The UK's Great Writing international Creative Writing conference is a place to share creative and critical work, to explore Creative Writing, and to discuss those explorations with Creative Writing colleagues from around the world. Launched almost 15 years ago, each year the conference welcomes creative writers from all over the world -- many of whom work in universities and colleges, or are undertaking graduate degrees in Creative Writing.
Each year the conference is the home to some truly magnificent presentations - some by creative writers who have given many presentations, some by creative writers who are giving their very first presentations! Great Writing is always a friendly, open conference where the focus is entirely Creative Writing and the many ways we can undertake it and understand it. If you think you might enjoy exploring and discussing Creative Writing with others, over a lively two days in the British summer, then why not come along? The cost of attending is always very reasonable, the people you'll meet could well be fabulous (the folks at Great Writing often are!), and the creative and critical work you'll encounter is likely to stimulate your own ideas, your own Creative Writing.
Great Writing has also built distinctively on the growing worldwide interest in Creative Writing research, with conference presenters exchanging new findings and new ideas about the undertaking and understanding of Creative Writing - particularly in the area of practice-led Creative Writing research. Some of the results of this research (both creative results and critical results) you will find published in New Writing: the International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing (Routledge/Taylor and Francis), an independent Creative Writing journal. The Great Writing conference hosts the annual New Writing International Creative Writing Lecture, a celebration of Creative Writing and our keen human interest in it. I very much look forward to seeing you at the Great Writing conference - where you will be warmly welcomed!
Professor Graeme Harper
Founder/Director, Great Writing: the International Creative Writing Conference (UK)
** Accepted Presenters/Panelists & General Attendees for 2012 can register here.**
Registration
1. You can register and pay for your attendance at the 2012 Great Writing Conference, 15th Anniversary Conference, above.
2. You can pay via Paypal or Credit/Debit Card - if paying by Credit/Debit when you Click on "Add to Cart" it will take you to the Paypal site, and give you the option of paying by card instead. For card payments see the right side of screen, at the bottom, under "Don't have a Paypal Account: Pay with Debit or Credit card". Paypal folks can also pay via conference@greatwriting.org.uk if you'd prefer. (we are charged a c. £5.00 fee on some payments, mostly those from credit cards, and there appears to be nothing we can do to avoid this beastie; but we wish to offer the card option to you if do you need to use it, so we pay it).
3. The cost of the full 2012 conference - that is, registration, attendance, conference pack, lunches, coffee/teas, is being kept at the same rate in 2012 as it was back in 2011: £130. We are able to keep costs down thanks to the volunteers who assist, free of charge, throughout the year. Thanks to them, and to you for paying in good time: this assists greatly and ensures we can continue. We only aim to break even, each year; if we can, we can keep going. Simple enough (well, kind of simple). ;-)
4. Please remember to include your Name when paying - and a contact email is always useful via conference@greatwriting.org.uk, though it is likely we have that already, with thanks..
5. Accommodation is available in the area of Imperial College, London; or, if you look wider afield, easily within one or two tube station stops. Costs vary, and you can shop around very well. Imperial College conference colleagues also provide a very useful local list, and they can be contacted at: conferenceandevents@imperial.ac.uk Don't forget to mention you are attending Great Writing 2012 at Imperial, June 16-17th 2012.
6. If you have any special dietary requirements we will do our best to assist. Please contact Louise Harper at louise@greatwriting.org.uk - *Please give Louise some notice, otherwise it gets a little tough to assist. 2 weeks notice is fine; 4-6 weeks is even more fabulous. ;-) With thanks.
THE SECOND 2012 CALL FOR PAPERS IS CURRENTLY OPEN - CLOSING DATE 16 MARCH - BELOW:
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****Call for Papers****
Great Writing 2012
The 15th Anniversary Great Writing International
Creative Writing Conference
Imperial College London
Saturday June 16th - Sunday June 17th 2012
Critical or creative presentations are invited for the 15th Anniversary Great Writing International Creative Writing Conference, 16th – 17th June 2012.
To be held at one of the UK's great universities and great locations: Imperial College London, South Kensington, a cultural centre for the arts, sciences, music and museums, close to Royal Albert Hall and right next to the wonderful Natural History Museum.
All creative or critical papers are welcome. In this Anniversary year, conference themes and subjects are wide open, and all proposals are welcome - whether you are new in the field or of long-standing. Onward!
More details on the conference can be found at: www.greatwriting.org.uk
Single presentations: 20 minutes, 10 minutes questions.
3 person panels: 90 minutes in total.
Send proposals* to:
conference@greatwriting.org.uk
* Proposals are 150 word abstracts re: your proposed presentation (abstracts are included in the annual conference booklet)
Closing Date for Submissions: 16 March 2012
Early submission is encouraged.
For queries contact Professor Graeme Harper, Conference Director:
graeme@greatwriting.org.uk
or for general enquiries contact:
conference@greatwriting.org.uk
We look forward to seeing you at Great Writing 2012!
Great Writing began in the late 1990s with a small number of keynote presentations, and a single panel made up of those keynote presenters. The participants at that first conference were involved in discussions with the presenters, and amongst themselves, they expressed ideas, talked about things that might be further explored - but the event was otherwise somewhat singular in direction! That is: a few people talked, most people listened.
By the second year of the conference things had changed: now there would be multiple panels, made up of three individual presenters per panel - each person would have 30 minutes in total to offer something, with the suggested format being 20 minutes for a presentation, 10 minutes for questions. (Writers could propose a single 20/10 presentation, or three presenters could get together to offer a full 90 minute panel)
This format proved extremely popular. As did the change of date - where as the January date of the inaugural conference meant cold (and not to put too fine a point on it) wet weather, the summer dates of the second conference promised not only a lively gathering but a warm one as well!
That proved to be the case: and the conference is now always in June or July of each year. The audience too began to widen, from its second year - more international presenters traveled to the UK to be at the second conference. This has become a Great Writing tradition. It seems the idea of meeting each year, in summer, in the UK, to explore Creative Writing - and to consider how it is being taught and researched - was always going to be popular. But there was still one more development to make the Great Writing conference programme really work!
Up until the fifth year of the conference, Great Writing only had critical presentations - that is, up until its fifth year the conference was home to presentations concerned primarily with critical approaches to written works, with the pedagogies of Creative Writing teaching, and with ideas about Creative Writing and other Humanities subjects. The only creative presentations up until then were those that happened as keynote readings or in an impromptu fashion in the evenings of the conference. In the fifth year, that all changed:
From year five, Great Writing became an international platform for both critical and creative presentations!
The logic of doing this hadn't gone unnoticed - after all, Creative Writing is about creative work, and study (and research) in Creative Writing always has creative work at its core. It made no sense not to be offering the opportunity for creative writers to present their creative works - sometimes presentations at Great Writing now incorporate both creative and critical work!
Today Great Writing: the International Creative Writing Conference (UK) offers the opportunity to present either critical or creative work, to socialise with fellow creative writers from around the world, to discuss, debate and explore topics and findings in Creative Writing research (whether faculty or student research), to establish new collaborations and renew established ones, to discuss the teaching and learning of Creative Writing in universities and colleges (or, indeed, in the wider community), and to celebrate the considerable human interest in Creative Writing as an art form, a form of communication, an exchange between people, and as a site of human endeavour.
The Timetable for the Year:
- A Call for Papers usually goes out around August of the preceding year.
- Calls for Papers remain open until there are no spaces left at the conference
- The Final Programme is constructed around May, in the year of conference (ie. between 4-8 weeks before the conference).
- Great Writing occurs in the UK each year in either June or July.
- The New Writing: International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing welcomes submissions developed from presentations at Great Writing - papers accepted are usually published within 12 months.
Great Writing 2012:
Graeme – as Conference Director, you can indeed contact me on any of the various
aspects of the conference, prior or during: conference@greatwriting.org.uk That said, there is usually someone other than me who knows more about specific elements (eg. catering, directions, the final schedule) . A full list of contacts is published here, well in advance of the conference dates.
And 2012 Conference Team:
Simon - Simon will again be assisting on invoicing, and general logistics. Thanks to him, and you can contact him on 2012@greatwriting.org.uk
Vaughan - Vaughan is the first of the formal Great Writing conference interns. Vaughan will be assisting with set up and transport elements. You can contact Vaughan at conference@greatwriting.org.uk
Louise - Louise assists with catering and menus, as well as with general set-up. Louise can be contacted at louise@greatwriting.org.uk
Bronwen - who wonderfully assisted at Great Writing 2011 is back for 2012. Thanks to her. She'll also be on hand during the conference.
Over all, the conference general email is: 2012@greatwriting.org.uk while conference@greatwriting.org.uk provides an additional contact point.