Library Guides: Creative Writing: Introduction

Introduction

This subject guide highlights some key discipline resources to get you started with study and research.

Refer to the New Students Library Guide for everything you need to know about Library services and resources.
Build your researching, reading and writing skills with the Research Essentials Library Guide.
Streamline your access to online resources with the Library's quick access tools.

Reference sources

Dictionaries and encyclopedias

If you are having trouble getting started, sometimes a reference work can help you. By looking up a person or concept, you may learn more on your topic. This can help you to think of more keywords or synonyms for your catalogue or database search.

Oxford Reference
Oxford Reference is the home of Oxford’s quality reference publishing. The collection provides quality, up-to-date reference content at the click of a button. The University of Melbourne subscribes to selected titles from this large collection of materials.
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words— past and present—from across the English-speaking world.

A dictionary of writers and their works by Michael Cox and Christopher Riches (editors)
ISBN: 9780191782947
Publication Date: 2015
New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors by Angus Stevenson; Lesley Brown
ISBN: 0198610408
Publication Date: 2005

Handbooks

The Art of Creative Research (ebook) by Philip Gerard
ISBN: 9780226179803
Publication Date: 2017
The Handbook of Creative Writing (ebook and print) by Steven Earnshaw (Editor)
ISBN: 9780748689392
Publication Date: 2014
Telling Stories: Australian life and literature 1935-2012 by Paul Genoni; Tanya Dalziel
ISBN: 9781921867460
Publication Date: 2013
The No Rules Handbook for Writers by Lisa Goldman
ISBN: 9781849431118
Publication Date: 2012
Australian handbook for writers and editors : grammar, usage and punctuation (4th edition) by Margaret McKenzie
ISBN: 9781921606496
Publication Date: 2010
Patterns of Creativity by Kevin Brophy
ISBN: 9042027207
Publication Date: 2009
Creative Writing Guidebook by Graeme Harper (Editor)
ISBN: 9780826494283
Publication Date: 2008

Directories

ArtsHub Australia
ArtsHub is Australia’s leading online resource for reviews, news and all the latest jobs from the Australian creative and arts industries.

Databases and journals

Use databases to search across many academic resources (including peer-reviewed journals) at the same time.

Refer to the A-Z Ejournals and Databases page for a comprehensive list of available resources.

Core Arts and Humanities databases:

The selection of multidisciplinary databases below will retrieve results from different subject areas.

Discovery (EBSCO)
Use Discovery to look for books, ebooks, journal articles and more. It's a great place to start your search but does not give you everything the Library has.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is one of the most popular ways to find academic sources for study and research. Did you know you can use it to search for journal articles that the University of Melbourne has access to? You can do this through the link above or set up your Google Scholar preferences to include Library content.
JSTOR
JSTOR is one of the largest databases the Library has access to. It is a multidisciplinary database so it looks in thousands of journals in over a hundred subjects - many of them related to arts and humanities. Highly recommended as your first or second place to search.
ProQuest Central
Covering more than 160 subjects areas, ProQuest Central is the largest aggregated database of periodical content. This award-winning online reference resource features a highly-respected, diversified mix of content including scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, books, newspapers, reports and videos.
Scopus (Elsevier)
Scopus is another large, multidisciplinary database. It looks through journals, books, and conference papers. It has some advanced tools that can help you discover new research quickly - the 'times cited' and 'related articles' links are great time-savers. While it doesn't always have full-text PDFs it is still an excellent place to look for your research.
Web of Science
Web of Science is a massive, multidisciplinary database which includes a large amount of humanities and social sciences material from as far back as 1900. Like Scopus it has some advanced features that allows you to quickly link to related research.

Databases relevant to Creative Writing

For more focused results, try searching in one of these subject-specific databases.

Literature & Culture Collection (Informit)
This collection offers a number of Australia’s best known literary magazines that help define Australia’s literary and cultural heritage. Created in partnership with the Australia Council for the Arts, the Informit Literature & Culture Collection is an essential reference database for academic, school and public libraries and for teachers and students of literary studies, cultural studies and creative writing courses. It covers the period from 1940 to present both for Full Text Publications and Index.
AustLit : the Australian literature resource
AustLit indexes current publications to provide an up-to-date record of Australian literature and criticism, including works of fiction and poetry, writing for the theatre, biographical and travel writing, writing for film and television, criticism and reviews. The indexing schedule is determined by the level of Australian content published. Journals are indexed either quarterly or annually; newspapers on a weekly or monthly basis. AustLit also provides biographical and historical information about the people and organisations associated with the works covered.
Colonial Australian Popular Fiction: A Digital Archive
Online bibliography and digital archive covering a range of vibrant colonial writing. Examines the history of Australian popular or genre fiction from the early to late colonial period. Operates as a major reading, research and teaching resource. It makes available a wide selection of popular colonial publications, many are now rare and out of print. Texts are imaged and presented in their original format.
MLA International Bibliography (EBSCOhost)
Produced by the Modern Language Association the International Bibliography is the definitive index for the study of language, literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, folklore and film, covering scholarly publications from the early 20th century to the present. It includes citations to content published in journals, books, series, translations, scholarly editions, websites and dissertations. The database also includes the Directory of Periodicals and the Thesaurus.
Literature Online (LION) (ProQuest)
Leading online resource for the study and teaching of literature in English. The collection contains more than 350,000 works of poetry, drama and prose, over 350 full-text literature journals, and key bibliographies, biographies, reference works and student guides. Also contains the bibliographic database ABELL, with records covering monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews, collections of essays and doctoral dissertations published anywhere in the world.
Communication & Mass Media Complete (EBSCO)
Incorporates the content of CommSearch and Mass Media Articles Index along with numerous other journals in communication, mass media, and other closely-related fields of study to create a research and reference resource of unprecedented scope and depth encompassing the breadth of the communication discipline. Offers cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for more than 570 journals, and selected coverage of nearly 200 more, as well as full text for over 450 journals.
Project Muse Journal Collection
Project MUSE offers full-text current and archival articles from 500+ scholarly journals from major university presses covering literature and criticism, history, performing arts, cultural studies, education, philosophy, political science, gender studies, and more. Updated continually.

Select list of Australian journals for Creative Writing

Overland
Overland – Australia’s only radical literary magazine – has been showcasing brilliant and progressive fiction, poetry, nonfiction and art since 1954. The magazine has published some of Australia’s most iconic voices, and continues to give space to underrepresented voices and brand-new literary talent every single day. Also available in print from 1954.
Meanjin
Southerly : the magazine of the Australian English Association
Going down swinging
Cordite Poetry Review
Text Journal
Kill your darlings: new fiction, essays, commentary and reviews

Books

You can access print and eBooks via the Library Catalogue. To find books on a particular subject, try a keyword search:

To improve your searching skills, see the Research Essentials Library Guide. Note that you can search the catalogue in non-Latin scripts (including Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese and Korean).

For information on access and loans, including material from other libraries, see the borrowing from the library page. The eBook Guide provides information on eBook access.

Theses

Visit the Finding Theses guide

Websites

You can find relevant information and resources for your research on the websites of professional organisations and bodies, institutes, NGOs, government departments, etc.

This guide gives a few suggestions to get you started and to give you an idea what to look for. It is by no means comprehensive. If you are a coursework student, check your LMS to see if your lecturer has provided website recommendations.

Tip: if you want to limit your Google search results to organisational, governmental, or educational websites, use Google's advanced search option to limit the site or domains to .org, .gov, .edu.

Selected websites

Australian Poetry
A not-for-profit association established to promote reading, writing and publishing activities associated with Australian poetry in all of its forms.
Australian Society of Authors
The professional association for Australia's literary creators. Includes useful information on recommended rates of pay, Copyright Agency Limited, Public Lending Rights, and resources for authors. Authorlink for editors, agents, writers and readers This site provides resources to help writers become published and to make the job of finding good writers easier for editors and agents.
NewPages.com
Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas
The centrepiece of Melbourne's City of Literature.
Writers Victoria
Includes what's on in Victoria, and links to resources, organisations, funding bodies, online magazines and the publishing industry.

Copyright websites

Australian Copyright Council
An independent non-profit organisation which aims to assist creators and other copyright holders with their rights. A wide range of information sheets on various aspects of copyright is available from the website.
University of Melbourne Copyright Office

Referencing and citation

Visit the Re:cite guide to referencing

Learn to reference in styles commonly used at the university.
Download reference management software or find a citation generator.
Access training, guides and webinars.

Contact us

Ask a question on Library Chat

You can chat to a librarian via the Library's website.

Visit a Library Service Desk

We're here to help! Visit our libraries to talk to a library staff member for the help that you need.

Research Consultations

University of Melbourne academic staff and postgraduate students can book an individual research consultation or email the Arts liaison librarians.