Creative writing schools and cultural workers in the making. Aspiring, quitting and making it

This study is concerned with the making of cultural workers in contemporary neoliberal creative economies. In studies on cultural and creative industries, the making of cultural workers is generally an under-researched topic owing to a focus on what happens after workers complete their cycle of education, namely, the phase of work in cultural and creative industries. Broadening the focus to education and education-to work transitions allows for an exploration of phenomena that remain peripheral to research on cultural labour and the experiences of cultural workers. Drawing on 47 in-depth interviews with former students of the Holden School of Creative Writing and Storytelling, which is based in Turin (Italy), and employing theoretical resources from studies on cultural labour, especially on precarious subjectivities and the sociology of education, this research investigates the participants' unequal conditions of access to creative education, their motivations and aspirations, and their experiences of the post-graduation education-to-work transition. The study unravels the participants' diverse reasons and biographical trajectories, challenging the dominant notion that cultural work is intrinsically desirable, which in the last 30 years has deeply influenced cultural and economic policies in the Anglo-American world and beyond. It does so not only through a critical analysis of the features of cultural work, which many studies on cultural labour have already done, but also by examining how creative subjectivities are developed through education, and how successful or failed attempts at 'making it' in the field of cultural production shape and reshape the identities of aspiring cultural workers.