Creative Writing in Service to Research, and Vicey-Versey - with Dr Alice Bennett and Nuala Roche

Alice and Nuala talk about the relationship between creative writing and research. Poetry has been a constant for both writers. They are each currently writing a book that interweaves distinct authorial voices.

Alice reflects on her recent experience of writing a PhD using Evocative Autoethnography to explore adult educational practices. She talks about how painting, textiles, poetry and film allowed her to explore and express knowledge that is not easily conveyed using more traditional research methodologies. She shares how this research writing has inspired her to explore her ideas further through a work of fiction in the genre of magic realism.

Nuala talks about work-in-progress The Dead on Street View, her creative non-fiction book that ‘looks slant’ at a family history, memory, and storytelling. She reflects on her experience in film editing and researching a family history as similar work: creating narrative cohesion from slices of time. Archival research and serendipitous discoveries have been a source of frustration and nourishment along the way.

About

Alice Bennett: Alice holds a PhD in Adult and Community Education from Maynooth University. She has over twenty years’ experience teaching across Ireland with the Kilkenny/Carlow Education and Training Board and Maynooth University. She is currently exploring the intersection of research and creative magic realism to create a novel that includes poetry, dream and memory.

Nuala Roche: Nuala’s writing is published in Fish Anthology, The Cormorant Broadsheets & Anthology, The Milk House, and Kilkenny Poetry Broadsheets, with recordings on Poetry Jukebox and RTE Radio’s Keywords. She received an Arts Council Literature Bursary and Irish Writers Centre mentorship towards The Dead on Street View, a creative non-fiction book about genealogy, memory, storytelling and technology.