15th August 2017 | for Creatives | writing, formal arts education, writing workshops, Harriet Levin Millan, artists vs. artists/competition among creatives |
"It was especially severe as a student in my overly competitive MFA program at the University of Iowa. We students were pitted against each other and competed for praise, merit scholarships, and teaching jobs. Most workshops, I'd leave in tears."
"The practice of writing is a kind of self-instruction that no number of writing workshops can teach you. You have to learn how to do it yourself. The writing makes you a writer, it builds your discipline, enhances your talent, and draws froth the reserves of your character."
"I've also been at writers' summer workshops where really the model is setting one young writer against another. I find that appalling. Writing is not the WWE."
"Instruction in writing is oftenest aimed at the oblivious tradesman of fiction, and the troubles of the artist are dismissed or overlooked."
"Many writers, and teachers of writing, spend so much time comparing work to past masters that they lose the contemporary voice of the novel being created on this day."
"I went to ... a great theater school. And despite a lot of success, I decided I wanted to write instead of interpret."
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