Can creative writing be taught?

Illustration by Tad Richards

Creative-writing programs are designed on the theory that students who have never published a poem can teach other students who have never published a poem how to write a publishable poem. The fruit of the theory is the writing workshop, a combination of ritual scarring and twelve-on-one group therapy where aspiring writers offer their views of the efforts of other aspiring writers.

Louis Menand, in The New Yorker

None of this is exactly new. For as long as there have been creative writing programs, there have been attacks on them. I read about half of the Menand article, in spite of the fact that he's a writer I generally admire, and it's a subject I'm generally interested in.

I neither know nor care whether a creative writing program can teach anyone to write. I don't know, for a start, what "teach anyone to write" means. I know I wouldn't trade my experience at Iowa for anything. I learned something about taking myself seriously as a writer, about revision, about not being too easily satisfied. I found myself in the company of people who cared passionately about writing. My classmates included Marvin Bell, Mark Strand, Charles Wright, Michael S. Harper, and I'm barely scratching the surface. I learned from them. I learned from Donald Justice, Philip Roth, Vance Bourjaily, from whom I took workshop courses. I also learned from Donald Finkel, who was my professor at Bard College but never for a workshop course, from Howard Koch and Heywood Hale Broun, who were valued mentors outside of academia. And from my stepfather, Harvey Fite, who was not a writer at all, but a sculptor. And from hundreds of other people in other ways. If you care about writing, you'll always be learning.

And if you care about teaching, you'll keep doing that, and hope that something you've said will get inside of someone, and inspire her/him to develop as a writer.

If you've tried teaching writing, or thought about teaching writing, you might want to think about entering the Teachers and Writers Collaborative Bechtel Prize competition for the best essay essay "addressing important issues in the areas of creative writing education, literary studies, and/or the profession of writing. In 2009, T&W is seeking Bechtel Prize submissions that explore the teaching of creative writing in combination with another artistic discipline, such as dance, media arts, music, theater, or the visual arts; or with another academic discipline, such as math or history. We are seeking essays that shed light on the nature of the creative process and want to read your stories about viewing the art of writing through a different lens, and your take on the benefits and challenges of such cross-disciplinary work."

Deadline for the competition is 5:00 PM (Eastern), Tuesday, June 30, 2009.