Authorial identity as a liminal space: an autoethnographic reflection

My doctoral research uses ethnographically-oriented arts-based workshops and semi-structured interviews to look at how Year 10 students’ experiences of creative writing affect their authorial identities. Before I started data collection, I noticed that I felt like an imposter, as high workload as a teacher on top of doctoral study commitments left very little time for me to continue working on my own creative writing and I simply had not prioritized my own art. I took part in National Novel Writing Month, aiming to write 50,000 words in one month. This is an autoethnographic reflection on how taking time to prioritize my art reignited my passion for novel writing and restored my confidence in my abilities. I have chosen a braided autoethnographic approach, balancing theory and emotion, and will view my self-reflection through the theoretical framework I created for my doctorate, based on Gee’s (2000; 2018) affinity spaces and Craft’s (2001) theories of creativity.