A couple of weeks ago I had a new piece published in Qualitative Research titled “Writing Sociological Fiction”, which I hope some of you may interested in. I draw from my experiences running So Fi Zine, being Fiction Editor of The Sociological Review, and writing my novel Into the Sea, to call for more creative writing across social research. I hope it provides some useful ways forward for doing so.
I actually haven’t intentionally shared this piece yet with anyone except the authors named below; partly because it’s the result of years of work and I don’t know how to summarise that in a pithy tweet, all of the rejections and revisions, the times it lived alone in a metaphorical drawer until my confidence recovered, and how indebted I am to all of the writers contributing to these projects who I have the ongoing privilege of working with. I know practically everyone who subscribes to this sporadic newsletter does so because they have contributed to the zine or TSR fiction series — I hope this article shows how much I care for these platforms. Thank you thank you thank you for trusting me with your writing and your art.
In the discussion I focus on three excellent stories as examples: Stealth Love by Massimo Airoldi from Fiction @ The Sociological Review; Unbecoming Strangers by Fabian Cannizzo from So Fi Zine edition #3; and The Rest Stop by J.E. Sumerau, also from Fiction @ The Sociological Review. These pieces have been so useful for my thinking and for developing my own writing, so please do check them out and share them (and the two series) with friends/colleagues/social media (if you tweet, their handles are: @massimoairoldi @fabiancann @JSumerau).
You should be able to read the article for free, but please let me know if you can’t or if you’d like a copy of a PDF and don’t have institutional access.