Articulate walls: writer’s block and the academic creative

In the study of creative writing as an academic discipline, much attention has been paid to pedagogy, often in reaction/opposition to the question ‘Can creative writing be taught?’ What of the creative practitioners who are working in an interzone between nurturing their students’ writing and maintaining creative output of their own? Institutional ‘publish or perish’ demands have not yet aligned themselves with the shifting realities of the creative marketplace, the changes in the publishing industry, and the mental fatigue of analysing student work. In this scenario, the creative who is also an academic (or the academic who is also a creative) may find that his or her practice is paralysingly out of sync with the syllabus; and teaching from a state of creative depletion may engender a cascade of self-doubt. This paper will look at the process by which these practitioners attempt to navigate this zone of creative disconnect.