This document discusses creative writing as a form of practice-led research. It begins by providing context on the history of creative writing in academia, noting that it was traditionally seen as secondary to literature studies and focused on analyzing completed works rather than the creative process. However, there is now growing recognition of creative writing as its own research field. The document outlines some key aspects of creative writing as research, including that it incorporates both the practice of creative writing and critical reflection on that practice. It discusses various methods that can provide evidence in creative writing research, such as drafting/redrafting, modeling other writers' works, and examining one's own disposition and process. Overall, the document argues that creative writing research values studying the acts

1. Journal of Visual Arts Practice Volume 7 Number 2 © 2008 Intellect Ltd
Article. English Language. doi: 10.1386/jvap.7.2.161/1
Creative writing: words as practice-led
research
Graeme Harper Bangor University
Abstract
Creative writing most often focuses on an individual creative writer’s own pro-
ject, and is generated by that creative writer’s personal desire to discover and
develop knowledge that can assist their creative practice – specifically for the
project at hand, but often with continuing use in future work. Creative writing
research is both creative and critical in nature. The range of evidence of creative
writing has been only marginally considered by ‘post-event’ arts and humanities
subjects, most particularly literature study, and, until recently, creative writing
has often been relegated to the role of a satellite to such post-event research.
There is now a strongly developing body of understanding about the nature of
creative writing, and considerable articulation of the nature of creative writing
research, its knowledge base and understanding. This is aided, not least, by the
circa 400 students per annum that are undertaking Creative Writing doctoral
research degrees in the United Kingdom alone, by the circa 10,000 creative writers
in academe that attend subject association conferences every year, and by a
deepening subject knowledge supported by contemporary academic and govern-
mental interest in creative practice.
Creative writing, as a research field, incorporates the practice of writing cre-
atively and critical responses to that practice. The varieties and styles of
creative writing are relatively straightforward. Though varied, vast and most
often determined by individual as well as cultural interpretation, this prac-
tice, or collection of practices, focuses primarily on the production of new,
creative work. In recent years, the ways in which this practice, and the
results of these practices, can be discussed has increasingly been clarified
and developed.
In clarifying how we discuss creative writing, some challenges have
occurred to notions that have informed those ‘post-event’ arts and human-
ities subjects that deal with the products of creative writing practice. ‘Post-
event’ arts and humanities subjects are those that locate their discourse,
and their knowledge, primarily (indeed, often solely) in analysis occurring
after the act or actions of creative practice. In contrast, creative writing
locates its discourse, its knowledge and its understanding in the act and
actions of writing creatively.
Creative writing practice can be defined as actions or a set of acts,
often referred to as ‘process’ and leading to the completion, partial
completion or sometimes the temporary or permanent abandonment of
a piece of creative writing. Whatever the end result – anywhere from
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Keywords
writing
inscription
text
response
evidence
acts
action
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2. completion and dissemination to complete abandonment – actions or
acts occur. The definition of ‘action’ used here is ‘a collection of acts,
sometimes joined by logic, intuition or fortuitous circumstance’ and the
definition of act is ‘something done’. The definition of ‘creative’ used
here is ‘showing inventiveness and imagination’.
Critical understanding in relation to creative writing practice-led research
has been somewhat more elusive in the academy than the actual practice,
which has existed in institutions of higher learning, worldwide, since the
birth of higher education. The reasons for this elusiveness are simple
enough.
First, historical conditions under which creativity was seen to be located
in the divine or the sublime generally worked against the notion of investi-
gating creative practice. As creative writing has differentiated itself heavily
by reference to the creative – that is, day-to-day written communication is
rarely located in the ‘creative’ – then this emphasis on seeing creative writ-
ing as ‘other’ than the day-to-day further strengthened this notion.
Additionally, the differentiation between divine and secular written texts for
some time discouraged investigation of writing creation, writing creativity
and, thus, creative writing.
Second, creative writing has rarely been a very visible art form, with
much of its practice undertaken by lone artists, working out of public or
peer view. This is not special pleading for creative writing: some other art
practices certainly also work in this way. In the case of creative writing,
observing and discussing the actions and acts of creative writers has not
been straightforward and, even today, very few creative writers would see
their writing space (whether room, office or desk) as a ‘studio’ in which
other writers, ‘lay persons’ or those from the writing industries might enter,
observe or even pass through.
Third, the compartmentalization of higher learning – particularly that
occurring in most of the twentieth century, where universities increasingly
engaged in the ‘scientific’ marshalling of disciplines – brought creative writ-
ing into subsidiary association with strengthening post-event arts subjects,
particularly the study of literature.
The study of literature, emerging from the study of Classics, most
strongly in the latter part of the nineteenth century, focused increasingly
on post-event analysis. This study became very popular, so that by the
mid-twentieth century it was riding a considerable interest among the
university-age population in the cultural and artistic artefacts of the modern
West. Also, by the latter half of the century, theoretical and, indeed, sys-
temically informed positions had developed that questioned the role of
the creative writer in any interpretation of their final works. That is, post-
event analysis required less of the writer and more of the critic in order to
make its cases. This could have led to interesting tensions between
action and reaction; or, indeed, strengthened debate around intellect
engagement with creative process or, perhaps, opened up further
avenues of exploration in the investigation of the dispositional or fortu-
itous, explored the interplay of the individualist and the holistic, by recog-
nizing the writer or writers as integral creative producers in a West more
conscious than ever of the consumption of creative artefacts. However,
the study of literature was fighting its own corners for the role of the arts
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3. and humanities in a post-war world where higher education in the fields
of science and technology was increasing apace. Indeed, the expansion of
higher education in the twentieth century brought on what has been
called ‘the expansion of science as a broad authority in social life’ (Meyer
and Schofer 2005: 2). Earlier, classics and science had their own opposi-
tions, with their nineteenth-century debates focusing on which of these
fields had more liberal, humanizing potential, located in their teaching
even more so than in their research.
Because of these historical conditions, the creative writing research field
did not benefit until recently from academic interest in completed art
forms. It was, as such, relegated to a role as a satellite to post-event literature
disciplines – a situation that is further revealed by the lack of recognition,
until relatively recently, of screenwriting, or writing for other forms of
media, from general discussions about creative writing. Such factors as
these above limited research-led explorations.
The interest now in creative writing research could be said to stretch
back as far as the late 1970s, with the emergence of doctoral programmes
in Creative Writing in the United States of America (albeit not constructed
around creative writing research in the way we now understand it), which
were seen as off-shoots of Literature courses, but developed their own
natural discourses and discussions, often taught, as they were by practis-
ing creative writers. Or it could be linked to the general spread of Master
of Fine Arts (MFA) programmes throughout the United States, particu-
larly in mid-century, when an interest in being empowered to create mod-
ern cultural artefacts grew (MFA programmes in Creative Writing in the
United States today number around 110, about two-and-a-half times that
of Ph.D. programmes, though a notable shift is occurring toward Ph.D.
research). Most convincingly, interest in creative writing research could
be linked to the increased recognition of the creative industries as an eco-
nomic as well as a cultural force, and thus the recognition of creative writ-
ing research as picking up on the vocational significance of arts practice
(rightly or wrongly), with the additional support of the spread of the con-
temporary leisure economy throughout the West and a western ability,
because of the prevalence of highly developed communication technolo-
gies, to disseminate information about creative activities, creative prod-
ucts and ideals associated with personal or cultural expression. These
ideals include the promotion of individuality and discourses of the self.
Creative writing research begins with some basic notions:
• What do we know?
• What do we not know but would like to find out?
• What issues of differentiation arise:
• Culturally?
• Historically?
• Textually?
• Individually?
• What methods are there to make discoveries?
Recognizing that something is not known – and that this can be explored
via individual or team research – is, as is generally understood, a key
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4. factor in any knowledge-focused environment, such as that in a university
or college. However, the history of creative writing in academe did, for a
considerable time, locate ‘what is known/what is not known’ almost
entirely in the realm of the individual creative writer and rarely, if ever, did
notions of subject-based research inform this locating. Rather, the concept
was that the individual creative writer would express their knowledge
solely in their creative works and that this knowledge – largely judged by
the reactions of post-event critics to those completed works – would
evolve with reference only in the widest possible sense to the academic
environment and not in relation to the existence of the subject of creative
writing ‘on site’ in academia.
The growth of postgraduate study in creative writing – a phenomenon in
the United Kingdom, particularly, that was driven at its outset not by
evolved higher learning criteria but by the idea that a creative writer would
take time out of their lives (assuming they were not already earning a living
from writing) to develop their skills or that they would complete a project
that was under way but needed more time spent on it – the growth of post-
graduate study in the United Kingdom did not particularly locate itself in
the first instance (that is, in the development of Masters degrees), in the
idea of a wider practice-led research ideal. Rather, initial postgraduate
degrees in Creative Writing referenced such notions as ‘Is the work publish-
able?’ as primary assessment criteria and, in this way, referred not to the
acts, actions and process of creative writing but to the product, seemingly
judged by criteria referring to the practice, aims and spirit of business, but
not to creative practice.
‘What is known/what is not known’ was thus linked not to a knowledge
of creative writing but to knowledge of what the market for creative writing
might require, informed broadly by concepts of what, relating to that, was
‘good writing’, and taking assessments of this as determined within pre-
vailing post-event event-critical paradigms.
Without meaning to lampoon the situations that could arise, because
these different fields of research (literature research and creative writing
research) have long needed to associate with each other in a more even-
handed, supportive fashion, the potentially ludicrous situations that arose
will be obvious: ‘Oh, look, you’re writing a postmodern novel?’ Or: ‘I know
a friend who is a literary agent who might be interested in your work?’ Or:
‘So, were you in the class when I deconstructed Hemingway’s “Hills Like
White Elephants”?’ None of these short scenarios refer at all to the acts or
actions of creative writers; but, rather, to a set of judgements borne out of a
kind of iconography of the creative writing product and a strong preference
for market tangibility.
This is not to say that creative writing research does not take into
account dissemination or, in the narrow sense of the term, publication.
However, to base its ideals only in these results, not in practice, and cer-
tainly not in an understanding of the acts and actions of creative writers as
they occur, was (and is) simply the wrong starting point for any lucid dis-
cussion of creative writing, though it may be the entirely right starting point
for a discussion of literature.
Creative writing research, thus, begins with basic notions connected to
knowledge, knowledge investigation and knowledge acquisition; but it
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5. proceeds by recognition of the evidence available for both empirical and
theoretical research. The methodological range associated with creative
writing research is vast, but can include:
• Drafting and redrafting; revising, editing
• reading, note-taking, annotating, graphically depicting (e.g. doodles,
sketches, charts)
• Investigations relating to place, involving degrees of travel, observation,
action research
• Sociologically focused research employing interviews or modes of group
or individual observing or surveying
• Modelling involving consideration of other creative writers’ works, pre-
sent or past, and speculative consideration of technique or writerly
decision-making
• Re-examination of the writer’s own previous works and projection of
similar or alternative approaches to subjects or themes
• Workshopping, where the creative writer has access to friends, col-
leagues or peers whose opinions she or he values
• Literal or metaphoric comparison with other practices, artistic or other-
wise; sometimes this can extend likewise to comparisons of design,
shape, style, structure or form – for example, the use of mathematics to
shape a novel, the use of architectural metaphors to consider the rela-
tionships between sections in poem.
All these produce evidence. It is important here to make a distinction
between (1) evidence relating to the vast range of potential themes and
subjects approached by creative writers in their work; and (2) evidence
relating to the acts and actions of creative writers, regardless of theme or
subject. It is the latter that is being discussed here; this evidence
includes writer or writers; process or processes; personal and societal
locations; craft instruments and objects; pre-texts, complementary texts,
final texts, post-texts; ‘central’ results and ‘attached’ results; documents
of exchange.
‘Writers and writers’ refers to the evidence of creative writing that is
found in the disposition of the individual creative writer/researcher or
groups of creative writers/researchers, and highlights that here we are talk-
ing about human agency and intention. This is a recognition of the very
human activity that is creative writing, and of the ways in which evidence of
creative writing – that is, material that might be examined to reveal new
knowledge – is often located in the individual or in the social interactions of
groups, where the creative writing is undertaken in collaboration (for exam-
ple, in some cases in a scriptwriting team or, less often, in the production
of a collaborative work of prose or poetry).
A focus on disposition and intention raises the possibility of consider-
ing behaviour patterns and of individual and group acts. It recognizes the
importance of reasons, meanings and feelings – areas of analysis that have
certainly suffered as topics of individual writerly investigation throughout
the post-event investigation of literature. Similarly, though these avenues
suggest largely psychological considerations, they do not preclude consid-
eration of the physiological.
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6. Biographical studies of creative writers from a post-event perspective
have often made something of both the psychological and physiological
traits of creative writers – for example, it needs no footnote here to direct
us toward literary discussions of Virginia’s Woolf’s mental health, Vladimir
Nabokov’s enjoyment of lepidoptery, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s drinking habits,
the physical condition of Proust or the sexual orientation of Wilde. But how
much have these been considered in relation to creative writing practice?
And how might a creative writer, working on a piece or pieces of their own,
gain knowledge from their own understanding of such conditions or, more
importantly, the conditions of their own psychological and physiological
environment?
A concentration on ‘process or processes’ – which is a more common
way of describing the events of writing creatively, and incorporates what is
called here, alternatively, ‘acts’ and ‘actions’ – is one of the most funda-
mental of re-orientations for anyone undertaking creative writing research.
A re-orientation because, up until relatively recently, process was a concen-
tration mostly found in creative writing teaching, rather than informing cre-
ative writing research. This separation is worthy of a note here.
Where as the creative writing workshop has long been the mainstay of
creative writing teaching in higher education, and most often focuses on
primary learning through ‘exercises’, ‘practice’, ‘workshopping’ of cre-
ative work-in-progress, when creative writing research has been under-
taken, the methodology has often shifted to a greater separation of
process from end product. That is, in the case of a Ph.D. in Creative Writing
(which only has a circa twenty-year history in the United Kingdom), for
example, common research fallacies have included incorporating a reflec-
tion on process that does not see practice as having wider knowledge
potential; the inclusion of a ‘critical reflection’ that solely suggests only
such introspective individualization, or that adopts critical techniques
disconnected from the actual acts and actions that have been undertaken;
or the failure to imagine the research as having a critical dimension at all,
as if somehow creative practice contains no critical understanding of
acts, results or environment.
Therefore, what we know/what we do not know in creative writing
research incorporates knowledge of the individual writer’s acts/actions, and
can involve an investigation by them of what is known and what is not
known about these. This could use a compare-and-contrast approach,
based on the biographical information about other writers, though at this
point such evidence is not always focused on creative writing itself but,
rather, on an investigation of the writer within literary culture or from the
point of view of the canonical location of their finished works in the study of
literature or, in some cases of film, theatre, or the media.
Similarly, it could use, but rarely does at this point in the subject’s acade-
mic history, empirical evidence gained from action research and examination
of the processes of peers. And research into process does not have to stop
at the investigation of creative writing, of course. It is possible for creative
writing research to investigate the nature of the acts and actions of other
artists, or of other creators of material objects: indeed, of other human
beings generally. Process-based investigations can have either a literal focus
(for example, considering how something is written) or a metaphorical
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7. importance (for example, considering how an action observed elsewhere
might be mapped onto a particular creative writing action).
In recent years, across the whole range of arts and humanities subjects,
worldwide, ‘personal or societal locations’ have grown more significant as
foci of research. In fact, the recognition of such individual or group cultural
positioning as significant in all forms of academic research has been a phe-
nomenon of considerable importance from the latter half of the twentieth
century onwards, and finds its manifestation today in the continued growth
of research looking at cultural interaction, identity and social cohesion. In
that vein, a recent ‘Impact Assessment’ launched by Britain’s Arts and
Humanities Research Council (AHRC), suggested:
The arts and humanities create social and economic benefits directly and indi-
rectly through improvements in social and intellectual capital, social network-
ing, community identity, learning and skills and quality of life.
(AHRC)
The discourse here of ‘community’, ‘identity’ and social capital is some-
thing creative writing research has acknowledged and the grounding of
practice in culture as well as the economy can inform veins of this
research. Discussions of the role of genre or form are raised here, with
any rules of creative writing construction being mirrored in the notion of
social rules and, indeed, connected cultural or aesthetic meanings.
Investigation of ritual can also be of significance, not only in terms of cul-
tural rituals connected with the dissemination and celebration of the
artistic artefacts of creative writing practice, but also in what might be
called the ‘ritualistic’ practices that individual writers undertake, either in
the manner of the symbolic value of certain habits or in the necessity of
regular practice or, even, in the ritualistic relationships forged with other
members of the creative writing community. Seeing this style of research
as exploring an archaeology of creative writing, in which the physical envi-
ronment holds keys to knowledge and understanding, would not be
entirely out of place.
Portions of the physical environment of creative writing can also be
investigated via examination of ‘craft instruments and objects’. In other
words – and certainly this has, so far, had limited attention – the change in
the nature of the artists’ instruments used to undertake creative writing has
had a profound impact on the styles and forms of creative writing that has
been undertaken and, of course, on how both works-in-progress and fin-
ished works have been disseminated and discussed. The immediate obser-
vation here regarding the evolution of the personal computer and, later, the
Internet hides a deeper consideration of such things as the varying degrees
of physical labour that have, over time, been needed with regard to creative
writing composition; the degree to which works-in-progress have been
shared, and with what audiences (local, national, global); the speed by
which any works can be composed, the nature of display and how works of
creative writing are offered between writer and reader; the interaction with
other art forms via evolving technologies as vastly different as the readily
available piece of writing paper and the rapidly becoming hegemonic
exchanges undertaken on the mobile phone.
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8. The list is vast. But the key point about any creative writing research
focusing on craft instruments and objects is that it is research that high-
lights the physical, and that therefore points to the corporeal conditions
through which mental processes connected with creative writing ultimately
become manifest. Craft instruments and objects – whether the pen, the per-
sonal computer or the voice recorder, to name a small selection – encapsulate
the making that is core to creative writing research. Without such making,
this research has no locomotive energy, no teleological intention. While
contemplation and critical responsiveness are never absent, making is the
core of creative writing research.
In mid-2008, a ‘Typology of Creative Writing’ was published in the journal
New Writing: the International Journal for the Practice of Creative Writing
(Harper 2008a: 1). The intention was to suggest the range of texts that
could, ultimately, result from the actions of creative writers. The variety sug-
gested barely touched the number, or the considerable multiplicity, that
might ultimately result. But the concept of a typology remains interesting,
because it directs us towards the multiplicity of artefacts created by creative
writers, their similarities and their differences, their interrelations and, in
some cases, their interdependency, as well as to notions of value that are
attached to one type or another.
There is little doubt that completed creative writing packaged and mar-
keted into book stores continues to be regarded as more ‘valuable’ than
work that is not packaged this way. This currently includes work that is only
distributed via the Internet. Similarly, higher value is attached to works by
well-known creative writers than by unknown creative writers, without nec-
essarily referring to the quality of the creative writing as the primary mea-
sure. Fame, iconographies of fame, promotion of quality creative writing as
the inscribing of a ‘high’ culture: all of this contributes to partial, if not
always total, separation from the acts/actions of creative writing from their
completed, and varied, products. Incomplete works by famous creative
writers, discovered in an attic, archive or box under the stairs, for that mat-
ter, would be highly regarded; incomplete work by an unknown writer,
regardless of quality, would most often be considered worthless. That said,
writer’s archives, even of the most well-known creative writers, still com-
mand a lower monetary value than works of fine art, in terms of formal her-
itage value, or generally collecting appeal (Harper 2008b).
Creative writing research deals not only with core or primary texts (that
is, with works that that are discussed, disseminated or emerge into a mar-
ketplace, as ‘central’ results of a creative writer’s practice), it also deals with
texts, and other artefacts, that emerge before, during and after the actions
of creative writers. Creative writing is contained neither in the linear pro-
gression of an initial thought to final work or in a singular production or
process, or in work that does not have connections with other work, other
thoughts, other actions. With this in mind, the results of the creative
process can, broadly be considered in terms of ‘pre-texts, complementary
texts, final text, post-texts’.
Pre-texts are those works produced prior to any given creative writing
act or action. Some of these might be entirely connected with a core
work. For example, some writers might plan out or research (in the sense
of subject- or theme-based research) areas of interest that find their way
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9. into their textual production. So, the writer of the crime novel set in
eighteenth-century London might produce a vast number of pre-texts,
including notes on the history of the period, character sketches, diagrams
of streets, fictional family histories. They might make notes on colours,
interior designs, key political events, historical figures or the daily lives of
citizens. In doing so, they create a variety of pre-texts that have direct
links to the final work. If pre-texts were only this, then they could be listed
as merely organizational items. However, there are others. The earlier,
failed poem often informs the later successful one – they do not always
have to be the same poem in a different, evolutionary form. Similarly, pre-
texts can include disseminated work that explores connected subjects or
themes, uses techniques that later develop into other works, or estab-
lishes a writer–reader relationship that a later text exploits. Pre-texts,
thus, are works that precede a piece of creative writing, but their style and
relationship to the work is often complex. Creative writing research, look-
ing to build up knowledge of both process and the context of process can
gain much from an examination of these often marginalized works.
‘Complementary texts’ are those produced alongside each other.
However, a rhetorical hiccup seems evident here! That is, how do we differ-
entiate between a pre-text and a complementary text? Is this merely on the
basis that one text was produced entirely before another, and what if the
writer makes additional notes, or revisits facts, or back-tracks over a draft
and in doing so adds to work undertaken some months or even years ago?
The point about researching complementary activities is that very rarely are
creative writers doing only one thing, producing only one artefact, and
engaging with the world in only one way. Rather, we are frequently engaged
in multiple ways, both with creative writing and with other forms of expres-
sion or, indeed, general living. The results of complementary activities on
pieces of creative writing are often significant, unrecorded and in need of
researching further. Simple examples include the ways in which one mode
or style of writing might affect another; or the ways in which pedagogic or
analytical writing impacts on creative work; or the exchanges that occur
between personal writing to friends or family and the distillation of such
complementary texts into core creative writing artefacts. Research into the
complementary adds dimension to how we understanding creative writing
as a distillation, works of creative writing as a repository, rather than as a
pristine activity with self-contained results.
Such creative writing research draws researchers towards the notion of
what are the ‘central’ results of creative writing and what are ‘attached’
results. Assuming all creative writing results in material objects – an
assumption that is, of course, challengeable if we also regard the processes
prior to inscription as fundamental to an act of inscribing – even if this is
the case, rarely is there only a singular or primary result from the activities
of creative writers. Most frequently, many things emerge, some considered
by the writer to be the core results of their acts and actions, and some
emerging as attached, sometimes more or sometimes less, to these acts
and actions. Results-focused creative writing research can consider the hin-
terland of the completed creative writing process as well its centre. Some of
these attached results can become pre-texts, feeding future work. Some of the
central results might not be as significant as the writer first thought and,
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10. though presented to the marketplace as the primary result of actions under-
taken, might later be recognized as peripheral works. Some of these central
results might have direct market or perceived success value and therefore
lead to a changed, or further developed, relationship with a readership or
audience, or produce work in a new genre.
Whatever the central and attached results, creative writing produces
post-textual activity; that is, texts that emerge because of the acts and
actions of any one creative writer or group of creative writers. The same
proviso that applies to suggesting a clear separation between pre-texts and
complementary texts is noted here, though not as an insurmountable prob-
lem. Post-texts can, indeed, be the pre-texts of future work, feed the com-
plementary activities of future creative writing or evolve into future core
works. Other post-texts can be produced, and researched, that largely stand
on their own. These include works produced by others (for example,
reviews of completed and disseminated works of creative writing). Post-
texts can include comments by editors or publishers, though these can also
form complementary evidence of practice, or offer pre-textual inputs that
lead to further works, or represent ‘documents of exchange’.
Creative writing research also considers ‘documents of exchange’ that
reveal lines of communication brought about by the releasing of creative
writing into the wider community, whether commercially or simply between
a social network of friends, family, colleagues. These might currently
include e-mails or phone texts from peers, friends and family, commenting
on completed work; publishers’ correspondence; ephemera from writers’
festivals or readings. Documents of exchange can be created, of course,
throughout the creative writing process, and take on different roles,
depending on the disposition of the writer, the reason for the exchange, the
intention of the release of draft or finished material and the ultimate inten-
tions of the creative writer.
Writer or writers, process or processes, personal and societal locations,
craft instruments and objects, pre-texts, complementary texts, final text,
post-texts, ‘central’ results and ‘attached’ results; documents of exchange form
the base evidence of creative writing research. This evidence – particularly
in the current period of creative writing research in academe – is most
often located in the acts and actions of the individual creative writer, under-
taking a project or projects. This evidence is, in the current period, not
always highly valued and much of it has been ignored by post-event schol-
ars, not because of a lack of rigour on their behalf, but because their inten-
tions are not the same as those of creative writers.
The purpose of creative writing research is, strongly, to investigate and
discover knowledge about creative writing that can assist the individual
researcher/creative writer undertaking that research to complete a project
or projects at hand. It is often focused on a very specific project, but recog-
nition of the potential of this developing subject knowledge for wider use
has been enhanced by the growth of postgraduate research degrees in
Creative Writing, and by an increased commitment, particularly in the West
where the leisure economy is most prevalent, to the discovery of knowledge
concerned with creativity.
How we accumulate, access and discuss the evidence of creative writing
is the key issue in the current period of this subject in academe. In any one
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11. year in the United Kingdom alone, around 350–400 students are under-
taken doctoral research degrees in Creative Writing. That, alone, should be
reason enough for further strengthening of the evidential base, stronger
dissemination of methodological and process-based analysis, and greater
emphasis on the actual practices undertaken by creative writers. However,
more important still is the evolution of the understanding of creative writ-
ing as a creative human practice that carries with it knowledge and ways of
approaching the world, has truth-value, and incorporates a communicative
philosophy often moving between individuals and groups, people and cul-
tures, articulation and reception. Creative writing research, practice-led as it
is, is a fluid, inventive field of research that is gradually becoming well
understood within modern academe, and it continues to be informed and
articulated by strengthening global interest and a commitment to the devel-
opment of further knowledge.
References
Meyer, John W. and Evan Schofer (2005), ‘The World-Wide Expansion of Higher
Education’, CDDRL Working Papers, 32 (20 January), Stanford, CA: CDDRL.
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), ‘Impact Assessment’, http://www.
ahrc.ac.uk. Accessed: 3 October 2008.
Harper, Graeme (2008a), ‘Editorial: A Typology of Creative Writing, New Writing: the
International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing, 5: 2.
—— (2008b), ‘Interview with Jamie Andrews, Head of Modern Literary Manuscripts,
British Library, Euston, 10 July.
Suggested citation
Harper, G. (2008), ‘Creative writing: words as practice-led research’, Journal of Visual
Arts Practice 7: 2, pp. 161–171, doi: 10.1386/jvap.7.2.161/1
Contributor details
Graeme Harper is Professor of Creative Writing at Bangor University, Director of the
National Institute for Excellence in the Creative Industries, and current Chair of the
National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) Higher Education Committee.
He is Editor of the journal, New Writing: the International Journal for the Practice and
Theory of Creative Writing (Routledge), an honorary Professor of Creative Writing at the
University of Bedfordshire, and a member of the AHRC’s Steering Committee on
Practice-Led Research. He was recently awarded the 2008 UTS Award for Professional
Achievement. His latest works are, under his pseudonym, Brooke Biaz, Moon Dance
(Parlor, 2008) and Small Maps of the World (Parlor, 2006). And, as himself, The
Creative Writing Guidebook (Continuum, 2008) and, with Jeri Kroll, Creative Writing
Studies: Research, Practice, Pedagogy (MLM, 2008).
Contact: National Institute for Excellence in the Creative Industries, College Road,
Bangor University, LL57 2DG.
E-mail: graeme.harper@bangor.ac.uk
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