Drafts as Archival Sources: The British Archive for Contemporary Writing at the University of East Anglia

Drafting produces a variety of evidence of creative writing practice, not all of which is preserved – even less so in today’s contemporary digital world than was the case in the pre-digital past.

The British Archive for Contemporary Writing (BACW) was established at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the autumn of 2015. It is one clear example of ways in which archives containing draft creative writing offer opportunities for potential revelations about writers’ processes. It also an interesting case study of creative writers’ reactions to the notion of retaining earlier versions of their works, the material behind the final, released results. The BACW, and The Storehouse, where authors are able to deposit material on a short-term basis, additionally raise questions about ownership of incomplete creative writing, notes and expressively transitory ephemeral materials, and in what ways drafting is a series of writerly acts that might increasingly be expected to form part of our pursuit of greater creative writing knowledge, given any continued growth in research and practice-led research into creative writing.