A treasure trove of teaching and writing: 826 ValenciaFrom: Ed
Schwarzschild
To: Adam
Johnson, Chris Castellani, Daniel Handler, Peter Orner
The book
club event at Odyssey Books was a blast, attended by a handful—a klatch, one
could say—of sharp readers, which made the trip out here more than worthwhile. It made me think more about audience and my
dream of a world full of strong, thoughtful readers and writers. This leads, I like to think, to questions
about teaching. It's interesting (but not
surprising) to see that day one included references to various teachers (some
specific, like Andre Dubus, and others less specific, like the soon-to-be
tenured beer drinker).
We've all done various kinds of teaching ourselves. How
have your experiences as students of writing shaped your goals as teachers of
writing? What classroom experiences do
you hope to re-create and what classroom experiences do you hope desperately to
avoid re-creating? Also: how were/are
you influenced by other writers and how do you hope to influence the students
you teach? Seems like a great
opportunity, too, to talk about involvement/interest in organizations like Grub
Street, or 826, or Gotham Writers Workshop, or what have you.
Rock/bop/hard
bop on--
E
***
From: Daniel Handler
To: Adam Johnson, Chris
Castellani, Ed Schwarzschild, Peter Orner
The only writing class that ever
did anything for me was one I took with Kit Reed as an undergraduate. She had eight students, all of whom had to
turn in 20 pages of fiction every two weeks.
We met individually with Reed in her kitchen. She was a careful reader and had a great
sense of what I might read that might help me.
("This is a creepy story.
Have you read Joy Williams?
Rachel Inghalls? And look at
Kafka again, he's great at creepy.")
The class only met en masse three times over the semester: an opening
meeting, a midway check-in, and a party at the end. I wrote a lot that semester, and read a lot
too. I also got the message that writing
is writing: if you don't like to do it, you shouldn't be a writer.
I don't have an MFA and I've never taught
more than the occasional one-day workshop.
In general I'm suspicious of the whole enterprise. Certainly many terrific writers are coming
out of MFA programs, but in general they seem to have gotten over hurdles that
seem inevitable to the whole workshopping process: groupthink, imitation of
some flavor-of-the-semester, deification of a teacher, obsession over literary
gossip. In my experience there were
enough hurdles to get to be a writer without getting these tossed in front of
me. And I don't think I know a single
teacher of writing for adults who wouldn't quit if they didn't need the money.
The major benefit of writing
programs that's often touted is the time and encouragement to write, and I'm
suspicious of that most of all. I
believe wholeheartedly in that kind of encouragement and scheduling when you're
ten. When you're twenty-seven I'm not so
sure. Literature isn't begging for more
practitioners. You could spend your life
only rereading Isaac Singer and end up fulfilled. Some of our best writers overcame
unimaginable hardship to get words on paper, and now, increasingly, we have
programs for people who are largely (with many significant exceptions)
overcoming inconvenience. I'm not sure
this makes for the kind of writer I like most: a lifer, a person who can scarcely help themselves
but write. I imagine this is an unpopular answer.
***
Not a Doctor: Ed SchwarzschildFrom: Ed Schwarzschild
To: Adam Johnson, Chris Castellani, Daniel Handler, Peter
Orner
Well,
we'll see as the day unfolds if it's an unpopular answer, but I'm betting it
won't be. It is, though, most definitely
thought-provoking.
Growing
up, I was told so often by so many people that I would grow up to be a doctor
that, like any good kid, I started repeating that mantra to myself, repeated it
loud and long enough that I crammed through pre-med cutthroat courses as an
undergrad and signed up to take the MCAT not one or two, but three times, without ever taking the
damn thing. Hope they used all those
test fees well.
Anyhow, all those years,
at least from elementary school
on, I loved reading and writing, but I wasn't getting the encouragement, let
alone the instruction, I needed. Then,
finally, I took a writing workshop, taught by Dan McCall. For me, the space that McCall created was essential—he
made it possible to imagine a writing life.
He also made it clear that there were no promises of success, but
without him, I fear I would have pushed through into med school and beyond (I
can, like many Leos, be stubborn), and that would most likely have led to no
good for potential patients or my own potential happiness.
A
small thing, that class, and probably not deserving of a worldwide MFA
industry. And yet, teaching at a big
state school these days, I'm struck by how little encouragement the students I
see have been given to think of themselves seriously as writers, to think of
how what they read is written, to think of how they imagine and what they
imagine and why they imagine. So, at one
edge of the spectrum there's the vexed, age-old question of whether or not
writing can be taught. But, keeping that
at the far edge for the moment, there's the more vital question of can students
be given the chance to create some space in their lives to think of themselves
as readers and writers. Can they be encouraged to push back against the
pressure to pre-professionalize they've been getting since elementary school,
if not earlier?
Maybe
the kind of encouragement I'm talking about—in undergraduate education, but
also at places like 826 and Grub Street and elsewhere—is only an accidental
side-effect of the growth of MFA
culture, but I like to think it's more than that, and I like to think
its benefits to society as a whole are substantial.
And,
yes, it's true, if money were not an issue, it's safe to say I would teach
less. I might even hire a paper-grader
from time to time. But I'd still want to teach regularly, especially since that
inspiration I got as a student is, I like to think, a two-way street.
***
From: Peter Orner
To: Adam Johnson, Chris Castellani, Daniel Handler, Ed
Schwarzschild
My thought's this: people are pretty resilient. They survive
divorces and they survive plane crashes. Broken homes, unbroken homes. They can
even survive the sometimes goofy horrors of an MFA program intact and go on to
write decently, lifelong. I do agree that the proliferation of the programs
seems to create more writers, but I'm not sure it creates more readers—and
this does bother me a lot.
I also cannot stand the way that it academicizes the writing
of fiction. Daniel mentioned yesterday
that he wasn't even sure what a short story was—and thank god for this. The
idea that, armed with MFA, anybody might hold the key to how to write a story
or anything else is alarming. And yet those letters seem to encourage a lot of
crap. The proof of this is how much work out there is competent, but not
inspired or even interesting.
But I think we'd get cookie cutter work without MFA programs
too. All you have to do is go to the bookstore and see this.
In my own case I was lucky to have some great teachers who
were less teachers than writers and getting a small dose of them—if it was
only them saying, go read all of I.B. Singer, go, now, don't talk to me, just
go read, do it—often was enough.
Once, as an undergraduate at one of those big state schools
Ed talks about, I slipped a story under a writer's door. And he actually read
the thing—and wrote me a typed response on onion skin paper. I still have it
around here somewhere. He particularly liked that I said a room smelled like
potato chips. And then he said, go and
read Arcturus by Evan Connell. My own story was dogmeat, but the Connell I still
re-read.
Last point—as someone who also works at a big state
university, I get a lot of people walking through my door who would normally
never get the attention of anybody. Least of all anyone interested in their
stories. There's no time, and when the student to professor ratio is like a 150
to one, as opposed to 10 to 1 as it is at some small elite private schools in
this country, there's very little opportunity for contact with faculty. But I
try (not always, but some days), as someone once tried with me.
Okay last last point: the MFA programs that provide funding
in exchange for work — are undoubtedly the best. They give some people a chance
who might not have had one, and like I say, sometimes people survive them and
go on to write pretty well. It is said that Flannery O'Connor sat at the back
of her Iowa classroom and scowled. But by no means are they are necessary—and
can be damaging to the brain if people aren't careful. But so can a lot of
things. Transfats.
All right last last last point, two questions really, and
one I do not know the answer to. Why fewer outlets for fiction than ever before
(excluding the internet) and yet all these programs? And why do certain major
magazines still bore us with articles on the issue of MFA or not MFA? Why don't they just publish more fiction?
***
Under the Right Circumstances, He'd Burn Your Trash Cans: Adam JohnsonFrom: Adam Johnson
To: Chris Castellani,
Daniel Handler, Ed Schwarzschild, Peter Orner
I think that Daniel's right that eventually you'll have to
thrive on the aloneness of writing, and for some that should come sooner than
later. For me, finding mentors in writing was pivotal—I'm lucky I didn't find a
great mentor in the sanitation or arson field, because if he or she had given
me time, attention, and rigor, I'd be burning trash cans right now, your trash
cans.
As an undergraduate, I liked writing short stories and was happy to be in
the air conditioning, rather than out banging nails in the Arizona heat. It was
cool to hang out with other people who loved books and go to smarty-pants
parties. But it was a teacher who took me aside, a mentor who made me strive, a
writer who showed me that all my perceived faults—lying, exaggerating,
daydreaming, rubbernecking—combined to make something good called a story.
All the bad press about MFA programs is probably
true—mediocrity, burned out teachers, politics, proficient but heartless work—I
saw all of that as I milked the grad school world for as long as I could. But I
also had great peers, wrote a ton of writing and was in the game every single
day. More people will read the Unabomber's "Manifesto" than anything I ever
write, so I'll set the quality issue aside.
Mostly, the MFA program allowed me
to practice being a writer—showing up every day, reading as much as possible,
humbling oneself to improve—until I became a writer. And in general, I don't
think most people would look back at the end of life and regret having spent a
couple years doing something they were passionate about.
Remember when Dante strayed from the path and encountered
the She-Wolf of Incontinence? What Dante needed was Virgil, and what I was most
blessed with were great teachers—writers who were generous, patient and
demanding, who helped me make leaps, see faults, and who treated even my worst
work seriously. Writing stories was cool, but my teachers showed me that to be
a writer was different: it meant seeing the outside world differently and it
meant being on a first name basis with the voices in your head; it meant being
evangelical about the oracularity of narrative; and it meant seeing the
humanity of pretend people in order that we better approach real people.
I know
it sounds like I'm writing a pamphlet on earnestness, but there's no way to be
pithy about people who gave me so much, whether I deserved it or not. And since
there's no way to ever pay back your teachers, it's what makes helping my
students so dang rewarding.
***
Chris Castellani's recent work: A Kiss from MaddalenaFrom: Chris
To: Adam, Daniel, Ed,
Peter
Hello Sexy Ones,
I want to say first that mentors were *crucial* for me in my
MFA program. One professor and three (of 9) classmates offered invaluable
perspective on my work, and helped give me the confidence to pursue it. They
were my first editors, and who doesn't need editors, especially when they're
insightful readers and, personality-wise, a perfect mix of cheerleader and
critic? Is it so wrong to seek these editors at a certain stage of your career?
Though I've made many of the criticisms of MFA programs
you've already mentioned, I bristle a bit when I hear writers complain about
them. It smacks of elitism. I am guilty of this myself, going on and on at
parties and conferences about how lifeless American fiction has become thanks
to all these programs churning out the same Chekhovian story again and again.
It makes me feel important to rail against
these programs and pretend that "real writers" like me don't really need them, even though I
attended one and basically learned a hell of a lot from it, and would give my
right arm to produce a story worthy of being called Chekhovian. But frankly, I
can think of worse problems than a proliferation of programs promoting the
craft of writing, whether or not I agree with their approach.
Yes, these programs are cash cows; yes, they take some
advantage of people who have naively idealized the life of the writer; yes,
individual instructors tend to teach to a particular aesthetic. But these
programs put money in the hands of emerging writers (like me, like many of my
good friends); they create and fuel often passionate conversations about things
like character development and point of view; they valorize the discipline of
writing itself; they create a world, however fleeting, where the written word is
king.
I think it's a myth that the majority (or even a large
minority) of these programs focus mainly on the marketplace and not the art. In
*every* program I've either participated in or had friends participate in, the
instructors belabor the point that if you're not in this business because you
love stories and words and art, you're in for a rude awakening.
The whole "cookie-cutter approach" to writing may
also be a myth. I think it's rare that a truly original voice that doesn't fit
the "classic" model of a short story or novel gets discouraged or
"molded" into a form where it doesn't belong. Quite the opposite:
teachers are thrilled when they discover or nurture a voice like this. The
people who get molded are usually those who are trying to achieve that
particular model, but are failing miserably because they simply haven't read
enough or haven't written enough stories (i.e. haven't practiced enough).
I like to apply to MFA programs what Grace Paley (may she
rest in peace) said about the teaching of creative writing to children:
"For some people it meant that as a teacher you had to make great writers:
either a student becomes a great writer or what's the point in teaching
writing? Whereas the person who believes that you can teach math never thinks about
whether or not the idea is to make a great mathematician. Nor does the history
teacher belives that it is essential, in order to be a honorable teacher of
history, to produce a great or famous historian. In a way, they are right about
what they're doing: they want to produce women and men who love history, or
math, or chemistry, and would understand what they (the teachers) are doing,
and love and maybe understand the world a little bit better."
Like all of you, I absolutely wish that, instead of printing
another article about what's wrong or right with MFA programs,
journals/newspapers/magazines would print more fiction. But I do think
(naively?) that the proliferation of writing programs are, in fact, creating more and better readers. Who else—other than
friends, family and the homeless—takes a couple hours out of their night to
attend a reading at a local independent bookstore?
***
NEXT: Warning: Being a stay-at-home Dad may damage your career
more »
What it’s like to be the only Jew in a cast of thousands acting...
Dear Madge: You are not an ambassador for the Jewish people
How the jewelry industry convinced us true love costs $4,000
The literary icon on Hitler, Jesus, and the sheer joy of large...
You can't reach young women by bashing men