Beyond craft : an anti-handbook for creative writers / Steve Westbrook and James Ryan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Westbrook, Steve, 1973- author.

Ryan, James (James William), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Creative writing.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 229 pages) : color illustrations

Distribution:

[London, England] : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020

Place of Publication:

London [England] : Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.

Summary:

"Simultaneously a handbook and a critique of one, Beyond Craft combines an orientation to the field of creative writing with an insight into current scholarship surrounding creative writing pedagogy. A much-needed alternative to the traditional craft guide, this text pairs advice and exercises on composition with an illuminating commentary on the issues surrounding these very techniques. Teaching the craft whilst apprising students of the issues of craft pedagogy, this book allows them to gain an awareness of how current pedagogy comes at the expense of larger and increasingly relevant cultural concerns. Westbrook and Ryan bring emerging writers into the larger conversations that define the field, inviting them to: - Contextualize their own writing practices and educational experiences in relation to the history of creative writing as an academic discipline. - Determine how New Critical lore and Romantic mythology may affect-even distort-their understanding of literary production. - Critically examine their notions of authorship, collaboration, and invention in relation to contemporary literary and rhetorical theory. - Understand and evaluate the economic, social, political, and professional challenges facing creative writers today. - Analyze the contemporary literary marketplace not only to identify potential publication contexts but also to understand how issues of diversity and bias affect writing communities. - Reflect on how increasingly rapid technological developments may affect their own writing and the future of literature. Earnestly self-aware throughout, Beyond Craft both inducts new writers into the field of creative writing and infuses them with an understanding of the wider dialogue surrounding their craft"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover page

Halftitle page

Series page

Title page

Copyright page

Contents

Figures

Acknowledgments

AN INTRODUCTION By Way of Boxes and Paradoxes (and Too Many Lines About Felines)

Discussion Questions

Your Turn: Questions, Concerns & Creative-Critical Comments

Writing Experiment

Deep Reading

SECTION ONE Where Creative Writing Comes From

1 From Art for Art's Sake to Craftfor Craft's Sake: Our Love-Hate Relationship with the Academic History of Creative Writing

A Beautiful Impossibility: On Creative Writing's Formative Infl uences

Let's Make this Personal, or at Least More Personal Than a Proselytizing Machine

Beyond Aesthetic Ascetics & Their Pyramid Schemes

Toward Programatic Change

Writing Experiments

2 Smoke Dispersed in the Ether: Authors' Creation Myths and the Problem with Genius

Who Cares about Genius? A Necessary Disclaimer

Drug-Addled Daydreams and Literary Marketing Schemes

Benes and Magic Scrolls: the Romantic Creation Myth meets the Beats

Coleridge's Wake- up Call and Kerouac's Long, Slow Road

I Wrote Your Autobiography and It's Genius: Gertrude Stein Revises the Myth

Romanticism Reversed: A Gratifying Loss of Inspiration

If We Hath Not Music in Our Souls Are We Incapable of Learning?

3 Repurposing Spontaneity: From Inspiration to Invention

New Critical Craft Criticism

Expressivism

Social-Epistemic Rhetoric

Process Paradigms

How the Beat Goes On: Repurposed Spontaneity and the Implications of Process Theory

SECTION TWO Who Creative Writers Are (In Relation to Others)

4 Beyond A Room of One's Own: Toward Collaborative Understandings of Authorship

Visualizing The Image of Authors

Implicit Collaboration Part I: Invoking Others

Implicit Collaboration Part II: Writers, Readers, and Role-Play

Your Turn: Questions, Concerns & Creative-Critical Comments

Writing Experiments

5 Making Collaboration Explicit: Co-Creating With Actual Others

Case Study I: Eliot and His Other

Case Study II: Carver's Signature Style

Revisualizing The Image of Authors

Strategic Collaboration: On Human Rights and the Future of Space Exploration

Post Script: Play Nice, Say "Please" and "Thank You"?

SECTION THREE How Creative Writers Find Their Audiences, or How Publishing Works

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9781350119475

1350119474

9781350119482

1350119482

9781350119468

1350119466

OCLC:

1153337412