Creative Manoeuvres: Writing, Making, Being
Creative Manoeuvres is a collection of new writings on a topic of enduring interest: the role of creative practice in the formation of knowledge. The contributors to this collection are primarily creative writers, working in poetry, fiction, nonfiction and ethnography. Many include the visual or performing arts within their practice; and all are academics as well as creative writers. Their chapters move the study of creative writing beyond subjective accounts of ‘how I write’ towards broader issues of how knowledge is addressed by, or incorporated into, or embodied in, art.
Each chapter also does double duty as a case study on approaches to creative and research work, both describing and critically exploring the strategies, or ‘creative manoeuvres’, these writers have adopted to advance their practice in both creative and critical domains. In this way, the book not only exemplifies moves in the contemporary academy to understand better the value creative practice can offer to the university, but also provides a rich and engaging set of narratives about ways of being, ways of making and ways of coming to know. In both practical and theoretical modes, it contributes to the ongoing questions about creativity and/versus scholarship that have been debated over recent decades.
Shane Strange is a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra, and HDR representative of the Faculty’s Centre for Creative and Cultural Research. He is a writer of short fiction and creative nonfiction and has been published widely in Australia. In 2010, he was an Asialink Literature fellow.
Paul Hetherington is Head of the International Poetry Studies Institute and Associate Professor of Writing at the University of Canberra. He has published eight full-length poetry collections, the most recent of which is Six Different Windows (UWA Publishing). He edited three volumes of the National Library of Australia’s four-volume edition of the diaries of the artist Donald Friend, and is founding co-editor of the online journal Axon: Creative Explorations.
Jen Webb is Distinguished Professor of Creative Practice, and Director of the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research, at the University of Canberra. A cultural theorist and creative writer, her recent books include Understanding Representation (Sage, 2009), and Foucault: a Critical Introduction (with T. Schirato and G. Danaher; Sage, 2012).
"Creative Manoeuvres’ authority comes from its refusal to limit itself to only one research approach or to submit to a research hierarchy where orthodox forms of methodology and inquiry dominate. It spans broad topics and explores both the act of (creative) writing and research into the (creative) writing process. It critiques the traditional view of writing as a purely cognitive process, critiques nonfiction writing, poetry, and the ethics of practice and research, discusses the issue of creative pedagogy, investigates how practice and lived experience effect both writing and research, and it explores the gaps between writer and subject. As a living document it is retrospective and thoughtful, contemporary and extant, but it’s not a set of answers – nor does it claim to be. It is part of an accumulating body of literature that is forming the framework for argument, discussion and future CW research. It is a text to keep coming back to."
Craig Garrett Author, editor, journalist and communications consultant TEXT Journal, 18: 2 (2014)
"A book that reaches beyond its origins while wonderfully building on them, offers many ideas but also stimulates them, asks for critical attention but equally encourages creative action. This is a fascinating, spirited, thought-provoking exploration."
Graeme Harper Dean of The Honors College, Oakland University.
"This book sheds light on the perplexing question of human creativity in the current zeitgeist. It is multi-disciplinary, inter-discursive, and cross-cultural in its approach to art-making and knowledge-production. It engages in serious play and lively research, probing the depths of the human heart and mind in ways that are, paradoxically, often political. As such, it is a creative work in its own right."
Dominique Hecq Research and Discipline Leader in Writing, Swinburne University of Technology.
"Read this book if you want to have your eyes opened like never before on diverse subjects like orality and creative writing, phenomenology, feminisim and conceptual writing and so much more. Read this book if you want to know why Australasia is at the forefront of the nexus between art, creative writing and culture in the twenty-first century. Shane Strange, Paul Hetherington and Jen Webb have their fingers on the pulse of the cutting edge of creative writing practice and writing theory. If you want to get excited about the future and the untold possibilities of writing and art, I cannot urge you strongly enough: Read. This. Book."
Stephanie Vanderslice Professor and Director of the Arkansas Writer's MFA Workshop, University of Central Arkansas
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