Writing Creatively-Critically

My recent work on the concept of transglossic storytelling focuses on the idea that

there is an interconnected and cross-disciplinary body of contemporary work that is

addressing the crises of the contemporary moment. This work exists across

literature, film, art installation, game narrative, and television, drawing attention to the

ways in which storytelling remains embedded in how individuals and communities

create meaning.

If transglossic approaches cross such forms, then it seems important to ask how this

relates to the evolving discipline of critical writing. Often, we can see critical writing

as a means an end. Particularly if we are using such writing for the purposes of

documenting practice such as fine art or creative writing, critical writing becomes a

mode of description, where matters of style are rendered secondary to the

transmission of argument.

And yet critical writing is craft.

If we are truly to see transglossic perspectives as central to how stories are told,

then the stories we tell as critics cannot be somehow outside of this discourse, set

apart in a reified space which remains untouched by its emphases. The rise of

autotheoretical and autoethnographic criticism can be seen as a result of this

transglossic impetus – such writings privilege the same qualities of authorial

responsibility and productive empathy that are key tenets of transglossic storytelling.

If we combine this understanding with the notion of critical writing as craft, however,

then we may need to ask questions not only about the thematic qualities of critical

writing, but also its formal properties.

My own response to this has been to engage in writing which is increasingly formally

hybrid, sitting on a liminal boundary line between creative and critical practice. It is,

in transglossic terms, transformal in its operation. When asked to define this writing, I

struggle for the right terms – some of it is more definitely ‘academic’ and takes the

format of something close to what Peter Gizzi calls correspondences, a mosaic of

critical perspectives which I thread together through personal reflection. Other writing

is more poetic, more academic-lite perhaps, where the personal narrative is in the

foreground, and the critical references are hauntings that only at certain moments

make themselves visible. What determines this balance are decisions about

meaning and audience, asking questions of rhythm, space, and voice that are not

only about who the work speaks to, but also what it does – what emotional impact it

strives for, and how I want it to achieve its message. In this respect, craft is at its

very forefront. The critical can only be realised through its creative emergence.

This idea of the creative-critical is of course not new – Stephen Benson and Clare

Connors’ collection Creative Criticism, for example, showcases a wide range of

approaches to this kind of critical craft. There is innovation abound in its pages, and yet it would also be true to say that much of the work only strays marginally from what we might recognise as conventional criticism. This tentative exploration says

much about the conditions in which criticism is produced – scholars are

understandably wary of producing work which may fall short of conventional

disciplinary expectations, particularly in the context of research excellent

assessments which are defined by dominant modes of knowledge production.

There are powerful works emerging through independent presses, such as Daisy

Lafarge’s Lovebug (Peninsula Press) and Timothy Baker’s Reading my Mother Back

(Goldsmiths Press), which inspire me to think that despite these barriers we are in an

exciting moment for the craft of critical writing, if we can be brave enough to take the

intellectual and professional risks such work entails. Works such as Katherine

Angel’s Unmastered: a Book on Desire Most Difficult to Tell, which was published by

the Penguin imprint Allen Lane, illustrate that daring creative-critical work can also

be published by mainstream presses, and that a crossover market need not come at

the expense of intellectual rigor. If academics can embrace these possibilities, then

we have the opportunity to speak more directly to a wider range of audiences, and to

embolden and refresh our critical voices as part of, rather than distinct from,

transglossic narratives.