Creative writing and academic timelessness

Time is a rare commodity in the academy. Academics are often inundated with multiple teaching, administrative and coordinating tasks, which detracts from time for creative writing and research. This paper discusses the problem of time poverty in academia. It proposes that engaging in creative modes, such as expressive, embodied and poetic writing, can generate a sense of timelessness. Timelessness will be defined as the sensation of fixed or frozen time, where academics are so fully engrossed in an encounter that they are unaware of time passing. Creative writing can evoke such timeless moments by connecting academics to intrinsically meaningful work that gives them pleasure.