Creative Writing Scholarship List

I have written about and studied the psychology of creative writing and creative writers since 1978, when I published my first scholarly article and presented my first study, a survey of how creative writers viewed their early schooling.  (See this study attached.)

This interest dovetails with my own dual path as a creative writer and a scholar about creativity. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I worked as an artist for the Poets in the Schools program funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, and this is where I started researching creative writers. Here is a list of the texts I have published. They include a book —“My Teeming Brain”: Understanding Creative Writers. I also have a chapter on creative writers in my book, Understanding Those Who Create (1st and 2nd editions) and in Understanding Creativity. Other chapters  in edited books and studies are listed also. Not to be forgotten is my work in the arts-based research field, particularly my work in poetic inquiry. Take a look. The abstracts and full texts are available at ResearchGate.net. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jane-Piirto

I have also done presentations that have not been published, and those that I can recall are listed here also.

BOOKS

Piirto, J. (2002). “My Teeming Brain”: Understanding Creative Writers. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Book chapters that integrated my studies on the psychology of creative writers: Understanding Those Who Create (1992; 1998) and Understanding Creativity (2004).

JOURNAL ARTICLES

Navarre, J. Piirto (1978). Intuition in the Creative Process. Gifted Child Quarterly, 22 (3), 276-281.

Piirto, J. (1989a). Does writing prodigy exist? Creativity Research Journal, 2, 134-35.

Piirto, J. (1989b, May/June). Linguistic Prodigy: Does It Exist? Gifted Children Monthly, pp. 1-2.

Piirto, J. (1992). The Existence of Writing Prodigy: Children with Extraordinary Writing Talent. In N. Colangelo, S. Assouline, and D. Ambroson (Eds.). Talent Development, I (pp. 387-389). Unionville, NY: Trillium.

Piirto, J., & Battison, S. (1994). Successful Creative Women Writers at Midlife. In N. Colangelo, S. Assouline, & D. Ambroson (Eds.), Talent Development, II: Proceedings from 1993 Wallace Symposium on Talent Development. (pp. 245-246). Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press.

Piirto, J. (I998.) Themes in the Lives of Contemporary U.S. Women Creative Writers at Midlife. Roeper Review, 21 (1), 60-70.

Piirto, J. (1999). Themes in the Lives of Successful Contemporary U.S. Women Creative Writers at Midlife: A Qualitative Study. In N. Colangelo & S. G. Assouline (Eds.). Talent development, III (pp. 173-202). Scottsdale, AZ: Gifted Psychology Press. Invited paper. Presented at 1995 Third Wallace Symposium on Talent Development. University of Iowa.

Piirto, J. (1999). Entry. Poetry. In M. Runco & S. Pritzer (Eds.) Encyclopedia of creativity, (pp. 409-416). San Diego: Academic Press.

Piirto, J. (2001, Spring). Themes in the Lives of Adult Creative Writers. Tempo, XXI (2), p. 4, ff.

Piirto, J. (2002). The Question of Quality and Qualifications: Writing Inferior Poems as Qualitative Research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 15 (4), 431-445,

Piirto, J. (2002). The Unreliable Narrator, or the Difference between Writing Prose in Literature and in Social Science. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 15(4), 407-415.

Piirto, J. (2005). The Creative Process in Poets. In J. Kaufman and J. Baer (Eds). Creativity in domains: Faces of the muse (pp. 1-21). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Piirto, J. (2008). Themes in the Lives of Successful Contemporary U.S. Women Creative Writers. Mensa Research Journal, 39(1), 33-39.

Piirto, J. (2008). Why Does a Writer Write? Because. Mensa Research Journal, 39(1), 7-18.

Piirto, J. (2009). Entry. Creative Writing. Also a sidebar of the poem, “Fraternity Bar in Athens, Georgia.” Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research. Sage Publications.

Piirto, J. (2009). Entry. Poets Laureate. In B. Kerr (Ed.), Encyclopedia of giftedness, creativity, and talent (pp. 681-683). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.

Piirto, J. (2009). Entry. Writers. In B. Kerr (Ed.), Encyclopedia of giftedness, creativity, and talent (pp. 952-954). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.

Piirto, J. (2009). The Question of Quality and Qualifications: Writing Inferior Poems as Qualitative Research In C. Leggo, P. Sameshima, and M. Prendergast (Eds.), Poetic inquiry: Vibrant voices in the social sciences (pp. 83-109).. Rotterdam, The Netherlands:  Sense Publishers

Piirto, J. (2009). Personalities of Creative Writers.  In S. Kaufman & J. Kaufman (Eds.), Psychology of Creative Writing (pp. 3-23). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Piirto, J. (2009). “All Children” Includes the Talented: A Poetic Inquiry. Special issue of Educational Insights. 13(3). [Available: http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v13n03/articles/piirto/index.html]

Piirto, J. (2011). Entry. Poetry. In M. Runco and S. Pritzker (Eds.),  Encyclopedia of Creativity, 2nd Ed. vol. 2, pp. 244-249. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.  

Piirto, J. (2012). Themes in the Lives of Creative Writers. In E. Grigorenko, E. Mambrino, and S. Preiss (Eds.), Handbook of writing: A mosaic of perspectives and views (pp. 241-256). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

Piirto, J. (2015). Poems Written in Service of “Service.” In K. Galvin and M. Prendergast (Eds.). Poetic inquiry II: Seeing, caring, understanding(pp. 124-148). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Micko, K. J., & Piirto, J. (2017). Coming Home to Poetry: A Poetic Inquiry about the “Thorn” In L. Butler-Kisbet, J. J. Guiney Yallop, M. Stewart,  & S. Wiebe  (Eds.). Poetic Inquiries of Reflection and Renewal. pp. 179-192. Lunenbert, Nova Scotia, CA: Macintyre Purcell Publishing Inc.

Piirto, J.  (2018). The Creative Process in Writers. In T. Lubart, (Ed.). The Creative Process: Perspectives from multiple domains (pp. 89-123).London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

PRESENTATIONS

Piirto, J., Lipman, J., & McCord, H. (2019, October). So speak the elders: Historical roots of social justice poetry in Northwest Ohio: A Poetic Inquiry. Bowling Green, OH. Poetic Inquiry Conference at Bowling Green State University.

Piirto, J. (2016, March 3). The Creative Process in Writers. Paper presented at 15th Conference of the European Council for High Ability, Vienna, Austria.

Piirto, J., & Janish, K. (2013, October). Coming Home to Poetry. Presentation at 4th International Symposium on Poetic Inquiry. Montreal, Quebec, CA.

Piirto, J. (2011, December). “My Teeming Brain”: Understanding Creative Writers. Speech/reading at Malone University, Canton, OH.

Piirto, J. (2011, October.) Poems Written at Work. Poetic Inquiry Paper presented at 2nd International Poetic Inquiry Conference, University of Bournemouth, United Kingdom.

Piirto, J.  (2008, April, May) (2009, November) “All Children” Includes the Talented: A Poetic Inquiry. 2008, University of Iowa.Wallace Research Symposium. Also presented this at American Association for Curriculum Studies, New York City, Teachers College, 2008. National Association for Gifted Children meeting, St. Louis, 2009.

Piirto, J. (2007, October). “All Children” Includes the Talented. Vancouver, BC, CA. University of British Columbia. Poetic Inquiry Conference.

Piirto, J. (2006, October). Lahti, Finland. European Council for High Ability. Keynote Speech. “Creativity in the Domains of Creative Writing and Visual Arts.”

Piirto, J. (2006, Oct). Arts-based Educational Research Conference. Balcones Springs, TX. Led open mike poetry reading and did invited reading.

University of Illinois, Champaign. 1st International Conference on Qualitative Inquiry. (2002).Writing India Schools: Creative Nonfiction and Poetry.

Piirto, J. (2003). Creativity in Poets of the T’Ang Dynasty. Creativity and Madness Conference. Yangtze River Cruise, China.

Piirto, J. (1978). What Creative Writers Said about Their Schooling. Presentation at the National Association for Gifted Children annual meeting, Houston, TX.  Reprinted in Understanding Those Who Create (1992; 1998) and Understanding Creativity (2004).