Gender and Creative Writing (Hubbard & Stygall, 1997)

[This bibliography is number 77 in the series Wisconsin Bibliographies in Women’s Studies, published by the University of Wisconsin System Women’s Studies Librarian’s Office.]

The following list includes a wide range of critical texts that have implications for the study of gender’s influences on the teaching and practice of creative writing. Little empirical research on gender and creative writing actually exists. In recent works on creative writing such as Joseph Moxley’s CREATIVE WRITING IN AMERICA: THEORY AND PEDAGOGY (Boynton/Cook, Heinemann, 1989) or Wendy Bishop’s RELEASED INTO LANGUAGE: OPTIONS FOR TEACHING CREATIVE WRITING (NCTE, 1990), issues of gender in creative writing or its teaching are not directly addressed. However, critical work by feminist, gender, composition, and literary theorists has asserted substantive gender-based differences in writing. New work by critics in the areas of gender studies, queer theory, and men’s studies has challenged many earlier assumptions about gender and writing, and we have only included a small set of examples of the rich work in this area. We did want to include a few materials from the French feminists as we believe they provide insights into the creative writing process even though we acknowledge that some of the charges of essentialism make some of their work problematic. The new theoretical frameworks suggest useful critical positions from which to analyze issues of gender and creative writing.

Please e-mail comments or additions to shubbard@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu or stygall@u.washington.edu.