Writing myself into an academic career

This chapter explains how I make space for writing – essential for academic career progression – in writer’s groups and writing retreats. While these spaces are simply about privileging writing over everything else, there is so much more going on, so many processes at work, particularly for women academics, and, in most national and higher education cultures, it is mostly women who use these spaces. As I progressed in my career, the spaces I made become more and more important, both to me and to others. This is where I work against efforts to ‘park’ and dismantle my career, throughout my career, efforts that intensified with each step in my progression. In these spaces I literally – to this day – write for my career, in the sense that I produce the written outputs I need to progress, but also write myself into a career, and, importantly, help other women to do so. I use social writing theory to analyse my experiences.