Establishing Creative Writing Studies 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.

• Introduction: The Emergence of Creative Writing Studies (The Disciplinary Status of Creative Writing Studies, The Emergence of Creative Writing Studies—Where to Begin?, Establish Creative Writing Studies as an Academic Discipline)Section One: A Taxonomy of Creative Writing Pedagogies (Where Meaning Lies – A Multi-faceted Approach, Orientation of Critical Theories, The Objective Theory as New Criticism, The Expressivist Theory, The Mimetic Theory of Imitable Functions, The Pragmatic Theory of Reader Response)Section Two: The Writing Workshop Model (A Workshop Survey, Defining the Workshop Model, A Study of the Workshop Model, How Our Workshop History Informs Our Practice, Perceptions and Practice, Developing Markers of Professional Difference in Reading, Writing, and Responding, Creative Writing Research as Knowledge, The Workshop Model: Final Arguments)Section Three: The Academic Home for Creative Writing Studies (Control of Space, Domain, and Power, The Academic Home of Creative Writing Studies, Creative Writing Studies and Literary Studies, Creative Writing Studies and Cultural Studies, Creative Writing Studies and Independent Writing Programs, Creative Writing Studies and Composition Studies, The Academic Home for Creative Writing Studies)Conclusion: The Legitimacy of Creative Writing Studies

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.