'The book is specifically designed for tertiary level students studying creative writing, though it can be used by the more general reader. It takes an experimental approach, stresses incremental strategies and uses literary and cultural theory to illuminate the process of writing. It includes many different types of writing, including fiction, poetry, mixed genre writing, writing for performance and writing for new media. Each chapter is illustrated with extensive student and published examples.'
(Source: information provided by Hazel Smith.)
'"There were only eleven of them, like eleven sisters all the same age in a large family. Because it was such a very small class, they had a very small classroom, which was perched at the very top of the school - up four flights of stairs, up in the high sky, like a colony of little birds nesting on a cliff. 'Today, girls,' said Miss Renshaw, 'we shall go out into the beautiful Gardens and think about death."'
'In the Gardens they meet a poet. What follows is inexplicable, shocking, a scandal. What really happened that day? Is 'the truth' as elusive as it seems? And do the little girls know more than they are letting on?' (From the publisher's website.)
This unit extends the practical work and learning methodologies of ENGL201. It is based on seminar workshops, lectures, and practical writing activities. The unit encourages responses to different context-based and theoretical approaches to creative writing. It aims to develop practical written and reflective skills, and the capacity to use language and form. It encourages students to attempt new ways of writing, to develop their work into finished texts, and to consciously position these texts within the wider discourse. In this unit, creative writing is taught within contexts of contemporary relevance, in order to broaden students' range and encourage reflection about their writing. Students are expected to develop their creative writing and increase their knowledge about its contexts by producing writing throughout the unit. Unit topics and readings provide literary and theoretical examples to stimulate intellectual and creative enquiry.