Whilst ostensibly an interesting and light-weight subject, this subject has a covertly racist and transphobic tutor, Oscar Davis, who downgrades your work, depending on your ethnicity and gender. My friend who attempted to write a short story with subtle innuendos towards homosexuality ended up receiving a revolting grade that was well below their standards. Additionally, my grade was also severely compromised due to my non-Australian ethnicity. I highly discourage anyone who is not a white Australian heterosexual male from enrolling in this subject, unless they seek to experience the same xenophobia. Bear in mind that I have also attempted to request regrading for my work, but was only met with a dry change of 2.5% in my grade. The material they provide for the first assignment is highly unreflective of their ‘vague’ expectations and regardless of the originality or creativity offered in your piece, they generally make it depending on their personal preference of your character, with no particular guidelines or a firm rubric.

I really enjoyed this subject in the beginning, but then the lectures stop after week 9 and it started to feel a bit discombobulated. Especially since you need to get inspiration from what is discussed in the lectures about the short stories to explain your short story in the end of sem assessment. The tutorial is a lot of fun, and the 2.5 hours flies by. Elizabeth and Pennie are great.

Interesting subject, but struggles with finding coherence due to the turnstile nature of the lecturers. That is, the lecturers only lecture for a short amount of time on a particular concept, and then are replaced by another lecturer. These lecturers are often prominent authors or scholars affiliated with the university. While their insight is helpful, the subject itself is disjointed, and for this reason often difficult to follow. Yet, this subject covers important fundamentals of short fiction writing, and the assessments are fun and engaging.

Don't do this subject unless you've got an idea in your head about a short story you'd like to write. It's a good way to improve your writing and expose yourself to some great, classic short fiction writers (e.g. Hemingway, Carver, Chekhov) and low time commitment given you've got a good idea. Only two major assessments, which are both due at the end of the semester.

This subject is really fun, I really enjoyed the tutorials and the feedback I got for my writing. Recommend for anyone who wants to improve writing but not as a first time creative writing subject.

Totally dependent upon your tutor as to how valuable you find this subject, and to a lesser extent your tutorial class too as there is a lot of discussion of both the readings and the student piece being workshopped. I didn't particularly find the readings that valuable (but I am a science student, so we aren't exactly accustomed to being made to read stuff each week), but the discussions were generally interesting- especially the workshopping (of both your own and others pieces).