What We Talk about When We Talk about Creative Writing

This month we are publishing What We Talk about When We Talk about Creative Writing edited by Anna Leahy. In this post, Anna explains how the book came together.

What We Talk about When We Talk about Creative Writing has 32 contributors, including myself. Pulling that many voices together, chapter by chapter and on the whole, took a good deal of organization and effort on my part and, undoubtedly, a good deal of patience and agility on the part of each contributor. During the writing and editing of this collection, I sometimes wondered whether I should have written a single-author book instead. I’m glad I didn’t. This book is stronger for each perspective it includes.

Ten years ago, I edited the first book in the New Writing Viewpoints series, Power and Identity in the Creative Writing Classroom. That book had grown out of a conference panel—out of an organized, performed conversation—and, as a result, achieved both breadth and depth in ways that a single expert could not. When the dean interviewed me two years later for my current academic position, she asked about my plans for future scholarship in creative writing pedagogy and the profession. I answered that, while I was considering writing a single-author book and found such volumes imperative, it seemed especially important for me to contribute articles to journals and chapters to others’ books as this field continued to take shape. In other words, I appreciated my role as instigator of conversation and was less concerned about claiming my own territory within an academic field. Because I was also writing poetry and creative nonfiction, I felt some freedom and perhaps responsibility to play in my scholarly work.

By the time the calendar rolled around to the possibility of a follow-up book for the tenth anniversary of the series, some scholars were calling what we’d been doing Creative Writing Studies. At the same time, Stephanie Vanderslice and I had begun moderating a Facebook group called Creative Writing Pedagogy, which now has more than 4300 members. I’d concluded that what I most wanted this field to be, no matter what it’s called, is a sprawling, smart, theoretical and practical conversation about what we’re doing as creative writers in the academy and why. With tenure and a track record of publication, I could push the scholarly boundaries with this new project while building on the earlier work. By including 32 contributors interacting, What We Talk about When We Talk about Creative Writing is sprawling, smart, and, chapter by chapter and on the whole, useful.

I invited all contributors to the previous collection to contribute to this new book, and those who were still working in the academy have added their voices. I invited some longtime collaborators of mine as well, and I invited new voices that were emerging in the field. As large as this group became, it remains not inclusive enough, an issue with which I grapple in the book’s conclusion as well as in some other chapters. Inclusivity is, to my mind, the most pressing issue for creative writers in the academy to address over the next ten years.

I’d like to think that the lists of works cited are also a form of collaboration. These represent texts and, by extension, authors we’ve invited into our conversations. We’ve worked with each other as contributors and worked with the references we’ve used. These references are additional voices and perspectives for readers to seek out and work with as well.

The mode of conversation used for this book is an invitation for engagement. What We Talk about When We Talk about Creative Writing enters into the now widespread and ongoing scholarly conversation about creative writing pedagogy and the profession. I want it also to instigate further conversation among creative writers who teach and graduate students in creative writing, too. In our field, there exists plenty of room for more voices, more questions, more possibilities to spin off from the analyses, ideas, and practices we document in this book. Let’s keep talking!

Dr. Anna Leahy, www.amleahy.com

Creative Writing Pedagogy on Facebook (you must be logged in to request to join; send a message to a moderator if your request isn’t reviewed within a few weeks): https://www.facebook.com/groups/39509228012/

For further information about the book please see our website or Anna’s own website.