The worst thing a student could do in a creative writing class?

Cathy Dreyer - a student on Oxford University’s Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing - posted her suggestion here in a LOL short story that won a £50 prize. Students do not copy! (the story or the way the protagonist handed in homework).

Can creative writing be taught?

No one wonders why an aspiring artist should want to go to art school or thinks there is anything strange about a musician taking lessons, but 80+ years after the first university creative writing programme was launched the debate about whether creative writing can be taught still rages on.
Author and editor Louis Menand writing in the New Yorker in 2009 questioned the way creative writing is taught

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.

 

British screenwriter and author Hanif Kureishi - of My Beautiful Laundrette and The Buddha of Suburbia fame - seems to find very little of value in any creative writing course. His observations are much ruder and considerably less funny. I can't help wondering how the post grad creative writing students he supervises  at Kingston University feel about his assertion that such courses only attract the mad.
I've put the other side of the argument (surprise, surprise) in the latest issue of What the Dickens creative writing magazine. You can download it for free at http://wtd-magazine.com/

Or buy it for your kindle at £1.53 or $2.99

There's lots more to read in the summer sunflower issue - from author interviews to reviews and craft articles. Plus a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes at a new writing website that offers intriguing against-the-clock writing exercises.

 

Have a peek at my article and then come back here. I'd love to know what you think, especially if you've ever been on a creative writing course (including one of mine!)
Did it boost your writing self confidence or undermine it? Did you pick up new skills and have you written more since going on the course?
(Gulp!) Could Hanif be right?

A Writing Retreat for Women (better than a week in the Canaries...)

New Writing South is one of my favourite organisations, partly because it sometimes employs me (and I am biased towards any organisation that has the great good sense to do that), but mostly because it does so many interesting things and never ever rests on past glories. It's based in Brighton but serves writers, emerging writers and want-to-be writers throughout the south east region from Oxford to Kent. 

I've just heard that they are about to launch a special three-day writing retreat for women. It will take place in September in rural Sussex and it will be led by Vanessa Gebbie. I know Vanessa and I have no doubt it will be an empowering expereince. She is not only a highly original and exciting short story writer (winner of numerous competitions) but also an excellent writing tutor. Her first novel is out later this year and I recommend her guide to the art of short story writing, Short Circuit published by Salt. 

Find out more about the autumn retreat by visiting New Writing South's website (click the title of this post). You can register your interest by emailing

admin@newwritingsouth.com

Should you follow advice?

A lot of advice about writing - especially online advice - is assertive, emphatic and down right dogmatic. 
     8 ways to become a bestselling author
    The 7 secrets of writing a blockbuster 
    The 6 mistakes that guarantee a rejection letter
    no matter how great your manuscript
Quick-fix solutions appeal and those kind of headlines are not confined to blogs and websites devoted to creative writing and publishing. They have  become almost the standard for giving advice on the internet:
5 ways to get rid of acne permanently 
The 12 rules for successful potty training
Some of the information given under those titles can be sound and sensible: worth reading and worth following. Some of the information is so vacuous and wordy - saying the same thing is three different ways in a faux down-to-earth, next best friend style - that you know  the author has to have an agenda other than informing...
And they do. 
It's all about attracting surfers to the site. End of.
We read 25% slower on screen than we do from the page so instantly understandable titles are going to be clicked. Ones that also make promises are going to get more clicks. 
American writer Jane Friedman argues that kind of attitude also seeps into the advice on offer. Click on the the title to read what she has to say in full but here's a taster.

Writing a great blog post or developing a successful online presence is often about knowing how to attract attention, or be bombastic in a charming way. Talking about the gray areas within an issue—parsing through all the intricacies—isn’t known for generating traffic. Boldness is.

So here I am in praise of the grey (or gray). I'm not against eye catching headlines - that's what we all want - but I am against the notion that there is a formulaic answer to anything outside chemistry (ok, and physics and perhaps even an ology or two that I haven't quite mastered). Or that there's secret information out there in a Dan Brown kind of way and once you acquire the insider knowledge everything is going to be just fine and dandy.

Here are the two best bits of advice I have ever come across.
On writing itself
There are only two ways to learn: the first is to write and the second is to read
(Ok, numbers again but this time it turns the convention on its head.) 
On being a writer (but it applies to anything)
If you do something - something happens

Writing in one of the most beautiful places in the world....

The Beara Writing Experience:  Becoming a Part of Rural Ireland through Landscape, Literature, and Culture

Sometimes we need to set down our burdens and wait for our souls to catch up.

I've just received news about The Beara Writing Experience in  west Cork.  I'd go in a heartbeat if I had the chance. I stayed in Anam Cara for a two weeks in the summer of 2009 and the magic lingers on.

The workshop/retreats are for everyone - novice to experienced writers, teachers and business people. They offer the opportunity to retreat from the dailiness of  life into the atmosphere of peace and tranquility that is the Beara peninsula and Anam Cara Writer's and Artist's Retreat. They are also a chance to immerse yourself in Irish literature, history, and culture in a landscape of haunting beauty as well as the community life of a rural Irish village.

A cooperative partnership created to explore and honour all that is the Beara Peninsula through the writing arts, the Beara Writing Experience is a joint effort created by Paddy O'Conor, a poet, educator, counselor, and fisherman; John O'Leary, a professor, poet,  historian, and farmer; and Sue Booth-Forbes, an educator, writer, editor, and director of Anam Cara Writer's and Artist's Retreat.Scheduled to fall on or near Celtic quarterly celebrations, the next one is the Imbolg Writing Retreat scheduled for 27-30 January 2011 at Anam Cara.  For more information, see www.beara_writing_experience.com.

The classroom in the frontline ADULT EDUCATION IN DANGER

There's an odd mix of feelings at the start of a new college year. The summer-can't-be-over-there-must-be-some-mistake fog combines nicely with a fission of excitement: new classes, new students, new writing - it's show time!
Saying hello for the first time to students at Portslade Community College in East Sussex as I take over a well established and well regarded introductory courses on Monday evening and Thursday morning. Hello too to students on Towards Publication which runs on Friday mornings at The Friends Centre in Brighton and City Lit students in London studying Ways into Creative Writing and How to Write A Family Biography. Just completed my first all day workshop on memoir writing and every other Saturday I am running Tarner Drama as part of a writer-in-residence project.
Next week I am back at university.

There are some classes I've given up - my regular Monday morning at Brighton Unemployed Centre, for example. It  has been part of my life since February 2005 and was my first taste of teaching.  I also said goodbye to my Saturday morning class at City Lit in the summer. I miss it. I miss the students that came term in and term out and the new ones who weren't at all sure that giving up a Saturday lie-in was such a good idea (until they discovered it was a brilliant idea). I miss their humour and tolerance and outstanding ability. Some passages of writing produced in Room 507 will stay with me always.

And that reminds me just how important adult education is - and I say that not just as a tutor but also as a consumer - I am a lifelong student. If we stop learning, stop wanting to learn, doesn't something else stop inside...?

This term starts under the shadow of cuts that are predicted to be fierce and terrible. There is a very real risk that adult education colleges will be in the front line. That matters. For example, at present nearly half of City Lit's income comes from the Government. A major reduction would mean very large fee increases and could jeopardise the Centre's future.

I suppose it is difficult to argue for no cuts, but adult education can't be seen as an expendable add-on, nice to have but not really essential. It is so much more than that and every MP should be told so in no uncertain terms. By the way, you can find yours at http://findyourmp.parliament.uk/ Think of it as your first bit of (non fiction) creative writing for the new term. Homework.

Join me on WALK,TALK AND WRITE a creative guided tour of Brighton

This is something different. Local history + a gentle stroll + creative writing. What's not to like...
AUGUST 9th 10am to 12.30
It starts and ends at Brighton Unemployed Centre in Tilbury Place, off Carlton Hill - just by the American Express building. It is part of TARNER STORIES, a project funded by Heritage Lottery that explores an area rich in working class history.
It's a hilly walk - this is Brighton: there's no getting away from that - but the pace is easy and there will be time to stop and stare and share stories. We will hear about Miss Tarner, walk on Victorian red brick pavements, see where a farm was operating in the heart of Brighton only 40 years ago and spot some fine examples of  bungaloosh - a uniquly Brighton building material.
AND I will be setting creative writing exercises along the way and back at the Centre.
I've never done anything like this before - bet you haven't either.
No need to book - just turn up. No need to go to the cash point - it's free. But do get in contact if you want to find out more

Open Day July 15 TARNER STORIES

I'm part of an exciting new project that launches on Thursday afternoon at  Brighton Unemployed Centre in the heart of Brighton.
We are being funded by Heritage Lottery to explore and research the past and present of Tarner (scroll down to see the map) through oral history, film, photography and creative writing.  
You can find out more by coming along on Thursday to Brighton Unemployed Centre in Tilbury Place, just off Carlton Hill, near the American Express building. 
The open afternoon runs from 1pm (stay for a filling vegan lunch for £1.50) until 4 pm when the Centre closes.
I'm writer in residence and right now I'm planning an August creative walk around the area - in the company of a local historian and an experienced healthwalks guide.
Early September there will be an one day workshop that is aimed at absolute beginners
And from the autumn the Centre's creative writing group will be working on a short drama that will roll out around Christmas time to local schools and audiences.
Nothing's written in stone but at the moment we are thinking of an Under the Milk Wood style production, telling the story of the local area through the voices of our near neighbours, the animals (and the trees and the flint walls...who knows).
It will be a steep learning curve on how to work collaboratively and still produce a drama that we all feel proud of, but the group is such a wonderful creative force that I feel very positive. 
Anyway this is a Brighton Unemployed Centre project, with the thinnest of resources they always manage to do wonderful things. 

If you live in Brighton and want to get involved do get in touch.  And if  Tarner has ever been home to you - now or in the past - do please get in touch. There's a slice of local history to be written and you can be part of it.