Creative Writing
This guide is intended to support students doing research for creative projects, particularly creative writers.
Reading in the IMU
Kent, Frederick W. (Frederick Wallace). Students Reading in Iowa Memorial Union, University of Iowa, 1932. https://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/node/143523. Accessed 11 Aug. 2025.
Introduction
The books listed on this page can help guide you in your research process related to your specific creative writing project and offer information and guidance on creative writing more broadly. Review the whole list, or use the index on the left side of the page to jump to the section most relevant to your interests.
All call numbers refer to physical books in the University of Iowa Main Library. Most books about writing are located on the 4th floor. For more information on finding books by call number, visit our FAQ.
Click the i icon next to the title and author to see a synopsis of the book. Click the title of each book to see the catalog record, where you can read more information about the book, access the ebook (where available), or place a hold on the physical copy (where available).
Books on Writing
The following titles are a few suggestions from our collection. For more titles, browse the stacks near these call numbers or try the following subject headings:
Authorship
Authorship -- Handbooks, manuals, etc
Creative ability -- Research
Creative writing
-
Associations: Creative Practice and Research
by
Associations is a collection of essays and reflections on creative practice and research. It presents some contemporary accounts and reflections on doing research for, through and with creative practices, particularly in the higher education sector. The overview of the book includes art and design and other creative practices-as-research intersections and will be particularly interesting to postgraduate researchers and emerging researchers. It is not a methods text, but it is oriented towards methodological thinking and the social and structural situations of creative practice and research. Contributors include- Gene Bawden; Barbara Bolt; Danny Butt; Tania Canas; Aaron Corn; Anne Douglas; Mick Douglas; Leuli Eshraghi; Ross Gibson; Lisa Grocott; Anna Hickey-Moody; Lucas Ihlein; Lyndal Jones; Hannah Korsmeyer; Julienne van Loon; Lachlan MacDowall; Brian Martin; James Oliver; Kate Pahl; Sarah Pink; Steve Pool; Amanda Ravetz; Ricardo Sosa; Naomi Stead; John Vella; Jessica Wilkinson
Call Number: BF408 .A87 2018ISBN: 9780522869989Publication Date: 2018-04-02 -
A Companion to Creative Writing
by
A Companion to Creative Writing is a comprehensive collection covering myriad aspects of the practice and profession of creative writing in the contemporary world. The book features contributions from an international cast of creative writers, publishers and editors, critics, translators, literary prize judges, and many other top professionals. Chapters not only consider the practice of creative writing in terms of how it is "done," but also in terms of what occurs in and around creative writing practice. Chapters address a wide range of topics including the writing of poetry and fiction; playwriting and screenwriting; writing for digital media; editing; creative writing and its engagement with language, spirituality, politics, education, and heritage. Other chapters explore the role of literary critics and ideas around authorship, as well as translation and creative writing, the teaching of creative writing, and the histories and character of the marketplace, prizes, awards, and literary events. With its unprecedented breadth of coverage, A Companion to Creative Writing is an indispensable resource for those who are undertaking creative writing, studying creative writing at any level, or considering studying creative writing.
Call Number: ebook, access using linkISBN: 9781118325773Publication Date: 2013-03-18 -
Creative Manoeuvres: Writing, Making, Being
by
Creative Manoeuvres is a collection of new writings on a topic of enduring interest: the role of creative practice in the formation of knowledge. The contributors to this collection are primarily creative writers, working in poetry, fiction, nonfiction and ethnography. Many include the visual or performing arts within their practice; and all are academics as well as creative writers. Their chapters move the study of creative writing beyond subjective accounts of 'how I write' towards broader issues of how knowledge is addressed by, or incorporated into, or embodied in, art. Each chapter also does double duty as a case study on approaches to creative and research work, both describing and critically exploring the strategies, or 'creative manoeuvres', these writers have adopted to advance their practice in both creative and critical domains. In this way, the book not only exemplifies moves in the contemporary academy to understand better the value creative practice can offer to the university, but also provides a rich and engaging set of narratives about ways of being, ways of making and ways of coming to know. In both practical and theoretical modes, it contributes to the ongoing questions about creativity and/versus scholarship that have been debated over recent decades.
Call Number: ebook, access using linkISBN: 9781443864640Publication Date: 2014-01-01 -
Researching Creative Writing
by
Jen Webb is Distinguished Professor, Creative Practice, at the University of Canberra. Her research focuses on the politics and social location of art, and on the process and practice of creative writing. Her creative work includes the poetry collection, Proverbs from Sierre Leone (2004, Five Islands Press) and the short story collection, Ways of Getting By (2006, Ginninderra Press).
Call Number: ebook, access using linkISBN: 9781907076350Publication Date: 2015-07-01 -
The Science of Writing Characters: Using Psychology to Create Compelling Fictional Characters
by
The Science of Writing Characters is a comprehensive handbook to help writers create compelling and psychologically-credible characters that come to life on the page. Drawing on the latest psychological theory and research, ranging from personality theory to evolutionary science, the book equips screenwriters and novelists with all the techniques they need to build complex, dimensional characters from the bottom up. Writers learn how to create rounded characters using the 'Big Five' dimensions of personality and then are shown how these personality traits shape action, relationships and dialogue. Throughout The Science of Writing Characters, psychological theories and research are translated into handy practical tips, which are illustrated through examples of characters in action in well-known films, television series and novels, ranging from Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri and Game of Thrones to The Bonfire of the Vanities and The Goldfinch. This very practical approach makes the book an engaging and accessible companion guide for all writers who want to better understand how they can make memorable characters with the potential for global appeal.
Call Number: ebook, access using linkISBN: 9781501357237Publication Date: 2020 -
The Art of Creative Research
by
All writers conduct research. For some this means poring over records and combing, archives but for many creative writers research happens in the everyday world--when they scribble an observation on the subway, when they travel to get the feel for a city, or when they strike up a conversation with an interesting stranger. The Art of Creative Research helps writers take this natural inclination to explore and observe and turn it into a workable--and enjoyable--research plan. It shows that research shouldn't be seen as a dry, plodding aspect of writing. Instead, it's an art that all writers can master, one that unearths surprises and fuels imagination. This lends authenticity to fiction and poetry as well as nonfiction. Philip Gerard distills the process into fundamental questions: How do you conduct research? And what can you do with the information you gather? He covers both in-person research and work in archives and illustrates how the different types of research can be incorporated into stories, poems, and essays using examples from a wide range of writers in addition to those from his own projects. Throughout, Gerard brings knowledge from his seasoned background into play, drawing on his experiences as a reporter and a writer of both fiction and nonfiction. His enthusiasm for adventure is infectious and will inspire writers to step away from the keyboard and into the world. "Research can take you to that golden intersection where the personal meets the public, the private crosses the universal, where the best literature lives," Gerard writes. With his masterly guidance, anyone can become an expert in artful investigation.
Call Number: PN146 .G47 2017ISBN: 9780226179773Publication Date: 2017-02-23 -
Research Methods in Creative Writing
by
A guide to the modes and methods of Creative Writing research, designed to be invaluable to university staff and students in formulating research ideas, and in selecting appropriate strategies. Creative writing researchers from around the globe offer a selection of models that readers can explore and on which they can build.
Call Number: PN146 .R47 2013ISBN: 9780230242661Publication Date: 2012-12-07 -
The Cambridge Companion to Creative Writing
by
Creative writing has become a highly professionalised academic discipline, with popular courses and prestigious degree programmes worldwide. This book is a must for all students and teachers of creative writing, indeed for anyone who aspires to be a published writer. It engages with a complex art in an accessible manner, addressing concepts important to the rapidly growing field of creative writing, while maintaining a strong craft emphasis, analysing exemplary models of writing and providing related writing exercises. Written by professional writers and teachers of writing, the chapters deal with specific genres or forms - ranging from the novel to new media - or with significant topics that explore the cutting edge state of creative writing internationally (including creative writing and science, contemporary publishing and new workshop approaches).
Call Number: PN189 .C26 2012ISBN: 9780521768498Publication Date: 2012-02-02
Creative Nonfiction
The following titles are a few suggestions from our collection. For more titles, browse the stacks near these call numbers or try the following subject headings:
Creative Nonfiction -- Authorship
Essay -- Authorship
Prose Literature -- Authorship
-
Blurring the Boundaries : Explorations to the Fringes of Nonfiction
by
Contemporary discussions on nonfiction are often riddled with questions about the boundaries between truth and memory, honesty and artifice, facts and lies. Just how much truth is in nonfiction? How much is a lie? Blurring the Boundaries sets out to answer such questions while simultaneously exploring the limits of the form. This collection features twenty genre-bending essays from today's most renowned teachers and writers--including original work from Michael Martone, Marcia Aldrich, Dinty W. Moore, Lia Purpura, and Robin Hemley, among others. These essays experiment with structure, style, and subject matter, and each is accompanied by the writer's personal reflection on the work itself, illuminating his or her struggles along the way. As these innovative writers stretch the limits of genre, they take us with them, offering readers a front-row seat to an ever-evolving form. Readers also receive a practical approach to craft thanks to the unique writing exercises provided by the writers themselves. Part groundbreaking nonfiction collection, part writing reference, Blurring the Boundaries serves as the ideal book for literary lovers and practitioners of the craft.
Call Number: ebook, access using linkISBN: 9781496210128Publication Date: 2019-05-08 -
Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction
by
Demonstrating the range of creative nonfiction from memoir to travel writing to the lyric essay, Tell It Slant combines practical guidance with an illustrative anthology of 34 essays from Margaret Atwood, David Sedaris, E.B. White, Virginia Woolf, and others. The result is a stimulating collection of writing and activities that makes it easy and enjoyable for students to begin to write and to try new modes of writing.
Call Number: PE1408 .M548 2004ISBN: 9780072512786Publication Date: 2003-08-01 -
To Show and to Tell : The Craft of Literary Nonfiction
by
A long-awaited and illuminating book on personal writing from Phillip Lopate--celebrated essayist, professor of writing at Columbia University, and editor of The Art of the Personal Essay. Distinguished author Phillip Lopate, editor of the celebrated anthology The Art of the Personal Essay, is universally acclaimed as "one of our best personal essayists" (Dallas Morning News). Here, combining more than forty years of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, he brings us this highly anticipated nuts-and-bolts guide to writing literary nonfiction. A phenomenal master class shaped by Lopate's informative, accessible tone and immense gift for storytelling, To Show and To Tell reads like a long walk with a favorite professor--refreshing, insightful, and encouraging in often unexpected ways.
Call Number: PN145 .L67 2013ISBN: 9781451696325Publication Date: 2013-02-12
Fiction
The following titles are a few suggestions from our collection. For more titles, browse the stacks near these call numbers or try the following subject headings:
Authorship
Fiction -- Authorship
-
Writing Historical Fiction: A Writers' and Artists' Companion
by
Writing Historical Fiction: A Writers' & Artists' Companion is an invaluable companion for a writer working in this challenging and popular literary genre, whether your period is Ancient Rome or World War II. PART 1 includes reflections on the genre and provides a short history of historical fiction. PART 2 contains guest contributions from Margaret Atwood, Ian Beck, Madison Smartt Bell, Ronan Bennett, Vanora Bennett, Tracy Chevalier, Lindsay Clarke, Elizabeth Cook, Anne Doughty, Sarah Dunant, Michel Faber, Margaret George, Philippa Gregory, Katharine McMahon, Valerio Massimo Manfredi, Hilary Mantel, Alan Massie, Ian Mortimer, Kate Mosse, Charles Palliser, Orhan Pamuk, Edward Rutherfurd, Manda Scott, Adam Thorpe, Stella Tillyard, Rose Tremain, Alison Weir and Louisa Young. PART 3 offers practical exercises and advice on such topics as research, plots and characters, mastering authentic but accessible dialogue and navigating the world of agents and publishers.
Call Number: ebook, access using linkISBN: 1780935773Publication Date: 2013-12-05 -
Novel Writing: A Writers' and Artists' Companion
by
Packed with tips from bestselling and prize-winning authors, Novel Writing: A Writers' and Artists' Companion will give you all the practical advice you need to write and publish your novel. PART 1 provides an introduction to the forms and history of the novel and helps you plan and research your masterpiece, develop characters and compelling narratives and your own authorial voice. PART 2 contains guest contributions from Philip Pullman, Louise Doughty, Glenn Patterson, Jeanette Winterson, Jonathan Franzen, Stevie Davies, Doris Lessing, Tash Aw, Elif Shafak, Anne Enright, Tim Pears, Anita Desai, Tim Lott, Amit Chaudhuri, Andrea Levy, Alan Hollinghurst, Bernardo Atxaga, Hanan Al-Shaykh, Michèle Roberts, Joan Brady, Lynn Freed, Evelyn Toynton as well as a number of the 2013 list of the Best of Young British Novelists including Kamila Shamsie, Tamima Anam, Naomi Alderman, Ned Beauman, Jenni Fagan and Joanna Kavenna. PART 3 offers practical advice on collaborative writing, overcoming writer's block, editing and rewriting and finding an agent and a publisher for your work. Written by two multi-award winning authors, this is a comprehensive manual for established and aspiring novelists alike.
Call Number: ebook, access using linkISBN: 1780937881Publication Date: 2015-01-29 -
The Hidden Machinery: Essays on Writing
by
A masterclass for thosewho love reading literature and for those who aspire to write it. "Read everything that is good for the good of your soul. Then learn to read as a writer, to search out that hidden machinery, which it is the business of art to conceal and the business of the apprentice to comprehend." In The Hidden Machinery, critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling author Margot Livesey offers a masterclass for those who love reading literature and for those who aspire to write it. Through close readings, arguments about craft, and personal essay, Livesey delves into the inner workings of fiction and considers how our stories and novels benefit from paying close attention to both great works of literature and to our own individual experiences. Her essays range in subject matter from navigating the shoals of research to creating characters that walk off the page, from how Flaubert came to write his first novel to how Jane Austen subverted romance in her last one. As much at home on your nightstand as it is in the classroom, The Hidden Machinery will become a book readers and writers return to over and over again.
Call Number: PN3355 .L563 2017ISBN: 9781941040683Publication Date: 2017-07-04 -
History and Fiction: Writers, Their Research, Worlds and Stories
by
Fiction plays a vital role in describing history and transmitting culture. How writers understand and use history can play an equally important role in how they navigate a novel. This book explores the nature of the author's relationship with history and fiction - often using writers' own words - as well as the role history plays in fiction. Focusing on genre fiction, this study considers key issues in the relationship between history and fiction, such as how writers contextualise the history they use in their fiction and how they incorporate historical research. The book also addresses the related topic of world building using history, discussing the connections between the science fiction writers' notion of world building and the scholarly understanding of story space and explaining the mechanics of constructing the world of the novel. This book places the writing of fiction into a wider framework of history and writing and encourages dialogue between writers and historians.
Call Number: PN3377.5.H57 P65 2020ISBN: 9781800790889Publication Date: 2020-10-30
Playwriting
The following titles are a few suggestions from our collection. For more titles, browse the stacks near these call numbers or try the following subject headings:
Drama -- Technique
Playwriting
-
Decentered playwriting: alternative techniques for the stage
by
Decentered Playwriting investigates new and alternative strategies for dramatic writing that incorporate non-Western, Indigenous, and underrepresented storytelling techniques and traditions while deepening a creative practice that decenters hegemonic methods.
A collection of short essays and exercises by leading teaching artists, playwrights, and academics in the fields of playwriting and dramaturgy, this book focuses on reimagining pedagogical techniques by introducing playwrights to new storytelling methods, traditions, and ways of studying, and teaching diverse narratological practices.
This is a vital and invaluable book for anyone teaching or studying playwriting, dramatic structure, storytelling at advanced undergraduate and graduate levels, or as part of their own professional practice.
Call Number: ebook, access using linkISBN: 9781003813880Publication Date: 2024 -
21st Century Playwriting : A Manual of Contemporary Techniques by This book is the most detailed analysis of contemporary playwriting techniques ever published. A decade in the making, "21st Century Playwriting" examines the contemporary theatre scene and the skills and writing techniques needed to succeed as a modern playwright. No other book goes into such depth and detail on areas like dramatic structure, story-shaping, characterization and the contemporary language techniques used in modern playwriting. Written by a multi-award winning playwright with many national and international production credits, the book offers many useful writing tips, as well as an understanding on how radically theatre has changed in the 21st century.Call Number: PN1661 .D35 2019ISBN: 1575259222Publication Date: 2019-03-11
-
Playwrights Teach Playwriting 2 by "Playwrights Teach Playwriting 2", created by some of the most well-respected playwrights of our time , is an extraordinary guide to writing plays and teaching playwriting. Framed with a foreword by Mac Wellman that lauds the value of the diversity contained in this book, and a concluding chapter that highlights key insights from the individual chapters, "Playwrights Teach Playwriting 2" provides a powerful tool to writers at all stages of their careers for writing a play and also offers effective approaches to teaching the craft.Call Number: PN1661 .P52 2018ISBN: 9781575259192Publication Date: 2018-05-21
Poetry
The following titles are a few suggestions from our collection. For more titles, browse the stacks near these call numbers or try the following subject headings:
English language -- Versification
Poetics
Poetry -- Authorship
-
Compendium
by
Justice's insights serve as a sort of de facto taxonomy, an organically designed system that he uses to present his lecture on each respective aspect of the evolution of poetic form. There is no formal thesis here, but rather a kind of scrapbook that has a broader motive. The material possesses no hidden secrets; the treasures lie in plain sight and simply need be discerned to open the artist's mind to their possibilities.
Call Number: PE1505 .J85 2017ISBN: 9781632430328Publication Date: 2017-02-07 -
A Little Book on Form: An Exploration into the Formal Imagination of Poetry
by
From the former U.S. Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winner, an illuminating dissection of poetic form, traditional and modern, for students, enthusiasts, and newcomers alike In addition to his magisterial poetry, Robert Hass is beloved for his incisive, meditative criticism. A Little Book on Form takes up the central contradiction between poetry as genre and the poetics of the imagination. A wealth of vocabulary exists with which to talk about, map, and explain poetry in rigorous formal terms. But the more intuitive, creative aspects of a poet's work and processes are more elusive: if the most interesting parts of form are those expressive, essential gestures inside it, how can we come to a better understanding of form as passion, as art? A Little Book on Form brilliantly synthesizes Hass's formidable gifts as both a poet and a critic. In suggestive, informal "notes," Hass breaks the idea of a poem down to its barest building blocks, from the one line haiku to the villanelle and sonnet. His approach singularly employs postmodern perspectives on shape, thought, feeling, content, and movement, calling on Catullus and Allen Ginsberg, Issa and Czeslaw Milosz. Begun as a project for students of poetry, A Little Book is anything but--Hass investigates the ancient roots of the poetic impulse, taking a wide-ranging look at the most intense experience of human thought and feeling in language. A Little Book on Form is a rousing reexamination of our most enduring mode of literature from one of our greatest living poets, who "writes prose every bit as zestful, penetrating, and sure-footed as his poetry" (Booklist).
Call Number: PN1059.A9 H37 2017ISBN: 9780062332424Publication Date: 2017-04-04 -
Letters to a Young Poet
by
These have been called the most famous and beloved letters of the 20th century. Rainer Maria Rilke himself said that much of his creative expression went into his correspondence, and here he touches upon subjects that will interest writers, artists, and thinkers. Letters to a Young Poet is a classic that should be read by everyone who dreams of expressing themselves creatively. This luminous translation offers inspiration to all people who seek to know and express their inner truth. This edition features a new foreword by Kent Nerburn, author of Small Graces and Letters to My Son.
Call Number: PT2635.I65 Z49513 2000ISBN: 9781577311553Publication Date: 2000-03-07
Screenwriting
The following titles are a few suggestions from our collection. For more titles, browse the stacks near these call numbers or try the following subject headings:
Motion picture authorship
Screenwriting
-
Scenewriting : the missing manual for screenwriters
by
"You've got an idea for the next great screenplay. Maybe you're just getting started or perhaps you've spent time with other screenwriting books, and you have your hero's journey, plot twists, reversals, and cat-saving scenes all worked out. Either way, what stands between you and an outstanding finished screenplay are the blank pages that you must fill with cinematic life, energy, conflict, and emotion. So how on Earth do you do that? The secret is scenewriting . This thorough and effective guide will help the beginner and the professional master the most critical and overlooked part of the screenwriting process: the art and craft of writing scenes. With step-by-step instruction, and numerous exercises, you will learn how to transform an outline into a fully-developed script. Learn how to prepare scenes for writing, construct sparkling, naturalistic dialogue, utilize scene description and the unique structure of the screenplay format to maximum advantage, and polish your scenes so that your idea becomes the script you always imagined it could be. Through scenewriting, great ideas become brilliant scripts."-- Provided by publisher.
Call Number: ebook, access using linkISBN: 9781501352164Publication Date: 2021 -
Screen Production Research: Creative Practice as a Mode of Enquiry
by
Aimed at students and educators across all levels of higher education, this agenda-setting book defines what screen production research is and looks like—and by doing so celebrates creative practice as an important pursuit in the contemporary academic landscape. Drawing on the work of international experts as well as case studies from a range of forms and genres—including screenwriting, fiction filmmaking, documentary production and mobile media practice—the book is an essential guide for those interested in the rich relationship between theory and practice. It provides theories, models, tools and best practice examples that students and researchers can follow and expand upon in their own screen production projects.
Call Number: PN1995.9.P7 S37 2018 or ebookISBN: 9783319628370Publication Date: 2017 -
Screenwriting from the Inside Out: Think and Write Like a Creative
by
This book provides aspiring screenwriters with a practical and informed way to learn how to think and write like a "creative". It stands apart from, yet complements, other screenwriting "how to" books by connecting the transdisciplinary academic fields of screenwriting, film studies and cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Using a stepped approach, it shows the writer how to understand that how we think, shapes what we write, so that we may write better.
Call Number: PN1996 .M38 2023 or ebookISBN: 9783031405198Publication Date: 2023-12-13
