Forward to an academic discipline!: Review of Dianne Donnelly 'Establishing Creative Writing Studies as an Academic Discipline' Multilingual Matters, Bristol UK 2012. ISBN 9781847695895, Pb 176 pp GBP19.95

Abstract

When I first moved from a professional involvement in the writing and publishing industries to an academic position as a Senior Lecturer in Writing, within hours of taking up of my appointment I was firmly put in my place by one of my colleagues in Communication Studies. 'Writing is not a discipline!' I was informed. And nor is it. It is still a creature subservient to either or both literary and composition studies. Hence the relevance of Dianne Donnelly's book, part of the New Writing Viewpoint series edited by Graeme Harper. Donnelly argues not for 'creative writing' but for 'creative writing studies', seeing a parallel with the emergence of composition studies as a discipline in the 1990s. I take issue with Donnelly's use of the word 'creative'. The idea that creative writing is different from other forms because of its supposed artistic dimension should be well and truly buried by now, but this remains the central tenet in Donnelly's argument. This represents the major problem I have with the pedagogy of writing as it commonly articulated. The teaching of that form termed 'creative' is very often hived off from the teaching of other forms, and students are very often denied any context for their writing beyond self-expression and some dim concept that they are creating 'art'. In the real world, writers write to earn a living: their 'art' is circumscribed by editors and publishers, and by market expectations. A writer can earn more from ghosting a biography or providing interest to an annual report than from a first novel, let alone a poem. Therefore I include 'creative' forms of writing alongside others in my teaching - believing that best equips my students with the craft and skills to most effectively use writing when they must make their way in the real world.