Writing in Practice - Vol. 4

* Introduction: Critical and creative reflections on process
Derek Neale's full introduction to this issue provides further context for the various contributions.

A Creative Exploration and Analysis of Contemporary Dystopian Fiction
Munira Ezzi examines the relationship between young adult readers and dystopian fiction

Aesthetic literacy and autobiography
Francis Gilbert explores the author's own troubled upbringing and education to develop a personal theory of aesthetic literacy.

Cruising for Intellectual Mothers: How Writers Use Theory to Explore the Personal and the Personal to Explore Theory
Natasha Bell considers the use of the first person within a theoretical work.

Ink:Well – Writing for Wellbeing on the “Hero’s Journey”
Alison Habens discusses Ink:Well, a co-investigation between a Creative Writer and a Psychologist into the importance of storytelling for good mental health.

Prose poetry and a sense of place: exploring the influence of Ted Hughes on voice, nature and gender
Anne Caldwell suggests a better way of conceptualizing a writer’s exploration of Northernness, especially in relation to the genre of prose poetry.

Researching the Facts, Writing the Fiction: A Creative Writing Practice Study - Herself Alone in Orange Rain
Tracey Iceton examines her approach to a creative writing project firmly rooted in reality.

Rhythm as a Metaphor for Presence in Prose Fiction
Eliza Robertson discusses the topic in relation to her first novel.

The grounds of Tolkien: unmappable, unbookable
Judy Kendall investigates documentation of Tolkien's creative practices.

The Rise of Creative Writing
Guest article for this issue is by Andrew Cowan, this version published with kind permission of Palgrave Macmillan.

The Spectre of the Slave Ship: Caryl Phillips’s Adaptation for the Stage of Rough Crossings by Simon Schama
Winsome Pinnock considers the challenges of representing traumatic historical events.

Ways Through the Wood: The Rogue Cartographies of Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood Cycle as a Cognitive Map for Creative Process in Fiction
Kevan Manwaring argues that the Mythago Wood Cycle offers a powerfully resonant metaphor for the creative process.

Writer as Ethnographer: Textualizing War and Restoring the Gaps in the (Graphic) Narrative
Adnan Mahmutovic and Lucy Durneen probe into the particularity of that which must be saved at all costs.

Writing the Image: an analysis of the labyrinth-grave as “denkbilder” and framework for re-imagining a narrative about the aftermath of violence
Penny Simpson discusses her inter-disciplinary approach to the development of a new fictional framework to narrate human rights issues.