This article explores Patricia Leavy’s social fiction novels. The article details how and why Leavy’s work has been a source of inspiration, how the development of “social fiction” broadened the arts-based research landscape, and how this works makes possible new forms of creative research. Lasczik then reviews in detail much of Leavy’s extensive fiction catalog, her use of different genres, the messages embedded in her novels, and what those novels mean to readers.
Keywords
social fiction, fiction, Patricia Leavy, writing as inquiry, novels, arts-based research, romance novels, women’s studies, Celestial Bodies Romances, Tess Lee
Author Bio(s)
Alexandra Lasczik is currently Associate Dean, Education Partnerships and co-founder and Research Co-Leader of the Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education Research Centre [SEAE] in the Faculty of Education at Southern Cross University, Australia. She is known as an arts-based scholar, particularly a/r/tography, creative writing, poetry, and critical walking inquiry. She has served as World Councillor for the International Society of Education through Art [InSEA]; Chair, Arts-Based Educational Research Special Interest Group [ABER SIG] for the American Educational Research Association [AERA] and Program Chair, ABER SIG for AERA. She was also Editor of Australian Art Education Journal and Editor of the International Journal of Education through Art [IJEtA]. She is Series Co-Editorof Palgrave Studies in Movement Across Education, the Arts and the Social Sciences (Palgrave Macmillan), and was previously co-Editor of two book series, Studies in Arts-based Educational Research (Springer), and SpringerBriefs in Arts-based Educational Research (Springer). Her work focuses on children's experiences of the Arts in schools and settings, particularly through transdisciplinary climate change education and the support of at-risk youth.
