Productive Creative Writers’ Relationships: A Communities-of-Practice Framework

Abstract

The notion of a ‘community of practice’ offers fruitful ways to frame and assess literary activities for the producers of literature, creative writers. Referring to Woody Allen's film Midnight in Paris (2011), the experiences of two Australian writers and the Australian Seven Writers’ community of practice, we discuss gaps that our research approach aims to fill through investigating the significance of specific writers’ literary relationships in developing their creative writing skills and work. Framing such relationships as professional ‘communities of practice’, we argue that studying the functions of contemporary writers’ relationships as working environments has the potential to inform both creative writing learning and arts policy-making. As such, advocating for a community-of-practice conceptual framework is the main aim.