Rethinking Creative Writing in Higher Education: Programs and Practices That Work: 1 (Creative Writing Studies

Programs and Practices That Work
In this scholarly monograph Stephanie Vanderslice surveys the discipline of creative writing, critiques existing practice, and provides a vision of change based on contemporary best practice.
Blurb: In this passionate, iconoclastic, survey of Creative Writing as an academic discipline, Stephanie Vanderslice provides a provocative critique of existing practice. She challenges enduring myths surrounding creative writing - not least, that writers learn most from workshops. Through case studies of best practice from America and elsewhere, Vanderslice provides a vision of change, showing how undergraduate and postgraduate programs can be reformed to re-engage with contemporary culture. Abstract: Creative writing as a discipline is a victim of its own success. The discipline needs now to demythogize and revitalize itself. Undergraduate and graduate programs need to be further differentiated. Programs over-reliant on the traditional creative writing workshop, with its focus on craft and on building community, are ill equipped to prepare students for the new realities of the creative economy. Programs need not only to improve the workshop experience of students, but also employ a more diverse, outward-looking, outcomes-oriented pedagogy and to make a more direct contribution to the development of a literate society.Much can be learnt from good practice; including distinctive and visionary programs; developed on both sides of the Atlantic and in Australia.Key terms: creative writing; literacy; pedagogy; programs; reflective; reform; teaching; visionary; workshop.