WRITING IN PRACTICE VOL 10

ABSTRACT

Many forms of creative writing explore the idea that a writer’s experience of trauma can be transformed, or to some extent moved forward, by the process of “artworking” (Pollock 2013: 6); the act of poiesis, or making something new. In this article I address several examples of this, from stand-up comedy to graphic novel to surrealist fiction, considering concepts of aesthetic transformation and aesthetic distance, looking at what each example can illuminate in terms of the nature of this process. What follows is a reflection on my own affective experience of trauma, both personally and as a result of a decade of working within the women’s sector, and how this intersects with the necessary politics of feminism. I then conduct an analysis of how I sought to transform both my own experience of trauma and that of a fictional character, Connie, in an extract from my novel We Are Volcanoes. Lastly, I share the ways in which this research experience has affected me, both in terms of my wellbeing and in the development of my creative practice, and I argue that research such as this can contribute to a more trauma-informed creative writing classroom.

KEYWORDS

trauma, fiction, feminism, process, transformation, political, witnessing, testimony, dissociation, survivor

HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE

Crosse, Zosia (2024) Writing Feminist Fiction as a Means of Transforming Trauma, Writing in Practice. 10. 27-39. DOI: 10.62959/WIP-10-2024-03