The Cambridge introduction to creative writing
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| Recommended reading Writing in the community has a huge literature all of its own but, unfortunately, much of it is perceived as so-called underground, worker and ‘community’ literature, so it does not get picked upon academia’s radar. Therefore, these recommendations represent a tiny slice of some of the more mainstream examples. In New York, the Teachers and Writers Collaborative, founded in is a salutary example. A nonprofit organisation, its members believe that writers can make a unique contribution to the teaching of writing and literature (www.twc.org). In many ways, the members of this collaborative are the invisible heroes of The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing. The work of the American poet Kenneth Koch is cited throughout this book, and Teachers and Writers helped him in his community and schools projects. When Koch entered a classroom, the children would clap and shout with pleasure. His 256 Creative writing playful but scrupulously planned pedagogy is captured in Wishes, Lies and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry (HarperPerennial, 1999 ). This is as important a book for new creative writers wishing to adventure into the community as it is for teachers seeking new ways to get children writing. It contains games, poems and practical advice. Koch also worked in nursing homes, encouraging creative writing, and I Never Told Anybody Teach- ing Poetry Writing to Old People (Teachers and Writers Collaborative, 1997 ) is another satisfying teaching book for community writers. Creative writing in healthcare is an association with a powerful tradition among writers and medical practitioners. A number of creative writers explore this tradition as practice in Fiona Sampson’s Creative Writing in Health and Social Care (Jessica Kingsley, 2004 ). David Morley’s The Gift New Writing for the National Health Service (Stride, 2002 ) brings together creative writing by authors and healthcare workers in a unique community writing project coordinated by the author, the purpose of which was to explore the art of medicine and the medicine of art. Our Thoughts are Bees Working with Writers and Schools by Mandy Coe and Jean Sprackland (Wordplay Press) provides advice about British schools placements. Creative writing’s role within therapy and personal development is explored in Celia Hunt’s Therapeutic Dimensions of Autobiography in Creative Writing (Jessica Kingsley, 2000 ). In Britain, the National Association of Writers in Education provides a focus for standards, training and good practice (www.nawe.co.uk). The scientist Max Perutz challenges received ideas about the place of the imagination in science in I Wish I’d Made You Angry Earlier (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. This is also a fine example of popular science as an act of creative writing. For readers interested in writing, imagination and science, they might consult the writings of the sociobiologist E. O. Wilson, especially his synthesis Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (Abacus, 2003 ), in which he argues that We are learning the fundamental principle that ethics is everything. Human social existence . . is based on the genetic propensity to form long-term contracts that evolve by culture into moral precepts and law Wilson’s teaching is partly invoked within the final part of this book. The Literary Animal, edited by Jonathan Gottschall and David Wilson (Northwestern University Press, is a fascinating collection of essays by scholars at the forefront of evolutionary literary analysis by scientists who take a serious interest in creative writing and by literary analysts who have made evolution their explanatory framework. It seems clear tome, as a scientist and as a poet, that the synthesis of the humanities and what Steven Pinker calls the new sciences of human nature’ is an open space in which the discipline of creative writing finds ever-stronger purpose. |