New Reading and Writing

The migration of readership from the paper page to the e-page forces teachers of writing to address major changes in publishing and the kinds of outputs writing students produce. Stephanie Vanderslice notes that with Web 2.0 ‘the terrain shifted’ for creative writing teachers. She admits that, like many teachers, she was tempted ‘to hide from this new technology’ (Vanderslice, 2013: 138). Graeme Harper observes ‘the impact of contemporary digital technologies’ on writing and publishing, especially how – using the internet – writers now publish and distribute their own work (cutting out traditional publishers) and talk directly with their audiences. Harper suggests that the ‘role universities play in supporting and developing creative writing needs to be considered in light of this 21st century evolution’ (Harper, 2012: 22).

While forward-thinking individual academics notice the changes and ask questions about them, university creative writing programmes have been slow to reflect, or even recognize, this evolution. Clark et al. (2015) observe that, despite the surge in creative writing studies generally since 2000, ‘very few works deal with the profound impact digital technology has on our discipline’:

Discourse at departmental levels has largely avoided questions like: ‘With the prospect of paper publishing becoming a thing of the past, what writing processes should we teach?