Blueprints: constructing the creative writing PhD

ABSTRACT

This article uses architectural analogies to explore the complexities of planning and executing a practice-led PhD project in contemporary Australian writing. Many scholars and creative practitioners have conceived of the writing process as a form of building, scaffolding or construction. A PhD always involves some aspect of planning – but to what extent can the creative practice be planned for? What happens when the project outpaces the planning, or when a writer finds herself in unscaffolded space? This article examines practice-led research methodologies drawn from the experiences and insights of three creative practitioners who are also current and recently completed PhD candidates. Their perspectives reveal the multiplicity of approaches available in creative practice research and points to the opportunities to explore the complexities between structure, space and practice in discussions of the creative writing PhD.

KEYWORDS:

• Practice-led
• practice as research
• creative writing
• creative practice
• PhD
• architecture

Notes on contributors

Ella Jeffery’s poetry, essays and reviews have appeared in Meanjin, Westerly, Island, Best Australian Poems and elsewhere. Her poetry has won or been shortlisted for a number of national prizes and awards. She is currently Lecturer in Creative Writing at QUT, where she researches the intersections between contemporary poetics and home improvement culture.

Alex Philp is a sessional academic and doctoral candidate at QUT. She researches the representation of sister relationships in literary fiction. She won the 2017 Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction, and her short fiction has appeared in Overland, The Review of Australian Fiction, Voiceworks, and on the Meanjin blog.

Emily O'Grady is a writer and sessional academic at QUT. Her practice-led doctoral thesis researched intergenerational trauma in serial killer narratives. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Meanjin, Southerly, Australian Poetry Journal, The Big Issue Fiction Edition, and Award Winning Australian Writing. In 2018 she won the Australian/Vogel's Literary Award for her debut novel The Yellow House.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.