Writing Creative Writing

Rishma Dunlop was an award-winning poet, playwright, essayist, and translator. She was a Professor of Creative Writing and Education at York University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Her publications include Lover Through Departure, Metropolis, and White Ink: Poems on Mothers and Motherhood.Daniel Scott Tysdal is an award-winning writer and professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough. He is the author of Fauxccasional Poems, Predicting the Next Big Advertising Breakthrough Using a Potentially Dangerous Method, and a poetry textbook, The Writing Moment: A Practical Guide to Creating Poems. Daniel lives in Toronto. Priscila Uppal is an internationally acclaimed poet, prose writer, and playwright. A York University professor and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, she is the author of Ontological Necessities and Cover Before Striking. Her memoir, Projection: Encounters with My Runaway Mother, was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Prize and a Governor General’s Award. Priscila lives in Toronto.

Writing Creative Writing is the first Canadian anthology to bring together such a wide-ranging collection of voices on teaching creative writing. This is a book for everyone interested in how we learn to write — students, writers, administrators and creative writing instructors will all find sparkling insights here into the diverse strategies writers use to help each other get better at the craft.

• IntroductionRishma Dunlop, Daniel Scott Tysdal, and Priscila Uppal: Writing Creative Writing: A Student, A Teacher, and a Genre Walk Into a Classroom and into Endless Possibilities PART I: Writing Creative Writing PedagogyA: By Genre(s)Wanda Campbell: Raid, Warp, Push: The Pedagogy of Poetic FormDaniel Scott Tysdal: Beginning at the Edge: Teaching Poetry Through Comic Book Panels and Internet Comment ThreadsMary Schendlinger: The Comics ConnectionPeggy Thompson:It’s All About Structure: The Craft of ScreenwritingNicole Markotic and Suzette Mayr: He Put His What, WHERE? Or: how to teach creative writing students to write plausible sex scenes, prevent them from winning the Bad Sex Award, while not suffering from fear, alarm, dread, or embarrassment in the processB: By ApproachRishma Dunlop: Creative Writing as Hybrid PedagogyLouis Cabri: “I’m Stone in Love With You”: Stylistics in the Creative Writing ClassroomJennifer Duncan: Textual Culture: A Postmodern Approach to Creative Writing PedagogyPriscila Uppal: The Joys of Adaptation: Pedagogy and PracticeC: By ClassroomGülyase Koçak: From Memorization to Improvisation: The Challenges of Teaching Creative Writing to Students Coming from a Culture of Rote LearningKathryn Kuitenbrouwer: How to Teach (Online)Kathy Mac: Small Group Workshops in Large Creative Writing Classes: Because You Can’t Be Everywhere at OncePART II: Re-Writing the Creative Writing TraditionDavid Goldstein: Poetic Form as Experimental Procedure: The View from Renaissance EnglandAndrea Thompson: Spoken Word: A Gesture Toward Possibility Christian Bök: Two Dots Over a VowelYvette Nolan: Bastards, Pirates, and Halfbreeds: Playwriting in CanadaPART III: Writing the Creative Writing ProfessorAritha van Herk: Teaching, or Not Teaching Creative WritingJudith Thompson: Inciting a Riot: Digging Down into a PlayLorri Neilsen Glenn: Writes of Passage: Women WritingStephanie Bolster: One of These Things is Not Like the Others: The Writer in the English DepartmentPART IV: Writing Creative Writing ProgramsDarryl Whetter: Can’tLit: What Canadian English Departments Could (but Won’t) Learn from the Creative Writing Programs They HostLori A. May: The Low-Residency MFA: Coast to Coast and Across the BorderCatherine Bush: Engaged Practice: Coordinating and Creating a Community within a Creative Writing MFA Programthom vernon: Selling It: Creative Writing and the Public GoodAcknowledgementsContributor BiosEditor Bios