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Imagination’s afterlife: influences on and transformations of literary creative process within a Creative Practice PhD
Abstract
Professional authors of imaginative literature, whether fiction or non-fiction, follow creative processes that have been built from a mix of experience and instinct. These are specific and individual to each author, but have been established by them over time, and frequently in an informal, non-analytical, but nevertheless successful way. What happens when a professional author, used to such a process, undertakes the writing of a creative work within the framework of a PhD? What influences come to bear on the creative work from the analytical, academic part of the PhD project? Does creative process change? If so, how? And what impact might it be expected to have on the final work, and the author’s continuing creative practice, even beyond the period of study? Drawing on interviews with writers who are undertaking or have recently completed a creative writing PhD, and with creative writing academics, the author of this paper, an established novelist and PhD student, examines the synergies between imagination and analysis within a higher degree research project, and how this affects the creative process itself.
This article uses architectural analogies to explore the complexities of planning and executing a practice-led PhD project in contemporary Australian writing. Many scholars and creative practitioners have conceived of the writing process as a form of building, scaffolding or construction. A PhD always involves some aspect of planning – but to what extent can the creative practice be planned for? What happens when the project outpaces the planning, or when a writer finds herself in unscaffolded space? This article examines practice-led research methodologies drawn from the experiences and insights of three creative practitioners who are also current and recently completed PhD candidates. Their perspectives reveal the multiplicity of approaches available in creative practice research and points to the opportunities to explore the complexities between structure, space and practice in discussions of the creative writing PhD.
The focus of this article is an examination of the experiences of established writers who have recently completed, or are currently undertaking, a creative writing doctorate, against a background of change within the publishing industry. Is it primarily financial/career or creative control concerns that are influencing established writers to undertake creative doctorates in recent times? And how do these writers fare within the degree program? To explore these issues through individual stories, interviews were conducted, by email and phone, with six established professional writers who had recently completed, or were still undertaking, a creative doctorate as well as with four established creative writing academics, most of whom are authors themselves. Questions of motivation and experience, as well as outcome, are canvassed in this piece of original research, which provides an interesting snapshot of the current situation for established writers in Australia undertaking creative writing doctorates.
Online working version of chapter from Artists with PHDs: On the New Doctoral Degree in Studio Art
- James Elkins