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Because some would say it's not. And so they require something more from creative writers.

This is the question I ask myself while preparing for the first consultation sessions in CW 200b Creative Writing Thesis.

On one hand some would say that creative writing is research. One of the advocates is the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) in UK. In their Creative Writing Subject/Research Benchmark Statement, published in September 2008, they make the following arguments:
  • Creative works are imaginative interpretations of the world
  • Creative writing research is creative practice, or "practice-led research"
  • Creative writing research "explore[s], articulate[s] and investigate[s]" a "broad range of subjects, emotions and ideals prevalent in the world" (11)
  • Creative writing research is done by creating, and creative works are research output
  • Creative writing research is creating with "critical understanding" (11)
  • Creative writing research contributes original knowledge, and that new knowledge advances the field of creativity
  • Creative writing research may include critical or reflective discourses that supplement the creative work
But defining creative writing research is different from its acceptance in the academe, where scholarly work is dominated and governed by positivist dogma.

And so in our Creative Writing Thesis class, we require our senior students to submit a collection of creative works accompanied with a critical preface.

The critical preface functions as a supplementary discourse that allows students to articulate their creative writing process and practice. It serves to document students' technical and critical acumen. As one Creative Writing teacher puts it, in the final report of the University of London's English Subject Center's Mini Project on "Supplementary Discourses in Creative Writing Teaching at Higher Education Level," published in March 2003:

"The supplementary discourses give students ways of discussing and understanding contemporary poetry and art -- and ways of developing their own practice as a result." (8)

This is as close as Creative Writing can go -- without crossing over into Literary Studies -- in terms of the demands of "measurable" scholarly work. As another Creative Writing teacher says, as quoted in the English Subject Center's report:

"supplementary discourses are the only way of persuading colleagues hostile to creative writing that it has some 'academic probity.'" (10)

So is creative writing research? What do you think?

 


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