Reading literature and writerly self-consciousness: personal reflections on reading and teaching creative writing

The importance of reading to writing has often been asserted and it is generally agreed that providing Creative Writing students with opportunities to read literature, including ‘classic’ texts, plays an important role in teaching Creative Writing. Selfconsciously ‘literary’ texts can be particularly useful in highlighting how such texts have been made. Yet the amount of reading that can be offered during Creative
Writing courses is limited and many Creative Writing students have not read widely. As a result, many students have a limited range of models for their creative work, which is often relatively unambitious. Combining Literary Studies and Creative Writing courses and course practices and, in doing so, encouraging students to write as readers and read as writers is one way to improve the teaching of Creative
Writing and Literary Studies in Australian universities.