“You Will Be Surprised that Fiction Has Become an Art”: The Language of Craft and the Legacy of Henry James

As some scholars have noted, the technical principles that modern creative writing workshops identify as “the craft of fiction” owe a great deal to Henry James and the prefaces to the New York edition of his novels, later published in a single volume as The Art of the Novel. However, James, far from setting out to help aspiring writers to develop their technical knowledge, was in fact fairly hostile to the very idea of craft, famously declaring that he “cannot imagine composition existing in a series of blocks.” The prefaces were instead intended to provide a sort of Cliff’s Notes to his own work, naming the tricks of his trade for the edification of his most dedicated readers, and it was these readers, most notably including Percy Lubbock, Joseph Warren Beach, and Caroline Gordon, who adapted James’s principles in some of the first literary handbooks used in the creative writing classroom. Though Lubbock, Beach, and Gordon borrowed significantly from James, they balanced his emphasis on aesthetics with the more accessible and egalitarian approach of earlier authors of fiction-writing handbooks, including the work of Walter Besant. This essay argues that a scholarly examination of the historical development of the discourse of the craft of writing serves not only to correct an over-emphasis on James’s influence, but also to address the equally erroneous assumption that principles of technique are eternal and universal, and thus exist apart from subject position and historical contingency.

Literature in language learning: new approaches

Which are the new directions in learning and teaching Modern Languages and English through literature? How can we use songs to talk about poetry in the language classroom, and how can creative writing workshops help with language teaching beyond the classroom? These are just a few questions addressed in this volume. Researchers and practitioners in Modern Languages and English as a Foreign Language share theory and their best practice on this pedagogical approach.

‘The story of the reel that went for a swim’: Cinema Memory and the History of the Highlands and Islands Film Guild as Narrated through Oral History Interviews and surrounding Metadata

This article draws from existing work relating to the creative writing strand of the Major Minor Cinema project, which was inspired by the surprising discovery of project's pilot study that some cinema-goers from the period of research had been inspired to write poems or stories in response to their experience of going to the Film Guild screenings. Building on an earlier publication in the journal Participations (May 2019), which largely focused on the project's use of creative methodologies and creative writing workshops as a way of exploring cinema memory, this article will consider the way which cinema memory was narrativised in project's oral history interviews and their surrounding metadata, focusing in particular on the specificities of cinema-going in rural Scotland, and taking into consideration the significance of Scotland's oral history and storytelling traditions in relation to the arrival of cinema to the Highlands and Islands.

8. Inspiring Language Learners

Chapter 8 showcases work with schools in creative writing workshops and the Multilingual Performance Project (MPP), exploring the energy languages can bring to classroom work when they provide a context in which it’s OK just to have fun with languages, encourage experimentation with new expressive resources, and build confidence with linguistic diversity.

There’s Something Happening Here: The Positive Impact of Collaborative Songwriting on Veterans Suffering from PTSD

SongwritingWith:Soldiers (SW:S) is a non profit, coaching-based program that uses collaborative songwriting to build creativity, connections and strengths in order to help improve people’s lives. The results have been positively life changing, even lifesaving, for many. The focus of a recent small pilot study by Harvard Mass General researchers on the impact of SW:S’s collaborative songwriting intervention (CSI) on veterans found the CSI sessions to reduce PTSD (-33%) and Depressive symptoms (-25%), potentially sparking further positive change and movement forward. In full SW:S weekend retreats, 8-12 veterans are paired with highly skilled professional songwriters to turn their military experiences into songs. When not writing songs, the participants attend creative writing workshops, meditation or yoga sessions and other activities to foster further connections and post traumatic growth. More than 400 veterans and family members have attended SW:S events; more than 400 songs have been written, countless lives changed. Feedback from retreat participants reveals post-retreat increases in feelings of hope and optimism (77%), increased creative pursuits (83%), connections with others (78%) and a 100% endorsement for other veterans to attend. Efforts are under wayto expand the study and eventually broaden it to include additional components of the positive psychology, coaching-based program.

Les ateliers d’écriture créative littéraire en classe du FLE : quel impact sur la construction des compétences linguistique, interculturelle et esthétique ?

RÉSUMÉ. Les ateliers d’écriture créative en FLE ont effectivement leur place. Cependant, les activités proposées portent principalement sur les apprentissages linguistiques et culturels de la langue. Cette recherche tente de déterminer l’impact des ateliers d’écriture créative littéraire dans la construction des compétences linguistiques, interculturelles et esthétiques. L’étude est menée par la méthode qualitative consistant à analyser des productions écrites réalisées lors de l’expérimentation et classées par niveau. Il s’agit d’évaluer des critères relevant, à la fois, de la linguistique textuelle et de la communication esthétique. Les résultats montrent que des savoir-faire linguistiques limités ne sont pas un obstacle à la créativité. Les tâches d’écriture réalisées impliquent constamment un travail sur la langue dont le but est l’expression de soi, de l’évolution de son rapport à la langue acquise et à la communication humaine. Cette étude contribue à la réflexion sur l’élaboration d’un cours de production écriture créative. Mots-clés : Atelier d’écriture, Compétence interculturelle et esthétique, Didactique de l’écrit, Écriture littéraire, Français Langue Étrangère. ABSTRACT. The Creative writing workshops in French as a foreign language have effectively their place. However, the proposed activities focus mainly on linguistic and cultural’s language learning. This research attempts to determine the impact of creative literary writing workshops in the construction of linguistic, intercultural and aesthetic skills. The study is conducted by the qualitative method of analyzing written productions made during the experiment and classified by level. It is a question of evaluating criteria relating both to textual linguistics and aesthetic communication. The results show that limited language skills are not an obstacle to creativity. The writing tasks performed urge every learner to work on the language with the purpose of self-expression, of the evolution of his relationship to the target foreign language and of human communication. This study contributes to the reflection on the development of a creative writing production course. Keywords: Didactic of the Writing, French as Foreign Language, Intercultural and Aesthetics skills, Writing literary, Writing workshop.

INTEREST GROUP SESSION—REMINISCENCE, LIFE STORY AND NARRATIVE: RESEARCH AND PRACTICE: WISDOM OF THE ELDERS: ART, MEDICINE, NARRATIVES, AND POETRY

The Wisdom of the Elders (WOE) is a series of autobiography production workshops conducted since 2012 through a collaboration among community, university, and municipal partners. Beginning in Murfreesboro, TN it has since been replicated in New Orleans, LA. The Wisdom of the Elders project has many elements, including life history interviews, creative writing workshops, and creative expressions that allowed elders to share their wisdom with younger generations. Our focus was to understand how personal characteristics and historical/environmental events interact to influence healthy aging. Later work extended to interviewing older hospitalized patients in order to gain insight into intergenerational themes. The interdisciplinary team has also used poetry and reflection to train healthcare professionals and caregivers to use active listening strategies to better understand how patients cope with life-changing illnesses, and how they incorporate the challenges of those illnesses into rich, fulfilling lives. WOE has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, the Meharry-Vanderbilt Community Engaged Research Core, and the Department of English, the College of Arts and Science Dean’s Office, and the Chancellor’s Higher Education Fellowship at Vanderbilt University. WOE has led to the formation of an interdisciplinary research and publication collaborative featuring distinguished clinicians, artists, and scholars from Creative Writing, Education, Geriatrics, Interprofessional Learning, Psychology, and Public Humanities.

Effect of creative writing on mood in patients with cancer

ObjectiveTo determine the feasibility of conducting creative writing workshops (CWW) for patients with cancer to promote improvement in mood.MethodWe piloted a prospective study to determine the feasibility of conducting CWW over a 4-week period. Patients were randomised 2:1 to either an intervention arm (IA) or to standard of care (SOC). Patients in the IA attended four 2-hour long weekly CWW × 4 weeks, whereas those receiving SOC did not participate in the CWW. We used a validated emotion thermometer scale (ETS) to assess changes in patient’s mental health before and after intervention. Patients with metastatic or unresectable cancer were included.Primary endpoint(1) Feasibility and (2) mood scores before and after CWW using ETS.ResultsA total of 16 patients were enrolled: 11 in the IA vs 5 in SOC. Seven out of 11 (63%) patients enrolled in the IA attended at least 75% of classes. Patients in the IA showed a trend towards mood improvement relative to the SOC when comparing initial and final ETS scores. Within the IA group significantly lower postclass total ETS scores were observed relative to preclass ETS scores. Also, a significant decreasing trend over time was observed in the preclass total ETS scores for participants in the IA group.ConclusionsIt is feasible for patients with cancer to attend CWW. Our results also show a positive effect on mood in the CWW arm. Further prospective clinical studies are needed to evaluate the effect of this intervention in patients with cancer.