Call for Papers: Graduate Students on Creative Writing Pedagogy

Some of you might be interested in sending a paper for this anthology. They might even find it interesting to have an essay on one-on-one pedagogy from the perspective of a low-res student (or recent grad)...

Dispatches from the Front: Graduate Student Essays on Creative Writing Pedagogy

University creative writing is at a crossroads. Creative writing programs continue to proliferate in the American university landscape. MFA programs are thriving—over 150 of them across America—while 37 universities have also begun to offer creative writing PhDs. In addition, 159 undergraduate programs now list creative writing as a specific major within the traditional English curriculum. In this rapidly changing environment, even such long-standing creative writing models as the “master artist” and the workshop-style course have become subjects for intense debate, with the theory-driven pedagogies of literature and composition departments knocking heavily at the door.

Yet, despite the recent flourishing of creative writing pedagogy as a field of inquiry, this is a debate that the “grunts” of the creative writing world—the MFA and PhD teaching assistants who teach introductory courses at most universities—largely have yet to join. As a result, these instructors often flounder in their early courses, skeptical of the workshop model but finding little to take its place. With this anthology, tentatively titled Dispatches from the Front: Graduate Student Essays on Creative Writing Pedagogy, we hope both to remedy this lack of available models and to give creative writing graduate students a much-needed “seat at the table” in these ongoing discussions.
Accordingly, we seek papers from current or recent creative writing graduate students on any of the following topics, or other topics of interest to contributors:

*The Workshop
*Alternatives to the Workshop
*Exercises
*Marking Student Work
*Grading
*Classroom Use of Published Authors
*The Student Conference
*Revision
*Literary Theory in the Creative Writing Classroom
*Teaching Other Courses
*Creative Writing Online

Ideal essays will strive to balance pedagogical theory with classroom practice and the instructor’s own experience. Essays should follow MLA documentation format and may run from 4-20 pages, but preference will be given to shorter lengths to include as many contributors as possible. Alternative formats (round table discussions, multi-author articles, etc.) will also be considered, but should follow MLA guidelines wherever possible. Reprints are acceptable if the editors are notified. All submissions should include a cover note with an author bio, the title of the essay, and a brief abstract. Inquiries and submissions must be sent to the editors by e-mail at dispatchesfromthefront@yahoo.com by May 15, 2009.

Co-editors: Chris Drew, Joseph Rein, and David Yost
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee