{"id":200,"date":"2023-08-22T05:03:48","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T09:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/?post_type=part&p=200"},"modified":"2023-11-11T20:35:29","modified_gmt":"2023-11-12T01:35:29","slug":"the-importance-of-being-earnest-and-ethical-academic-integrity-in-the-context-of-creative-writing","status":"publish","type":"part","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/part\/the-importance-of-being-earnest-and-ethical-academic-integrity-in-the-context-of-creative-writing\/","title":{"raw":"The Importance of Being Earnest and Ethical: Academic Integrity in the Context of Creative Writing","rendered":"The Importance of Being Earnest and Ethical: Academic Integrity in the Context of Creative Writing"},"content":{"raw":"Lisa Grekul<\/a>\r\n\r\nDepartment of English and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, University of British Columbia<\/em>\r\n
\r\n\r\nAbstract:<\/strong> Focused on issues related to intellectual integrity in the context of creative writing, this chapter takes as its point of departure the widely held and not incorrect assumption that, unlike other disciplines, creative writing is less about following \u201crules\u201d than about breaking them. The reality, though, is that various kinds of ethical considerations are crucial, complex components of our craft. Creative writers face dilemmas to do with drawing on details about living people (family members, friends); the fine line between \u201cintertextualizing\u201d and plagiarizing; borrowing from cultures to which we do not belong; and toying with facts. These dilemmas are discussed, and some specific advice is offered, but the chapter should be viewed as a general guide for how to write creatively and with integrity.\r\n\r\nKeywords:<\/strong> Creative writing, ethical considerations, intertextualizing, plagiarism, cultural borrowing<\/span>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nAuthor\u2019s Note: <\/strong>The title of the chapter contains a reference to Oscar Wilde\u2019s play The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People<\/em>, first performed in 1895.<\/sub>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIn 2003 \u2014 practically a lifetime ago \u2014 I published my first book, Kalyna\u2019s Song. It\u2019s the coming-of-age story of Colleen Lutzak, a third-generation Ukrainian Canadian who grows up in northeastern Alberta and then travels to southern Africa, where, on a scholarship, she finishes her last year of high school at a boarding school. The novel is semi-autobiographical, to be sure, though a lot of it is fictionalized. I spent my childhood\/adolescence in a small, prairie town. For two years (not one, as is the case with Colleen), I lived in (what was then called) Swaziland (it is now eSwatini). Like my narrator, I had a beloved piano teacher, who was a nun, and an aunt (I made her Colleen\u2019s older cousin) who never recovered from a severe mental breakdown following years of domestic violence. I based Sister Maria and Kalyna on \u201creal-life\u201d women, but loosely: very loosely. The same is true of Colleen\u2019s parents, as well as her brother and sister. I borrowed some bits and pieces from \u201creal life,\u201d embellished others, and entirely invented an awful lot. Kalyna\u2019s Song was, for the most part, well-received, especially by prairie-dwelling Ukrainian Canadians; it seemed to resonate with those who saw their own experiences in the pages of the book \u2014 experiences which tend to fall through the cracks of Canadian history and Canadian literature. The novel was a finalist for the Amazon Books in Canada Best First Novel Award and the Kobzar Literary Award.\r\n\r\nOf course, not everyone loved the book. A few of my relatives, for example, weren\u2019t thrilled with the versions of them who appeared in Kalyna\u2019s Song (my sister saw her fictional counterpart as too aggressive in her sibling rivalry; my brother viewed \u201chis\u201d character as too whiny). A number of audience members from the wider Ukrainian Canadian community took exception to what they viewed as the book\u2019s damaging (mis)representation of Ukrainian culture and history. (In one scene, when my narrator, Colleen, at a young age, attends a Ukrainian Orthodox church service, she finds the strangeness of the rituals intimidating and the priest himself terrifying. And the narrative, as a whole, is shaped by Colleen\u2019s discovery that some Ukrainians collaborated with Nazis during the Holocaust, a historical \u201cfact\u201d contested by many.) A handful of Ukrainian Orthodox readers raised concerns about my unflattering depiction of their religion. They sent me letters, phoned my mom, and, in one case, threatened legal action against the publisher of my novel. Other readers, either via reviews of the book or in private conversations with me, made it known that I had a deeply flawed understanding of how Ukrainians acted during the Second World War.\r\n\r\nI heard nothing from southern African readers, probably because the novel never made it into the international marketplace, but such readers would have had every reason to object to the core premise of Kalyna\u2019s Song. Did I have the right, as a white Canadian who spent a paltry two years in (then-) Swaziland, to write a book that substantially relied on depictions of the place and its people? I see, now, with the 20\/20-ness of hindsight, what never crossed my mind as I was writing the book. The \u201cAfrica\u201d portions of Colleen\u2019s story, which foreground her bewildering perspectives on an \u201cother\u201d part of the world, exoticize Swazi culture and perpetuate painfully uneven, colonial power dynamics. Colleen is the centre of the story. Swaziland is exploited as a device to effect her growth as a (privileged, white, \u201cwestern\u201d) character. I quite obviously made mistakes.\r\n\r\nI\u2019m using those mistakes as a starting point for this chapter in order to be transparent about how I\u2019ve gained \u201cexpertise\u201d on academic integrity in the context of creative writing. Believe me, I would love nothing more than to open with a different story in which I\u2019d dazzle as an author who understood her responsibilities from the get-go and never stepped out of line. That, regrettably, wasn\u2019t the case with Kalyna\u2019s Song. As I proceed, then, identifying challenges faced by creative writers and reflecting on possible strategies for avoiding missteps, I hope that my readers \u2014 you \u2014 will keep in mind that I approach my subject matter with humility. Many of the lessons that I aim to pass along were learned the hard way.","rendered":"

Lisa Grekul<\/a><\/p>\n

Department of English and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, University of British Columbia<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Abstract:<\/strong> Focused on issues related to intellectual integrity in the context of creative writing, this chapter takes as its point of departure the widely held and not incorrect assumption that, unlike other disciplines, creative writing is less about following \u201crules\u201d than about breaking them. The reality, though, is that various kinds of ethical considerations are crucial, complex components of our craft. Creative writers face dilemmas to do with drawing on details about living people (family members, friends); the fine line between \u201cintertextualizing\u201d and plagiarizing; borrowing from cultures to which we do not belong; and toying with facts. These dilemmas are discussed, and some specific advice is offered, but the chapter should be viewed as a general guide for how to write creatively and with integrity.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong> Creative writing, ethical considerations, intertextualizing, plagiarism, cultural borrowing<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Author\u2019s Note: <\/strong>The title of the chapter contains a reference to Oscar Wilde\u2019s play The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People<\/em>, first performed in 1895.<\/sub><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 2003 \u2014 practically a lifetime ago \u2014 I published my first book, Kalyna\u2019s Song. It\u2019s the coming-of-age story of Colleen Lutzak, a third-generation Ukrainian Canadian who grows up in northeastern Alberta and then travels to southern Africa, where, on a scholarship, she finishes her last year of high school at a boarding school. The novel is semi-autobiographical, to be sure, though a lot of it is fictionalized. I spent my childhood\/adolescence in a small, prairie town. For two years (not one, as is the case with Colleen), I lived in (what was then called) Swaziland (it is now eSwatini). Like my narrator, I had a beloved piano teacher, who was a nun, and an aunt (I made her Colleen\u2019s older cousin) who never recovered from a severe mental breakdown following years of domestic violence. I based Sister Maria and Kalyna on \u201creal-life\u201d women, but loosely: very loosely. The same is true of Colleen\u2019s parents, as well as her brother and sister. I borrowed some bits and pieces from \u201creal life,\u201d embellished others, and entirely invented an awful lot. Kalyna\u2019s Song was, for the most part, well-received, especially by prairie-dwelling Ukrainian Canadians; it seemed to resonate with those who saw their own experiences in the pages of the book \u2014 experiences which tend to fall through the cracks of Canadian history and Canadian literature. The novel was a finalist for the Amazon Books in Canada Best First Novel Award and the Kobzar Literary Award.<\/p>\n

Of course, not everyone loved the book. A few of my relatives, for example, weren\u2019t thrilled with the versions of them who appeared in Kalyna\u2019s Song (my sister saw her fictional counterpart as too aggressive in her sibling rivalry; my brother viewed \u201chis\u201d character as too whiny). A number of audience members from the wider Ukrainian Canadian community took exception to what they viewed as the book\u2019s damaging (mis)representation of Ukrainian culture and history. (In one scene, when my narrator, Colleen, at a young age, attends a Ukrainian Orthodox church service, she finds the strangeness of the rituals intimidating and the priest himself terrifying. And the narrative, as a whole, is shaped by Colleen\u2019s discovery that some Ukrainians collaborated with Nazis during the Holocaust, a historical \u201cfact\u201d contested by many.) A handful of Ukrainian Orthodox readers raised concerns about my unflattering depiction of their religion. They sent me letters, phoned my mom, and, in one case, threatened legal action against the publisher of my novel. Other readers, either via reviews of the book or in private conversations with me, made it known that I had a deeply flawed understanding of how Ukrainians acted during the Second World War.<\/p>\n

I heard nothing from southern African readers, probably because the novel never made it into the international marketplace, but such readers would have had every reason to object to the core premise of Kalyna\u2019s Song. Did I have the right, as a white Canadian who spent a paltry two years in (then-) Swaziland, to write a book that substantially relied on depictions of the place and its people? I see, now, with the 20\/20-ness of hindsight, what never crossed my mind as I was writing the book. The \u201cAfrica\u201d portions of Colleen\u2019s story, which foreground her bewildering perspectives on an \u201cother\u201d part of the world, exoticize Swazi culture and perpetuate painfully uneven, colonial power dynamics. Colleen is the centre of the story. Swaziland is exploited as a device to effect her growth as a (privileged, white, \u201cwestern\u201d) character. I quite obviously made mistakes.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m using those mistakes as a starting point for this chapter in order to be transparent about how I\u2019ve gained \u201cexpertise\u201d on academic integrity in the context of creative writing. Believe me, I would love nothing more than to open with a different story in which I\u2019d dazzle as an author who understood her responsibilities from the get-go and never stepped out of line. That, regrettably, wasn\u2019t the case with Kalyna\u2019s Song. As I proceed, then, identifying challenges faced by creative writers and reflecting on possible strategies for avoiding missteps, I hope that my readers \u2014 you \u2014 will keep in mind that I approach my subject matter with humility. Many of the lessons that I aim to pass along were learned the hard way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"parent":0,"menu_order":5,"template":"","meta":{"pb_part_invisible":false,"pb_part_invisible_string":""},"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-200","part","type-part","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/part"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":366,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/200\/revisions\/366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/ubcacademicintegrity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}