Call For Papers
The Creative Writing Studies Conference is focused on research and scholarship in creative writing. We seek proposals that are well written, well researched, theoretically grounded, and connected to current conversations in the field. Proposals should demonstrate an understanding of previous scholarship on the subject under investigation and should aim to create new knowledge and/or challenge disciplinary conceptions and practices. Proposals based solely on the author’s own experience may be appropriate if they are the result of well-defined action research. It is expected that research will conform to the highest standards of ethical conduct as outlined by the Institutional Review Board of the scholar’s home university.
All proposals accepted to the conference will have their abstracts published in Journal of Creative Writing Studies (JCWS) and all presenters will be invited to submit completed articles to JCWS.
Submission instructions
The CFP submission system will be open from February 1 to March 1- Under "Author Corner," select "Submit Paper"
- For "Presenter Information," choose your proposal type and select one presenter for an Individual Paper (20 minutes) or multiple presenters for a Roundtable Presentation (60 minutes, up to 4 participants)
- For "Disciplines," select "Arts and Humanities" and then "Creative Writing"
- Short abstract for conference program should be no more than 75 words
- Full Text of Presentation should be the full abstract of no more than 250 words and should include a list of relevant citations (citations not included in the 250 word limit)
Conference Tracks
We are interested in proposals that concern creative writing and pedagogy; history; qualitative and quantitative research; the digital and multimodal; diversity and inclusion; professionalization and labor; theory, craft, and culture; and social action.
Pedagogy:
We seek articles on creative writing pedagogies that offer both a theoretical and historical background as well as practical applications to engage and reinvigorate the creative process for both students and teachers. We also welcome articles that advance and enlarge theoretical perspectives for creative writing pedagogy scholarship.
History:
We welcome proposals exploring the histories of individuals, groups, and communities; institutions (broadly defined); and texts related to creative writing as a process, taught subject, or cultural practice. We seek proposals on creative writing pedagogies that offer both a theoretical and historical background as well as practical applications to engage and reinvigorate the creative process for both students and teachers. We also welcome proposals that advance and enlarge theoretical perspectives for creative writing pedagogy scholarship
Qualitative and Quantitative Research:
We seek proposals that investigate the practice, pedagogy, and history of creative writing based on empirical research. We are also open to receiving work that is grounded in research while also challenging the assumptions and conventions of academic discourse in narrative, lyrical, dramatic, avant-garde, theoretical, or meta-theoretical modes. Additionally, we are interested in proposals that interrogate the definition and practice of creative writing research itself.
Digital and Multimodal:
Creative Writing Studies scholarship welcomes examination of and engagement with changes in the technologies--especially digital technologies--that affect the composition, publication, and distribution of creative writing of all genres.
Diversity and inclusion:
We particularly seek proposals that directly address race, ethnicity, ability, culture, class, language, and gender/sexuality difference as experienced and studied in the creative writing academic arena.
Professionalization and Labor:
Teaching creative writing in the university or college intersects employment and institutional issues that often go unexamined. We seek proposals that discuss adjunct/contingent or professorial status; exploitative and/or uneven workloads, pay, and/or benefits; teacher training; interdisciplinarity; assessment; funding; and diversity requirements (or lack thereof).
Theory, Craft, and Culture:
For years, creative writers have taught "craft" as if it were a transparent set of values—fixed and universally agreed-upon in how it defines a particular genre. But creative writing is always embedded in particular cultural, aesthetic, critical, and (often) institutional contexts. We seek proposals that investigate the relationship between authors and these respective contexts, particularly as it stands to theoretically ground creative writing studies in the humanities at large and to further enrich what we talk about when we talk about "craft."
Social Action:
We seek proposals that examine the connection between creative writing and its role in the public sphere. More specifically, we seek scholarly essays that reveal how creative writing is being used to engender social change, promote community activism, or intervene in culture in ways that reconnect poetics and politics, form and function, innovation and action, play and protest, artfulness and utility.
Submission instructions
The CFP submission system will be open from February 1 to March 1- Under "Author Corner," select "Submit Paper"
- For "Presenter Information," choose your proposal type and select one presenter for an Individual Paper (20 minutes) or multiple presenters for a Roundtable Presentation (60 minutes, up to 4 participants)
- For "Disciplines," select "Arts and Humanities" and then "Creative Writing"
- Short abstract for conference program should be no more than 75 words
- Full Text of Presentation should be the full abstract of no more than 250 words and should include a list of relevant citations (citations not included in the 250 word limit)