ABSTRACT This research work scrutinises the liminality, borders, and the concept of frontier in the lives of Native American dislocated people, the deterioration of their culture in the process of the westward expansion of America, and the ruthless experience of their detachment from roots through N. Scott Momaday’s Three Plays (2007). The study uses the postcolonial lens of liminality and Communitas given by Van Gennep and expanded by Victor Turner, and it is further facilitated by Mary Louise Pratt’s study of contact zones, what Anderson calls imagined communities, and Louis Owens’ concept of frontier, which he defines as multicultural space, but becomes a static space in terms of Natives, and what Homi K. Bhabha recalls as third space in spatial terms and hybrid in terms of identity. The ever-changing construction of ‘Others’ in Harriet Bradley’s words is called polarised or fractured identities, the concepts which were used to define and redefine Native people. This research unfolds Native Americans’ social and communal setup where cultural memories of the past are faded away. Finally, it concludes that by providing marginalised spaces through liminality and border zones, Native Americans’ identities are shattered, and they are limited to non-human objects.

ABSTRACT Uncreativity and plagiarism have long been stinging words that can end careers, but are there ways to ethically use and not abuse the work of others? Destructive Writing is a writing strategy that acknowledges the friction and freedom of this practice, a practice that exalts in the fact that words have weight and attempts to shoulder this burden to new and unfamiliar heights. To the Destructive Writer, all stories and words are valuable and appreciated materials to be used again and again, often divorced of their original meaning to both bring attention to new concerns as well as dust-off texts that may have slipped into obscurity. At its heart, it is a mode and classification of writing that defies conventionality and the idea of a traditional author.

ABSTRACT In this essay, I offer a response to conclusions in affect theory that empathy inspired by the reading of a text is unlikely to result in direct action for change. I balance my understanding of empathy and activism in poetry with Lévinasian theories of ethical relationality and moral responsibility. I discuss the unique quality of a collection of prison poems by Persian poet and Bahá'í leader Mahvash Sabet, revealing her remarkable acts of compassion for her fellow prisoners. I explore how her poems awakened my own voice as a poet and an advocate, taking into account the problematic power hierarchies of geographical distance and cultural difference. Finally, I reflect on the way empathic poetry can provide a shared language capable of reaching across geographical and cultural divides.

ABSTRACT This research, conducted in the particular space–time of university classes transitioning online due to a global pandemic, describes a kairotic moment particularly concerned with the accessibility of learning resources, pedagogical interaction, and students’ mental health. Our research was conducted with a focus on online general education electives delivered across all undergraduate years at a university in South Korea, to formulate online facilitation methods for identity formation writing using the universal cultural framework of K-culture. We asked students to read K-webtoons, to understand the relation between self-esteem and self-doubt, and to diagnose their current situations. Then, we asked them to write a self-examination essay using the media literacy of K-pop to induce empathy. In their rough drafts, we observed their will to overcome their obstacles, even though their writing described negative experiences from the past and the limitations they currently faced. During virtual office hours, we instructed students to think critically about the structure of Korean society, beyond their personal self-examination, and in their second, edited drafts, we found a heightened sense of civic awareness. This research is significant, therefore, because it provides a detailed account of the abstract process of writing identity essays utilising K-culture media literacy, and the process of seeking a method of communication for critical awareness of social structures and action in a community through virtual office hours.

ABSTRACT An earlier version of this paper was presented at a multidisciplinary conference on ‘dark heritage’ in 2019. It describes and reflects on my experience of writing a short story for submission to a commercial ‘dark fiction’ anthology and discusses the social, personal, and linguistic factors which contribute to the production of a popular literary text. In particular, it examines to what extent negative connotations of ‘darkness’ as well as stereotypical representations of the monstrous can be avoided or subverted, while at the same time adhering to the genre requirements of a commercial publisher’s brief and writing to a deadline. The approach I take is broadly autoethnographic: my ‘data’ includes ‘field notes’ that I kept throughout the writing process and daily captures of the story as it progressed toward completion. By bringing to light the process through which a dark text is produced, I offer a means for thinking about the deployment and interpretation of tropes of darkness in scholarly and imaginative writing. It is hoped that the autoethnographic methods I employ could be suitably adapted for use in creative writing studies as a means of developing students’ and teachers’ writerly self-awareness.

ABSTRACT Self Portrait / In Cross-Sections / With Bird is a performance text that evolved from my experimentation with biologically driven dramaturgies. In this experiment, cancer biology was utilised as a dramaturgical model. Applied to Hamlet, the writing employed iterative techniques (for example the Microsoft Word dictation function) that favoured the accumulation of error while suppressing authorial imposition of form, structure and meaning on the emergent text. The aim of the experiment was to generate a text that, like cancer, was inclining away from order and towards ‘the inner edge of chaos’ (Sigston, Elizabeth A.W. & Bryan R.G. Williams. 2017. ‘An Emergence Framework of Carcinogenesis’. Frontiers in Oncology: Cancer Genetics 7: 198, https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2017.00198).

'These days, you have to have thick skin and a steel heart to survive chaos and do your work, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll reap a lot of money in the end’, said Ah Lam. ...

ABSTRACT Creative writing bears many similarities to the moving body. Well-crafted writing is derived from the senses and follows the body’s natural rhythms. It is animated by the intent or voice of the author and resonates with others on an equally deep and authentic level. Embodied words flow at the right pitch to engage readers in mutually resonating play. Writing creatively involves accessing the body’s natural intelligence to craft words that breathe with life.