Creative Manoeuvres

Book excerpt: Creative Manoeuvres is a collection of new writings on a topic of enduring interest: the role of creative practice in the formation of knowledge. The contributors to this collection are primarily creative writers, working in poetry, fiction, nonfiction and ethnography. Many include the visual or performing arts within their practice; and all are academics as well as creative writers. Their chapters move the study of creative writing beyond subjective accounts of ‘how I write’ towards broader issues of how knowledge is addressed by, or incorporated into, or embodied in, art. Each chapter also does double duty as a case study on approaches to creative and research work, both describing and critically exploring the strategies, or ‘creative manoeuvres’, these writers have adopted to advance their practice in both creative and critical domains. In this way, the book not only exemplifies moves in the contemporary academy to understand better the value creative practice can offer to the university, but also provides a rich and engaging set of narratives about ways of being, ways of making and ways of coming to know. In both practical and theoretical modes, it contributes to the ongoing questions about creativity and/versus scholarship that have been debated over recent decades.