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Submission Guidelines

Journal of Creative Writing Studies (JCWS) is an academic journal. We publish research and scholarship on the subject of creative writing. We do not publish works in any of the four genres of creative writing. We are looking for articles that are well written, well researched, theoretically grounded, and connected to current conversations in the field.

Submissions should be no longer than 10,000 words, including Works Cited and Notes, and should be accompanied by a 100-word abstract. JCWS uses MLA Style citations.

While most JCWS articles are converted to PDFs for easy download, we can also publish articles as web pages, allowing authors to employ video, audio, image, or other digital media. Multimodal/multimedia work should include a one-page written summary of the form and content of the media used. Such submissions should follow the style guide established by Digital Humanities Quarterly (DHQ), which we refer to here with the editors' permission.

We expect that all submitted research will conform to the highest standards of ethical conduct as outlined by the Institutional Review Board of the scholar’s home university. This includes obtaining consent from human subjects (i.e. students, colleagues, or other people) prior to conducting your research.

We do occasionally issue Calls For Papers on special topics; however, we are always open to submissions in the sections below. The interests of these sections often overlap, and some submissions may be relevant to more than one of the sections below. Authors of such articles should be assured that their subject is of interest to JCWS and that the editors will direct their paper to an appropriate section.



  1. Research: Qualitative and Quantitative
  2. Theory, Culture, and Craft
  3. Diversity and Inclusion
  4. Pedagogy
  5. Digital and Multimedia/Multimodal
  6. Reviews
  7. Reprints/Rethinks

RESEARCH:QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE


The Research section of JCWS publishes articles that investigate the practice, pedagogy, and/or history of creative writing based on empirical research methods. 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 submissions that interrogate the definition and practice of methods-based creative writing research itself.
Submissions to the Research section of JCWS 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. Articles based solely on the author’s own experience may be appropriate if they are the results of well-defined action research.
We are interested in submissions drawing on a variety of research approaches including:

  1. archival research
  2. qualitative research, including case studies, ethnographies, phenomenographic studies, and textual analyses
  3. quantitative research, including numerical, statistical, and similar data-driven methods of study
  4. practice-led research
  5. fictocriticism
  6. mixed-methods research
  7. Historical/historiographic explorations of developments in research methods within the practice of creative writing.

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THEORY, CULTURE, AND CRAFT


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. The Theory, Culture, and Craft section focuses on work that investigates 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." This section of the JCWS identifies craft as always in process and always affected by its particular rhetorical circumstances. With this in mind, the editors welcome articles that:

  1. explore theoretically grounded approaches toward craft and/or craft criticism
  2. address gaps in the theoretical account of creative writing studies and practice
  3. analyze how aesthetic trends, institutionalization, cultural and rhetorical contexts, and critical theory inform the field of creative writing
  4. explore the material, social, cultural, and institutional forces at work on the production of imaginative texts
  5. explore the historical/historiographic aspects of how creative writing has been theorized both inside and outside of formalized education, how it has shaped and been shaped by culture, and how the lore of its most fundamental principles and practices have been shared.

Submissions should demonstrate relevance to the larger connections creative writing shares with neighboring fields of cultural studies and/or critical theory and engage with existent scholarship. Authors are encouraged to explore the production of imaginative texts through such links.

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DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION


Although JCWS as a whole is committed to supporting submissions in all sections by writers from multiple perspectives, this section is specifically devoted to work that directly address race, ability, culture, class, language, and gender/sexuality difference as experienced and studied in the creative writing academic arena. Topics might include:

  1. thriving in PhD, MFA, and undergraduate programs as an “other”
  2. observations/reflections on workshop or peer-review dynamics and conflicts related to issues of difference
  3. pedagogy and praxis for supporting multiple identities and perspectives creatively
  4. technology and reading accessibility in creative writing classrooms
  5. case studies of inclusive teaching
  6. addressing diversity issues in the workshop and on the page
  7. administrative actions concerning diversity and inclusion
  8. academic status and paradigms; writing creatively in academia as an act of privilege
  9. adjunct and tenure politics as they concern issues of difference
  10. authority, identity, and power in creative writing studies
  11. history and current state of diversity and inclusion in academic creative writing settings
  12. the rise of the culture-specific writing retreat vs. the MFA
  13. globalization and immigration in the creative writing classroom
  14. code-switching, language, and literacy for non-traditional writers and readers

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PEDAGOGY


The Pedagogy section operates with two key premises: Creative writing can be taught, and creative writing studies offers a rich historical and theoretical grounding for pedagogical practices that move beyond more anecdotal teaching techniques and lore. 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. When applicable, we also encourage such articles to consider the possible worldly impacts of the teaching and practice of creative writing, as through linkages between the art of the word and consequential actions in the world. For instance, how might the teaching of creative writing 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?

We seek articles that:

  1. build and sustain compelling conversations around pedagogical issues surrounding teaching and creative writing studies pedagogies
  2. draw on research and theories from a broad range of humanistic disciplines while maintaining creative writing studies as its own scholarly enterprise
  3. address students and teachers who engage in creative writing practices in a variety of spaces—secondary, first-year, upper-division courses, community-based, and graduate
  4. deploy various critical lenses to articulate pedagogical practices
  5. analyze the teaching of creative writing in the context of race, class, gender, and/or culture, including within the subset of professionalization and labor (i.e. course loads, course caps, standardized curriculum)
  6. study the social, cultural, and material effects of creative writing pedagogies, and their potential connections to advocacy, activism, and/or public discourse
  7. present historical/historiographic explorations of how the formal teaching of creative writing developed

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DIGITAL AND MULTIMODAL/MULTIMEDIA


JCWS’ Digital and Multimodal/Multimedia section seeks critical pieces that address creative writing as it intersects with digital and multimodal/multimedia concerns and contexts. We welcome the 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.

Topics might include but are not limited to:

  1. uses of digital tools in creative writing [CW] classrooms and pedagogy
  2. CW digital experiments that worked or failed
  3. how CW overlaps with other modes and genres such as video games and code
  4. how creative writers design interactive and haptic pieces
  5. uses of digital tools in CW classrooms and pedagogy
  6. how digital contexts change and complicate issues of publication and copyright
  7. documentation of CW digital installations in social media and other digitally interactive platforms
  8. documentation of CW communities of practice that connect in digital spaces
  9. A historical/historiographic exploration of how different modes and mediums have affected the ways creative writing is defined, produced, and consumed.

Both text-only and multimodal pieces are welcome. We encourage collaborative authorship.

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REVIEWS


JCWS publishes reviews of recent books and projects that are of interest to authors, teachers, and scholars of creative writing. Reviewed titles may include craft-criticism, theory, pedagogy, history, and research that contribute to conversations about creative writing praxis. JCWS does not publish reviews of creative works. Single reviews are generally 1,500 words. Review essays, which synthesize two to four titles, are approximately 2,500 words. If you are interested in writing a review or wish to suggest a title, contact book review editor Alyse Bensel (benselak@brevard.edu).
Publishers may submit books and projects for review consideration to:

Alyse Bensel
Humanities Division
Brevard College
1 Brevard College Dr
Brevard, NC 28712

A list of available books for review is available here: https://www.criticalcreativewriting.org/newest-releases.html.

While anyone may suggest a book or project for review, JCWS will select reviewers that have no personal relationship with the editors or authors of the work.

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REPRINTS/RETHINKS

The senior editors will entertain reprinting previously published pieces, either from journals or book chapters, that relate to any of the sections above. Authors must include a short introductory explanation of why the piece merits reprinting (reprints) as well as any reflections, amendments, or retractions they have on the piece as it was originally printed (rethinks).
The author is solely responsible for obtaining any and all rights from the original publisher. JCWS will need written proof that this consent has been obtained prior to publishing any reprint.