CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing

by Rita Banerjee (Editor/Contributor), Diana Norma Szokolyai (Editor/Contributor), Kazim Ali (Contributor)

CREDO. I believe. No other statement is so full of intent and subversion and power. A Credo is a call to arms. It is a declaration. A Credo is the act of an individual pushing back against society, against established stigmas, taboos, values, and norms. A Credo provokes. It desires change. A Credo is an artist or community challenging dogma, and putting oneself on the frontline. A Credo is art at risk. A Credo can be a marker of revolution. A Credo, is thus, the most calculating and simple form of a manifesto.

CREDO creates a bridge from the philosophical to the practical, presenting a triad of creative writing manifestos, essays on the craft of writing, and creative writing exercises. CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing is a raw look at what motivates authors today.

Genres: Nonfiction, Writing

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2018

About the author

Rita Banerjee is editor of Disobedient Futures (University Press of Kentucky, May 2027) and the author of the poetry collections Echo in Four Beats, which was named one of Book Riot’s “Must-Read Poetic Voices of Split This Rock 2018,” and Cracklers at Night. She is also editor of CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing, and author of the novella “A Night with Kali” in Approaching Footsteps. She received her doctorate in Comparative Literature from Harvard University and her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington, and serves as Senior Editor of the South Asian Avant-Garde and Executive Creative Director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop. Her work appears in Sign & Breath: Voice and the Literary Tradition, Academy of American Poets, Poets & Writers, Nat. Brut., Hunger Mountain, Tupelo Quarterly, Isele Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, Vermont Public Radio, and elsewhere. She is the co-writer of Burning Down the Louvre, a forthcoming documentary film about race, intimacy, and tribalism in the United States and in France. She received a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council for her new memoir, and one of the opening chapters of this new memoir, “Birth of Cool” was a Notable Essay in the 2020 Best American Essays, and another chapter from her new memoir, “The Female Gaze,” was a Notable Essay in the 2023 Best American Essays. She is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. You can follow her work at ritabanerjee.com.

Reviews

[Shirleynature · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many passages here resonate beautifully for me and others perhaps will connect for another reader & writer. Some of my favorites connect writing to other art-forms, risk and creativity.

I had an expectation of more focus on writing for change making and resistance. I think I need to go to Roxane Gay, Cleo Wade and other sheroes.

[Greg Bem · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the book as a whole is sprawling and may impede rather than promote healthy writing practice, at times, it as historic anthology of writers on their own work and practice is in itself a nice contribution to the canon. There are notably some voices and themes missing from this anthology, but what is included is provocative and will assuredly support the engagements and indulgences of amateur and professional writers alike.