Beyond scholarly praxis – embodying creative practice

The scholarly artist occupies a precarious threshold between pedagogy and practice, scholarship and market, recognition and survival. Within the academy, creative writing research is framed through reflexive scholarly praxis evaluated by institutional metrics of rigour and validity. Beyond it, the creative practitioner must negotiate an unpredictable industry ecology governed by readership, market appeal, and cultural relevance. This paper argues that the disjunction between these spheres is not merely structural but situated in creative praxis, shaping how scholarly artists imagine their futures as writers. Drawing on practice-led research, narrative examples, and the Australian higher education context, the paper examines the limitations of current research paradigms and proposes more symbiotic models for engagement between academia and creative industries.