Resources for Creative Writing
What is Creative Writing?
"Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes or with various traditions of poetry and poetics." [From Wikipedia]
"Creative writing, a form of artistic expression, draws on the imagination to convey meaning through the use of imagery, narrative, and drama. This is in contrast to analytic or pragmatic forms of writing. This genre includes poetry, fiction (novels, short stories), scripts, screenplays, and creative non-fiction." [From the Duke University Writing Studio]
"Creative writing is often defined as the writing of fiction, where the author creates events, scenes and characters, sometimes even a world. In reality, aside from instinctive utterances like the yelp of an injured child or a delighted ‘Oh!’, all expressions are creative." [From ACS Distance Education (UK)]
- ARTICLE: Stop Using the Phrase Creative Writing[From Slate.com] "It’s time to stop devaluing the forms of writing most people engage in."
By Cydney Alexis
- 20 Creative Writing CareersFrom Writing Forward, a creative writing blog.
- The Mega List of Careers for WritersPost by By David Leonhardt on The Happy Guy Writing Services blog.
- What can I do with a creative writing degree?From Graduate Prospects Ltd., UK.
Selected Books on Creative Writing Careers
Can You Read Me? Creative Writing With Child and Adult Victims of Abuse by Publication Date: 2004-02-01This book presents poems, stories and journal work spontaneously written by people, young and old, who have suffered serious abuse. The editors' explanations and commentaries suggest how health and social care workers can facilitate creative writing as a potential contribution to emotional healing in work with both individuals and small groups.
Creative Writing in Health and Social Care by Publication Date: 2004-04-07"This book is really a must-have for therapists and others in the creative arts, so that you can see how the workings of the human mind can be displayed through the arts. Even with serious illness, the mind can talk. And that is the point of the book." - Metapsychology Online Book Reviews
The Creativity Market: Creative Writing in the 21st Century by Publication Date: 2012-04-05Focuses on creative writing both as a subject in universities and beyond academia, with chapters arranged around three organizing sub-themes of practice, research and pedagogy. It explores the ‘creative’ component of creative writing in the globalized marketplace, making the point that creative writing occurs in and around universities throughout the world.
Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction by Publication Date: 2004-09-16Creative nonfiction is the fastest-growing segment in the writing market. Yet, the majority of writing guides are geared toward poetry and fiction writers. Designed for aspiring nonfiction writers, this much-needed reference provides practical guidance, writing exercises, and a detailed discussion of the range of subcategories that make up the genre, including memoir, travel writing, investigative reporting, and more.
Find Writing Assistance
- Writing@APUSThe APUS Library’s writing reference resource for students and faculty designed to supplement and complement writing instruction delivered across all disciplines.
- Writer's Reference Center This link opens in a new windowOnline reference for writers, with learning tools to write and research effectively.
- Tutor.com
Get started using Tutor.com, tutoring help for APUS students.
Recommended Databases for Creative Writing
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new windowAn EBSCO multi-disciplinary database, contains indexing and abstracts for more than 8,500 journals, with full-text for more than 4,600 of those titles.
- Columbia Granger's World of Poetry This link opens in a new windowContains 250,000 poems in full-text and 450,000 citations, numbers that will continually expand with each update. The poems in full text are the most widely-read in the English language, as well as in Spanish, French, German, and Italian.
- JSTOR Arts & Sciences I, II & III Archive Collection This link opens in a new windowAn interdisciplinary archive providing access to the full text of many important scholarly journals. NOTE: The database does not include access to the most recent journal issues.
- Arts & Humanities Database This link opens in a new windowA ProQuest databases focused on Art, Architecture, Design, History, Philosophy, Music, Literature, Theatre and Cultural Studies journal content.
- Research Library This link opens in a new windowA ProQuest database, covering a wide range of popular academic subjects. Includes more than 4,730 titles, with over 3,315 in full-text.
Reference Books for Creative Writers
A Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms by Publication Date: 2001-11-15Contains all of the most taxing literary terms that readers may come across. Clear and entertaining explanations are given for words such as multi-accentuality, postmodernism, and hypertext. The dictionary also provides extensive coverage of traditional drama, rhetoric, literary history, and textual criticism.
Encyclopedia of Literature and Criticism by Publication Date: 1993-12-17A major guide to the study of English literature and critical assessment. Divided into ten major sections, the volume consists of a sequence of authoritative essays covering both the traditional and the new. Current critical ideas are discussed, while the volume as a whole provides a wide-ranging introduction to the rich diversity of opinion that characterizes contemporary thinking about literature in English.
Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature by Publication Date: 2010-12-01Offers both a survey of literary themes and a collection of in-depth analyses of how these themes operate in individual literary works. Part I: Contains essays on 50 prominent literary themes. Part II contains essays on specific themes in more than 300 individual classic works of literature.
A New Handbook of Literary Terms by Publication Date: 2007-06-01Offers a lively, informative guide to words and concepts that every student of literature needs to know.
Selected Books on Creative Writing
The Creative Writer's Survival Guide by Publication Date: 2010-09-28A must-read for creative-writing students and teachers, conference participants, and aspiring writers of every stamp. Directed primarily at fiction writers but suitable for writers of all genres,
Creative Writing by Publication Date: 2006-08-01Book Jacket Blurb: "This book is a first-rate guide for writers who want to get published, whether they are writing adult or children's fiction, or non-fiction. The book covers: The requirements of genre fiction - e.g. romance, horror and crime, How to draw on personal experience, How to write on a variety of topics, How to master differing styles, How to acquire the specialist skills that maximise your chances of getting into print. Crucially, help is also given on how to present your work to publishers in ways that they will find attractive."
To the Budding Creative Writer by Publication Date: 2009-08-01Designed to help young writers come to grips with questions and problems relative to their creative efforts. Discussed: a range of topics, providing guidelines on such issues as style, technique, point of view, characterization, poetic diction, figurative language, denotation and connotation, etc.
Vivid and Continuous: Essays and Exercises for Writing Fiction by Publication Date: 2013-03-15"Takes its inspiration from John Gardner, whose essential truths in On Becoming a Novelist clarified McNally's goal of communicating a "vivid and continuous dream" with his own writing. In fifteen concise, energizing chapters, he dispenses advice gained from almost thirty years of studying, writing, and teaching. Just blunt enough to get your attention but not blunt enough to crush you, challenging but not discouraging, personal but not ego-ridden, snarky not mean." [From book jacket]
Writing Fiction: A Introduction to the Craft by Publication Date: 2003-04-01Explains the basic steps to effective fiction writing. Practical advice is included on the most significant elements of fiction, such as plot, character development, and voice, and strategies are provided for the effective use of tense and the dialogue. All forms of fiction are explored.
INTERVIEWS: Scholars Talk Writing
From The Chronicle of Higher Education.
In this continuing series, Rachel Toor interviews scholars about their writing process and influences. Recent columns have featured interviews with Anthony Grafton, Sam Wineburg, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, and Camille Paglia.
Scholars Talk Writing
Text interviews (no audio/video).
Credo Reference: Literature search box
Credo Reference: Dictionaries search box
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