book for anyone serious about teaching writing.

In a welcome addition to the field of creative writing studies, Dianne Donnelly has examined the theoretical bases of the prevailing pedagogies within the discipline. This book should be required reading for courses on creative writing pedagogy; for advanced students who hope to become academics in the field; and for those concerned with the future of creative writing as an academic discipline.

Dianne Donnelly is the editor of Does the Writing Workshop Still Work? (2010) and co-editor of Key Issues in Creative Writing (forthcoming). Her fiction and scholarship appear in numerous venues, and she is a frequent conference presenter on the subject of creative writing. She teaches at the University of South Florida where she is also the Associate Director of Composition.

The book is well researched. Donnelly offers a measured and cogent contribution to what I would prefer to call the emerging discipline of writing studies. I recommend it to all teachers of writing.