" Creativity and Contingency in Literary Writing offers an engaging and insightful exploration of literary creativity, showing how authorial practice, literary form, and contingency combine in the making of literature. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in how great literature comes to life." -- Ana Margarida Abrantes, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Portugal "Read this book only if you are prepared to have your mind changed, for Karin Kukkonen turns a core idea of literary studies upside down. She shows that the form literary works take, far from being necessary, is riddled with contingency, a contingency essential to creativity." -- Michel Chaouli, Author of Something Speaks to Me: Where Criticism Begins "How much of what you create is due to your own intentions, and how much down to chance happenings and coincidences? In this ground-breaking treatment, Karin Kukonnen reveals the many ways human practices and the materiality of textenable us to curate (and sometimes actively provoke) chance itself. A thrilling journey, highly recommended to all those interested in mind, creativity, and literary practice." -- Andy Clark, Author of The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality "This book not only shows how authors experiment with the contingencies of the writing process itself, but also follows their practices over time. It provides insights into how an author's creativity responds to its material settings, and how a work is continuously shaped by the ways an author is working.

This book offers new analytical tools with which to understand an author's individuality and takes a completely new approach to examining the relationship between manuscripts and writing practices." -- Juliane Vogel, University of Konstanz, Germany.