Inspired by the programme of Deepening Creative Practice, of which I was a pioneering participant in 2020-2021, I’ve designed a spinn-off of my workshop Creative Writing for Academics. In this workshop Writing with the Poetic Lens, I invite all professionals to use the poetic lens to re-encounter your work through writing, while paying attention to embodied, sensory knowledge.
In poetry, everything is allowed: play is at the forefront, as well as getting into our senses. Exploring this playfulness as well as the sensory can be very helpful in finding new ways of writing about our work and practice, within our work, or in response to our work.
The workshop is designed for professionals who seek new ways of writing about their work and practice, within their work, or in response to their work.
Why this workshop
Rarely do we associate professional writing with creative writing techniques. And yet, the choices we make when we write have profound effects on the reality that we observe. Embracing creative writing techniques when writing about our work, within our work, or in response to our work, opens spaces of reflection, experimentation, and clarity.
What to expect
In this workshop series, participants are invited to let go of any kind of neutral language to make space and embrace polyphonies of all kinds, including the unconscious. All sessions are designed around sample texts and include on-the-spot writing exercises. There will be time for peer-review, as well as time to reflect on what it takes to make space for creativity within our professional work.
Programme per session
The first session on March 18 focuses on the times and spaces we work with, while paying attention to embodied, sensory knowledge.
The second session on April 15 focuses on defining the main characters driving the story of our work, and on staging conversations between them.
The third session on May 13 focuses on how to grasp the full narrative of our work, pausing on where it started, on its importance for ourselves and for the world, and on the transformations it generates.
All sessions can be attended separately or as a workshop series.
What you will gain
A toolbox of creative writing techniques that will expand your professional writing practice and modes of expressing and communicating your work.
A poetic exploration of your work while experimenting with creative writing techniques.
A peer community to support and provide safe critique as you develop your new writing practice.
I took away a personal insight – writing is for pleasure! It can be creative if one allows it to be. All of the exercises, writing, reading and interaction with the cohort helped with my personal analysis and thinking about what I really want to express when I write.
-Programme participant, 2024
Fees and Timings
All sessions will take place online via Zoom, from 13:00 – 16:30 UK time.
This workshop series is comprised of three sessions. It is possible to attend one, two or all three sessions.
The fee is £225 for one session, or £600 for the entire series of three sessions.
Applications made before Monday February 3rd 2025 will receive an early bird discount – one session at £200 or all three for £550.
Next steps
To join this workshop series please complete the online application form (click to access); payment details will be sent after application. If you have any questions please contact me or Meg Davies, Professional Development Manager at the Tavistock of Human Relations at: m.davies@tavinstitute.org
It was 2019 when I was asked to give a workshop on creative writing for PhD students at the University of Amsterdam. In retrospect, this was the start of the journey that has lead me to become a creative entrepreneur and to develop a series of workshops, such as Creative Writing for Academics and Storytelling for Grant Applicants.
This blogpost invites you on that journey, providing you with five tips to explore how to integrate creative writing into your academic work.
Curious about the foundation of this work? In my article Doing Academia Differently, I tell the story of what pushed me to explore creative writing as a tool in academic writing.
Creative writing is an effective tool to catch readers’ attention while grounding them into scenes. It is also a tool that helps develop a narrative even though you may think that your work is not a story—it is.
Academic authors who insert creative writing into their texts provide their readers with splashes of sensory experience. They draw their readers into the world that they researched; they take them by the hand, cracking the codes of conventions to help them enter some of the most obscure areas of our brain, of our bodies, and of our societies. Smells come to life; colours become pointers for grounding the reader into a scene; the light signals specific moments in time; shapes arise, taking the form of human and non-human characters.
With creative writing, an author is no longer only telling, but showing what their research led them to discover, and what that means for our understanding of the world. Creative writing endows a text with more space and more freedom for readers to appropriate it. A creative text doesn’t tell the reader how to read; it creates a setting from which subtexts emerge, there for the reader to immerse themselves in an experience.
Tip 1. Ground your
reader into a scene
A rule of thumb to get
your reader immersed in your material is to ground them into a scene, again and
again. A scene is like a zoomed-in photograph; it pauses on a specific moment
at a specific place, giving cues for the reader to experience that moment.
The broken white colour of the wall, the smell of coffee lingering around, the tic-tac-tic-tic-tac
of fingers pressing laptops keys, the moist eyes of the dog looking at you
while you write. Scenes transport the reader into another space and time.
A scene could be close to
you, a moment during the research process, such as when you open a dusty, classified
box in the archive; your first encounter with a respondent; your sensations
when arriving nearby the embassy hosting a political refugee. But a scene can
also be about something more distant. The setting of a speech, the atmosphere
of the parliament, the mood of a crowd, the frame of a report.
Not all your writing needs to be staged as a scene. But inserting a scene regularly will make the reader come with you along your research journey. If you lose them along the way, they’ll find you back at your old woden desk, by the window, or at the river side. Just allow them to be on your side, wherever you are.
Tip 2. Evoke all the
senses
Have you written your first scene already? Great! Now, check how many senses your scene evokes. The more senses, the stronger the scene becomes. Was the coffee bitter? Which noise came through? What kind of light shone on the walls? Was the room smelling of wooden floors, or was the building sweating with concrete off-gassing? Was the air crisp, thick, warm? Make your reader taste, hear, see, smell, and touch what you have been tasting, hearing, seeing, smelling and touching. Or even better: steer your reader’s experience by evoking those senses that will make them concentrate on the details you want them to see. Each sensory detail is a tool to attract their attention, paving the way for your theoretical and analytical claim to land naturally.
Tip 3. Keep the language
as simple as possible
Academic writers are
notorious for throwing expensive words at each corner of their sentences. Sometimes
those words have their purpose; they bring in nuances or technical details that
couldn’t be mentioned otherwise. Although they have qualities in common, metaphors
and metonymies are not the same, and identifying a synecdoche can at times be
helpful. But the most powerful texts remain those where jargon has been
replaced by everyday language.
Your best ideas will especially land if you can convert them into simple and elegant images.
Take Virginia Woolf’s credo for instance: “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” No one can claim not to understand her claim because of the language. And yet, her sentence shelters a powerful criticism of patriarchal societies, which has resonated worldwide for nearly 100 years.
Tip 4. Establish who
and what are the characters of your story
While scenes should be cornerstones of your writing on a micro level, your narrative will especially thrive if you establish a conversation between different characters throughout your entire piece. A character can be human: yourself as the researcher, a respondent, a historical figure; but it can also be a non-human actor: a building, a document, a plant, a concept, a theory.
To get you going, here is a list of question that may spark a beginning: how do your characters feel? Are they introvert, extravert, complacent, stubborn, conservative, expanding? How do they make you feel and why? What would you like to know about them that you don’t know yet (think wild, imagine they are human)? Is it easy to communicate with them, why, why not, what do they keep secret? From experience, I noticed that these questions are particularly generative when your charachter is a non-human one.
The point is to
establish dynamic relationships between the various characters in your work. As
Helen Sword suggests in her fantastic writing guide Stylish
Academic Writing, you may want to play around and copy classic plot
structures, such as the murder mystery plot where the researcher searches for
clues, follows a few hints, and applies their deductive power to solve the enigma.
Or such as the Pride and Prejudice structure, where two seemingly incompatible
concepts are brought into a single conceptual space, where they flirt, dance,
argue and laugh to the point that they will never leave each other ever again.
For more examples of possible plot structures, see Helen Sword’s chapter “The Story
Net.”
Characters and their relationships
will help you create focus into your writings; they will allow you to play
around with points of view; and they will help the reader experience the
different facets of your truth.
Tip 5. Work on the overall
plot of your piece
Every writer experience at some point a writer’s block. I remember working on the introduction of my book and feeling completely lost in the myriads of possibilities to tell why I wrote the history of denaturalization law in the first place. I was saved by applying a very simple exercise: what was the story of that book? What happened? Why? And where was this going next? Instead of writing full paragraphs in all their details, I wrote a two-page sketch of my introduction plot. This allowed me to visualize the structure of the narrative. The rest came naturally.
In the end, every writer
is a storyteller. Developing the overall arch of your story will help you find
focus and directions, paving the way to insert scenes, sensory details, and
character relationships.
Conclusion: From
research to communication, and back again
Not only is creative writing an attractive means of communication for reaching a broader audience, but it is also a way to investigate the most complex aspects of our subjects of analysis.
Try it out, and you’ll be surprised by how creative writing doesn’t only change the way you write, but also the way you see and understand your own material in the first place. Five easy ways to start are: 1. Ground your reader into scenes; 2. Evoke as many senses as possible; 3. Keep the language as simple as possible; 4. Establish who and what your characters are; 5. Work on the overall plot of your piece.
As one of the participants in Amsterdam elegantly summarized: “When you are stuck, go and play.” A lesson that is not only valid for writing, but for life in general.
It has been a year since my article “Doing Academia Differently” was published. Writing the article had been a transformative experience. It inspired me to design my workshops Creative Writing for Academics, and it pushed me to start working as a creative entrepreneur, staying in touch with academia, but from a different position.
While the article was finding its audience, and after I had had the chance to experience the power of making space for researchers to explore their writings in new ways, I experienced one of the most severe winters of my life and had to shut down for a couple of months.
Reading Katherine May’s Wintering helped me make sense of that experience. I loved the way she pays attention to nature’s capacity to adapt to extreme colds. From afar, it then may look as if nothing happens. But when we look closely, we see all kinds of activities going on: burgeons have formed on bare branches, still closed, but ready to burst open when spring comes. Hibernating animals breathe differently, lower their body temperature, change their chemical balance.
Nature doesn’t stop when winter comes. It adapts; it transforms.
So did I, breathing through extreme nauseas, dizziness, and complete exhaustion that came with pregnancy. I entered a subterranean kingdom, a kingdom where time and space function differently. A kingdom of silence. A kingdom of untold stories.
The extremes of being in a woman body is full of silences and is such an untold story. An untold story that I may start writing, bit by bit, as I resurface into the world. Revisiting what it means to be a mother; revisiting what I do for work; finding new patterns in search of equilibriums.
What’s coming up:
And so, we are now a year later, as I gear towards a new season of creation.
These are a sample of activities I look forward to, and I hope to meeting you along the way:
New workshop for grant applicants:
Thanks to a request from Université Saint Louis Brussels, I’ve developed a new writing workshop for grant applicants. The workshop provides tools to uncover the research proposal’s narrative, one of those tricks that tilt a proposal on top.
Sounds like something for you or for your institute? Contact me!
Creative Writing for Academics:
I’ll continue providing series of workshop Creative Writing for Academics, with sessions already book for various institutes at the University of Amsterdam, Nijmegen University, and Queen Mary University of London.
These workshops make space for researchers to explore a diverse and creative pallet of writing styles in their academic writing practice. They are open to all disciplines, and welcome researchers from PhD students to full professors.
Following on previous projects on Social Dreaming, I’ll contribute some of my poems to an artistic exhibition on Social Dreaming held at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London. Details will follow, but I already know that the opening is on November 17, 2022.
Loosening the Boundaries of Our Disciplining Writing Practices
Today is the day that my article has been published with Millennium, Journal of International Studies. I love Millennium for their honesty, for their curiosity, for their openness to invite poems and stories on the page of an academic publication. I love them for having embraced my invitation to loosen the boundaries of our academic writing practices, and to publish work (here: my work) that plays with the boundaries of genre, looking for spaces where that which has been repressed is allowed to speak.
This publication is for me an experience of possibilities. I wrote it with my whole self, speaking and writing with generations of scholars who have invested creative practices within their scientific work. The writing felt like a liberative practice that honoured the legacy of generations of women and men who, time and time again, have revealed an honest story of knowledge production and knowledge writing. As Donna Haraway reminds us:
It matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.
Donna Haraway
Writing the article has been a break-through in my own practice, and paved the way for designing my workshops Creative Writing for Academics, as one possible way of enacted the invitation that the article puts forward:
“To allow a more diverse and creative pallet of writing styles in the academic writing landscape, with the aim to recuperate the reparative in both research and writing by allowing the creative to be present, visibly present.”
Marie Beauchamps
You can book a workshop for your research group, institute, faculty, transnational research activities, and everything in-between! Contact me.
In my own story, the article has been a catalyst to transition from working within the structure of the academia to continuing doing academia differently as a creative entrepreneur. My hope is that the stories contained in the article will inspire you to craft your own way of creative practice within your work.
Whether you join a workshop or not, I would be delighted to hear how creativity finds its way in your work. Stay in touch!
Make space to explore a diverse and creative pallet of writing styles in your academic writing practices.
The choices we make when we write have profound effects on the reality that we observe. Giving an account of our observations requires a multitude of styles of writing for achieving the greatest accuracy. Finding the most accurate style of writing for a particular purpose sometimes implies letting go of a seemingly neutral style of writing, instead embracing a plurality of voices, such as staging a dialogue or exploring a more poetic style.
In this introductory workshop spread over two sessions, we practice writing scenes, working with sensory details, defining the main characters driving the story of our work, and staging conversations between them. All sessions are designed around sample texts, and include on-the-spot writing exercises. There will be time for peer-review, and we will take time to reflect on what it takes to make space for creativity within our academic work.
What people say about the workshop:
I tried a few similar workshops recently, and I find Marie’s ones by far the best: they are not only extremely helpful but also a pleasure to do.
Chiara, associate professor
This course has inspired me to develop my own writing style in my papers. It helped me to be creative and productive (for it makes one want to write!), and it has given me perspective regarding the use of poetic, experiential and metaphorical language in crafting academic texts.
Rodante, PhD candidate
Resorting to our body feelings and sensations, bringing them to our awareness while entering a scholarly conversation, opens up a spectrum of alternatives to engage in discussion. Thank you for your expert guidance, so human, that allowed me to feel at ease while exploring “the feeling” of theoretical argumentation. Your workshop contributes to awareness in academic writing, to taking responsibility for choices, to freedom, to integrity. A real eye opener.
Marina, PhD candidate
Marie’s expertise lies in the fact that she used to be a highly successful academic, and is now both an inspired writer and a gifted teacher. This combination is what makes her creative writing for academics courses so inspiring!
Ida, PhD candidate
I’m grateful for participating in Marie’s workshops. The creative writing sessions have helped me enter the scenes of my research, and to shape these worlds while I write with all my senses. Marie’s prompts facilitate a somatic opening for engaging with my data in ways that my whole body is there; writing-as-inquiry from this space enhances fieldwork memory, feelings, creativity, and clarity. It has been a joyful experience to learn on-the-spot techniques for doing this. After these sessions, I wanted to keep writing! Thank you Marie for sharing your gifts with us.
Explore a diverse and creative pallet of writing styles in academic writing practices. In this workshop of 3,5 hours, we explore ways of expressing the story of your text. The session is designed around sample texts, and includes on-the-spot writing exercises. There will be time for peer-review, and we will take time to reflect on what it takes to make space for creativity within our academic work.
The session takes place on July 6, 2021, starting at 10.00 am and ending at 1.30 pm CEST (Amsterdam time).
The choices we make when we write have profound effects on the reality that we observe. Giving an account of our observations requires a multitude of styles of writing for achieving the greatest accuracy. Finding the most accurate style of writing for a particular purpose sometimes implies letting go of a seemingly neutral style of writing, instead embracing a plurality of voices, such as staging a dialogue or exploring a more poetic style.
This space aims to explore what happens when we loosen up the frame of our habitual academic writing practice, inviting multi-layered stories to bubble up and become part of the conversation unfolding on the page. In these interactive workshops, I lead you through a series of hands-on exercises to make you experience creative writing within your academic practice.
Make space to explore a diverse and creative pallet of writing styles in your academic writing practices.
The choices we make when we write have profound effects on the reality that we observe. Giving an account of our observations requires a multitude of styles of writing for achieving the greatest accuracy. Finding the most accurate style of writing for a particular purpose sometimes implies letting go of a seemingly neutral style of writing, instead embracing a plurality of voices, such as staging a dialogue or exploring a more poetic style.
In this introductory workshop spread over two sessions, we practice writing scenes, working with sensory details, defining the main characters driving the story of our work, and staging conversations between them. All sessions are designed around sample texts, and include on-the-spot writing exercises. There will be time for peer-review, and we will take time to reflect on what it takes to make space for creativity within our academic work.
A few places are still available for this upcoming workshop taking place on 8 and 15 June, 10.00 – 13.30 CEST. Book yourself in!
What people say about it:
I tried a few similar workshops recently, and I find Marie’s ones by far the best: they are not only extremely helpful but also a pleasure to do.
Chiara, associate professor
This course has inspired me to develop my own writing style in my papers. It helped me to be creative and productive (for it makes one want to write!), and it has given me perspective regarding the use of poetic, experiential and metaphorical language in crafting academic texts.
Rodante, PhD candidate
Resorting to our body feelings and sensations, bringing them to our awareness while entering a scholarly conversation, opens up a spectrum of alternatives to engage in discussion. Thank you for your expert guidance, so human, that allowed me to feel at ease while exploring “the feeling” of theoretical argumentation. Your workshop contributes to awareness in academic writing, to taking responsibility for choices, to freedom, to integrity. A real eye opener.
Marina, PhD candidate
Marie’s expertise lies in the fact that she used to be a highly successful academic, and is now both an inspired writer and a gifted teacher. This combination is what makes her creative writing for academics courses so inspiring!
Ida, PhD candidate
I’m grateful for participating in Marie’s workshops. The creative writing sessions have helped me enter the scenes of my research, and to shape these worlds while I write with all my senses. Marie’s prompts facilitate a somatic opening for engaging with my data in ways that my whole body is there; writing-as-inquiry from this space enhances fieldwork memory, feelings, creativity, and clarity. It has been a joyful experience to learn on-the-spot techniques for doing this. After these sessions, I wanted to keep writing! Thank you Marie for sharing your gifts with us.
January 19, 2021 10.00 -17.00 (Amsterdam time, UTC +1), on zoom.
Workshop animated by Marie Beauchamps (Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoc fellow, Queen Mary University of London).
This workshop makes space to explore a diverse and creative pallet of writing styles in academic writing practices.
The choices we make when we write have profound effects on the reality that we observe. Giving an account of our observations requires a multitude of styles of writing for achieving the greatest accuracy. Finding the most accurate style of writing for a particular purpose sometimes implies letting go of a seemingly neutral style of writing, instead embracing a plurality of voices, such as staging a dialogue or exploring a more poetic style. This workshop aims to explore what happens when we loosen up the frame of our habitual academic writing practice, inviting multi-layered stories to bubble up and become part of the conversation unfolding on the page.
In this one-day, interactive workshop, I will lead you through a series of hands on exercises to make you experience creative writing within your academic practice. You will practice writing scenes, working with sensory details, defining the main characters driving the story of your work, and staging conversations between them. There will be time for peer-review, and we will take time to reflect on what it takes to make space for creativity within our academic work.
Practicalities:
The workshop is by now fully booked. I will develop more of these in the future, in different formats. If you are interested to receive future communication about future workshops, please leave your details here: https://forms.gle/TKayfMMo7AjqguYq6.
Space is limited due to the interactive nature of the workshop. I’m working on adding extra dates in the future. Information will follow in due time. You can leave your contact details via the link above to receive information.
A zoom link will be sent to registered participants in advance of the workshop.
Participants are asked to bring a text to work on. It can be an outline, a very first draft, a finished article, or everything in-between, as long as you feel comfortable working with it for the time of the workshop.
If you want to join but cannot attend the full day, please contact me (m.beauchamps@qmul.ac.uk) to discuss alternatives.
