Transferable skills and travelling theory in creative writing pedagogy

A focus on skills that can be transferred and theory that can travel is shared by Creative Writing Studies (C.W.S) and a larger Writing Studies domain. I situate the Writing Studies reform movement, of which C.W.S is a part, as a response to 'the permanent crisis of English studies'. The language of creative narrative gives C.W.S its legitimating foundation, I argue. By continuing to speak the language of creativity and resisting the 'erotics of theory', the emergent field can retail skills that can travel across and beyond academic disciplines. This essay draws on three years of utilising creative writing pedagogies in Puerto Rico. I sketch the emergence of C.W.S (2009-2017) as one version of the disciplined interdisciplinarity' which is characteristic of Writing Studies. I describe a self-characterisation assignment I have implemented in several writing studies courses. Within the context of the growing importance of non-academic genres, and recognition that creativity is an asset in all fields, I suggest that C.W.S is well situated to help Writing Studies fill a void produced by the crisis of English Studies.