AustLit

'It was an ongoing nightmare. The writers could not agree. One considered character, plot, and outline, paramount. The other could not have cared less: to hell with constraint; the only thing convention appeared to achieve was discombobulate creativity even as it emerged. At this point the writer allegiant to protocol proffered a solution. He suggested putting their words on the line. To wit, write a story illustrating nuance. That is to say, a tale contrived accordant to their preferred methodology…' (Introduction)   

'This article identifies the debate regarding differentiation between creative and exegetical (or scholarly) components in postgraduate research submissions and surveys the 2000-year history of creative-exegetical writing. It marks out a body of work where creative writers themselves explore and direct the theory and analysis of creative writing’s processual activities, suggesting a hybrid form that constitutes a genre in itself – what we call the Creative-Exegetical. In conclusion, the article argues acceptance for the creative work as scholarly work in the creative writing research space. The trigger for this article was provided by Peter Nash, a student at Griffith University, Australia, who in 2018 thought to challenge the status quo by submitting a crime fiction story as a ‘reflective essay’ in an Honours-level research course. Pete had already published stories in TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses which were fictions dealing with aspects of the writing process, and he wanted to go further.' (Publication abstract)