Do You Really Have to Know the Rules to Break Them? On teaching creative writing to injured servicepeople

Hans-Georg Gadamer says that we do not ‘conduct’ a conversation. It is rather that each speaker’s concern to establish some sort of common ground creates a directionality beyond the individual will of either: ‘the partners conducting are far less the leaders of it than the led’(2004: 383). Our paper concerns the methods we have explored in “conducting” month-long creative writing intensives for injured servicepeople. The cultural differences between us and the participants provides one driver to the sort of dynamic Gadamer identifies. But so does the fact that we team teach, bringing different strategies into the room. In two voices, the article attempts to bring some of those dialogics to the space of reporting as well. It concerns rules for writing, and considers whether there are any.