We begin by introducing the special section of the Canadian Journal for Studies in Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie on play, visual strategies and innovative approaches to graduate student writing development. Most exciting for us to see as editors of this special section is how many authors from various locales are drawing on creative methods, signalling to us that in some ways this is a burgeoning area. We have papers from Germany, the U.K., Thailand, and at least three provinces in Canada. We have some poetry, examples of collages, photos of cats, shapes, and Lego™. We include the abstracts for each of the papers.

This multiple case study explores the experiences that four Indigenous students have with academic writing as an important step toward addressing the pervasive gap in postsecondary achievement rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in Canada. This study draws on an Indigenous-based research approach, as well as critical and social approaches to academic writing, to explore students' experiences with academic writing. Interview questions, sketches, and samples of students' writing were used to elicit accounts of experiences. These experiences point to a perceived distance between the writing the students produce and the writing they feel they ought to produce. Students' accounts suggest that in spite of their location in a Eurocentric and predominately White institution, Indigenous students can appropriate academic writing for their own purposes and use it as a form of resistance.Implications for pedagogy include the need to create transformative spaces for the negotiation of, and talk about, academic writing. Gratitude ListGrateful: To Dr. Artemeva, for side-swiping me head-long into a graduate program I had not known existed at the time, and did not plan on attending. To Dr. Fox, for enduring my impromptu office visits (so many ideas!) and endless requests for references. To Dr. Gentil, for encouraging my questions, allowing me the space to negotiate my writing, and for continued support. To my Beijing Correspondent (Dr. Smart), for frustrating me (a great thing, actually) and reminding me to meet readers halfway. To Frankie (my dog) and Gibson (my cat), for checking up on me whilst writing and providing me with demanding my company. To my teachers, guides, community, and Elders, for helping me to stay grounded and reminding me that everything is on the path, even (especially!) theses. To Lisa, my sister-researcher, for allowing me to speak in incomplete sentences, listening, and saying she understood me even if she did not (because I just needed a sounding board). To Sean, my partner, for supporting my disappearance acts (#gottawrite), for reminding me to stay balanced with a full life that exists outside of academia (#getoutdoors), and for nearly falling asleep during my trial thesis presentation runs (that bad huh?). To the people who participated in this study, for sharing their stories, trusting me, and teaching me. To Joan and Connie (and the rest of Team ALDS), for all the visible and invisible, big and seemingly tiny tasks they do to help everyone to be their best. Finally, to the (maybe) six people who will read this (very long) thesis in its entirety, for your perseverance.

My research seeks to destabilize imaginings of dissertations-conventional and otherwise-by highlighting a range of doctoral dissertations that, seemingly against all odds, manage to diverge from well-worn epistemic and textual paths. Whether it's a dissertation from South Africa whose author brings auto-ethnography and illness narratives into a discipline known for its skepticism of anything qualitative (Richards, 2012), a dissertation from Canada whose author purposely eschews standard edited academic English in order to privilege traditional Indigenous knowledges (Stewart, 2015), or a dissertation from the United States whose author coded and designed a digital scholarly edition of Ulysses without writing a single chapter in the process (Visconti, 2015), my research questions what brings these dissertations together as well as considering what sets them apart.

It has been a privilege to work on this edited collection despite the fact that much of the work has taken place during a pandemic when, for many of us, our lives have been turned inside out. The series editors Terry Zawacki, Joan Mullin, Magnus Gustafsson, and Federico Navarro have been exceptionally helpful, as has been founding editor and publisher Mike Palmquist. Terry, in particular, has guided us with gentle encouragement and thoughtful suggestions throughout the process. We also thank the contributors for their work on chapters and for their collegial approach to this project. It has been a pleasure to work with you all, and we look forward to many years of collaborations in the future. We would also like to thank all the readers who read earlier drafts of pieces of this collection. We are grateful for your careful work.Cecile: I would like to acknowledge the support from Memorial University for assistance in the preparation of this manuscript and in particular for the Publications Subventions Program grant. I also want to thank my co-editors, Britt and Jamie, for a most enjoyable journey. Our virtual meetings became a highlight for me. I'm also extremely grateful to both of them for carrying the load when I became ill. They conveyed their compassion and care in multiple ways.Britt: As I type this on my phone (with one hand, while feeding my new baby), I am astounded at what can be accomplished when academics come together to care-fully collaborate. As authors and editors, we have been through births, deaths, sickness (hello Covid-19!), health, layoffs, new jobs, as well as dissertation endings (congrats!), beginnings, and somewhere in between. I am grateful to my co-editors who have sustained me in more ways than I could possibly detail. I am grateful to the authors, who gracefully took on rounds of editing and review in order to push this piece further. I am grateful to the Algonquin Nation whose territory includes the Ottawa River watershed, which nurtures and sustains my life and the lives of my kin. Finally, I am grateful to my human, Sean Botti, whose countless hours of visible and invisible labour has contributed to making this project a reality.Jamie: I am grateful to so many people who have been a part of bringing this collection together. I would like to thank my co-editors, Britt and Cecile, for their rigour, generosity, and care. The fact that we have edited this book from different corners of the world has frequently opened up interesting juxtapositions in time and season and in terms of how we think about doctoral education and writing. I am grateful to chapter authors for working with us RE-IMAGINING DOCTORAL WRITING

We begin by situating this work and ourselves in graduate writing. Although our experiences as burgeoning researchers are not a focus of this article, we are nonetheless present in the background, not unlike a palimpsest. We trace one aspect of this palimpsest-the use of playful and