Biography

Celia Hunt is Emeritus Reader in Continuing Education (Creative Writing) at the Centre for Community Engagement. She was Assistant Director (Academic Matters) of the Centre 2000-2004. She set up the Certificate in Creative Writing in 1994 and the MA in Creative Writing and Personal Development and its associated research programme in 1996. She was Convenor of the latter until her retirement in 2010. Before taking up her post at the University she was Literature Officer at South East Arts Board, in which capacity she set up and managed writing residences in prisons, hospices and care homes. Her DPhil research was published as 'Therapeutic Dimensions of Autobiography in Creative Writing' by Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London, in 2000. She was a founder member and first Chair of Lapidus: The Association for the Literary Arts in Personal Development. She was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Higher Education Academy in 2004.

Role

Formerly Convener of MA and research programmes in Creative Writing and Personal Development at the Centre for Community Engagement, School of Business, Management and Economics.

My main research interests are in subjectivity in writing and learning processes, in particular the effects of the writing of fictional autobiography on the writer's sense of self, whether these effects come by chance or by design in a personal development context. I am also interested in how creative writing can be used as a developmental tool in adult and higher education more generally, rather than specifically within the area of creative writing, for example in helping students and academics engage more creatively with their academic writing. Within the general area of creative writing and personal development I am particularly interested in the application of literary and psychological theory to the understanding of writing and learning processes, especially theory of metaphor, narrative perspective, and the author's relationship with the imagined reader.

For the past several years I have been engaged in a research project 'The Self in the Learning Process: Creative Writing as a Tool for Learning', funded by the British Academy and the Higher Education Academy, looking at the learning process of students taking the MA Creative Writing and Personal Development at Sussex. This builds on previous research published in my book Therapeutic Dimensions of Autobiography in Creative Writing (2000) and my paper 'Writing and Reflexivity: Training to facilitate creative writing for personal development' in F. Sampson (ed.) Creative Writing in Health and Social Care (2004). I am currently writing up this project in book form for Routledge under the title Creative Life Writing as a Tool for Transformative Learning.

I have supervised four doctoral theses to completion: Sophie Nicholls, 'Writing the Body: Ways in which Creative Writing can facilitate a Felt, Bodily Sense of Self' (2006), Pauline Cooper, 'The Use of Creative Writing as a Therapeutic Activity for Mental Health in Occupational Therapy' (2008), Michael Maltby, 'The Poetics of Experience: a First-Person Creative and Critical Exploration of Self-Experience and the Writing of Poetry' (2009), and Sarah Jackson, 'The Textual Skin: towards a tactile poetics' (2009). Further doctorates are in progress under my supervision within the general areas of creative writing for personal and professional development, and the arts in transformative learning.

I currently supervise doctoral students in creative writing and personal development. 

Student Consultation

By individual arrangement.

Hunt, Celia and West, Linden (2006) Learning in a border country: Using psychodynamic ideas in teaching and research. Studies in the Education of Adults, 38 (2). pp. 160-177. ISSN 0266-0830

Hunt, Celia and Sampson, Fiona (2006) Writing: Self and Reflexivity. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781403918772

Hunt, Celia (2004) Reading Ourselves: Imagining the Reader in the Writing Process. In: Writing Cures: An Introductory Handbook of Writing in Counselling and Therapy. Brunner/Routledge, London, pp. 35-43. ISBN 9781583919118

Hunt, Celia (2004) Writing and reflexivity: Training to facilitate creative writing for personal development. In: Creative Writing in Health and Social Care. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London, pp. 154-169. ISBN 9781843101369

Creme, Phyllis and Hunt, Celia (2002) Creative participation in the essay writing process. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 1 (2). pp. 145-166. ISSN 1474-0222