Wandor has written the first history of Creative Writing in the UK, analysing its complex relationship with English and literary theory. Erudite and provocative, the book presents a searching critique of Creative Writing pedagogy, arguing for new approaches. Indispensable for teachers, students and everyone concerned with the future of literature.

'Pursues a much-needed argument about Creative Writing, the nature of the discipline, its relationship to Literary Studies and the workshop format in which it is conventionally taught. On all these subjects Wandor has important (and controversial) things to say.' - Professor Ben Knights, Director, English Subject Centre

Introduction: Creative Writing: A success story
First Histories: Creative writing as cultural and educational intervention
Autodidacticism and the Politics of Literacy
Walking with Swinburne: English at Oxbridge
Watching the Elephants; Creative writing in America
From Belle-lettres to Literary Criticism
Secular Intellectuals after World War II
Textual Politics in English Studies after World War II
Creative Writing Professionalised: Summary - the Story so Far
Play and Pegagogy: Creativity and Creative Writing
Creative Writing: A Literature of its Own
Household Tips and Recipe Books
The Workshop and the Emperor's Clothes
Comparative Approaches: Art School and Conservatoire
Literary Criticism: Value-Judgements and Creative Writing
Composition and Creative Writing: US Critiques
Reconceiving Creative Writing: the Author is Not Dead, Merely in Some Other Text
From Criticism to Theory and On
Reconceiving Creative Writing: The Materiality of Imaginative Writing
Literacy, Writing and Textuality
From Elephants to Kangaroos: Prose Fiction
Writing Drama
Poetry and Form
The Core Genres: Pedagogy
Imaginative Writing: Summary and the Future
Epilogue

MICHELENE WANDOR is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at London Metropolitan University, UK, and is a well-known playwright, poet, broadcaster and public intellectual. Her critical publications include Postwar British Drama (Routledge) and she has recently contributed to the English Subject Centre's Creative Writing Good Practice Guidelines.