'Creative writing courses, a waste of time'
Hanif Kureishi may not see the value of creative writing courses,
writing them off at a talk as a "waste of time". Yet those who chose to
hone their craft in the classroom include a string of Booker Prize
winners from Ian McEwan to Eleanor Catton, as well as rising stars of
the literary world.
Many have been quick to point out the importance of academia to the
advancement of their careers. Rising star Emma Healey, whose first book
Elizabeth is Missing has caused much excitement in literary circles
ahead of its publication in June, completed an MA in creative writing
for prose at the University of East Anglia in 2011.
"The course made me take writing more seriously as a profession and a
craft. It made a huge difference," she says. "I found it incredibly
useful; it gave me an idea about how to take my writing on."
Naomi Alderman, who was named on the once-a-decade Granta list of
best young British novelists last year, says a creative writing MA was a
"proving ground", adding: "You can find out whether spending a year on
your work makes your work better.
Teachers
"You find out whether you enjoy dedicating a year to your writing.
You try it out. You meet other people who are dedicating themselves to
writing. You're around teachers who've published books themselves." She
says that she would not have discovered these things about herself
without the MA.
Kureishi told an audience at The Independent Bath Literature Festival
that many of his students "just can't tell a story", "It's a difficult
thing to do and it's a great skill to have. Can you teach that? I don't
think you can."
But Sarah Moss, professor of creative writing at Warwick University,
says, "It's a funny thing to say. If you can teach someone to write a
sonata you should be able to teach them to write a novel." She says that
she has heard similar sentiments expressed, "but most of us are not so
cynical".
Jonathan Myerson, director of the creative writing MA course for
novels at City University London, says learning the right skills takes
time. "You can teach it, but you need two years to do it. You can nag
the students until they get enough plot. The one thing they find hardest
is plotting."
Discussing and analysing your own work with teachers and other
students can also be helpful, says Rufus Purdy, editor of new writing at
Curtis Brown Creative, a creative writing school. "So much writing is
done in isolation that when you're in a group situation with people you
trust and respect, it can focus your mind and critical skills," he says,
adding that Kureishi's comment were "not particularly helpful".
Creative writing courses first became popular in America. The term
was coined by Ralph Waldo Emerson in The American Scholar in 1837 and
was first used as a course title by Hughes Mearns, who brought the
subject into the Lincoln School in 1922.
Possibly the most celebrated institution for creative writing on
either side of the Atlantic is the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop,
which was set up in 1936. Its alumni include 16 Pulitzer Prize winners
and this year's Man Booker Prize winner Ms Catton, for The Luminaires.
American import
The first creative writing MA in the UK was set up at the University
of East Anglia by Malcolm Bradbury, who had lectured in the US, and
Angus Wilson. Bradbury said in 1992 that the British initially viewed
such courses "as a suspect American import, like the hamburger - a
vulgar hybrid which, as everyone once knew, no sensible person would
ever eat".
The founders hoped it would help breathe new life into the British
novel. Alumni of the UEA course include McEwan and Alderman as well as
Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote Remains of the Day, Booker Prize winner Anne
Enright and many others.
Myerson said: "The UEA course was the first in the UK by decades,"
adding there were now "hundreds of courses, and they do vary hugely in
quality". Wannabe writers can now enrol in courses at universities
around the UK. Publishing houses such as Faber and Random House also
provide them - and there's even one at trendy Groucho Club in Soho.The
teachers on the creative novel writing MA course at City University have
all had work published, which Mr Myerson says "isn't true of all of
them". "My analogy is to surgery, you wouldn't want to be operated on by
someone who had only learnt it from a book. You want to learn from
someone who's done surgery and the patient survived." - The Independent
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