Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.
There is a whole industry in America of people who want to write, and those who teach it. Even if the students don't end up writing, what's good about them taking the courses is, they become great readers, learning to appreciate the writing.
I worry that people think you have to go to a university to be a good writer, which is categorically untrue. I don't think I learned how to write at Oxford. I did not go to any creative writing classes or anything.
I mean, first, almost all writers these days teach because they don't make enough money publishing to live on, to support themselves - people like Tobias Wolff, Anne Beattie, Amy Hempel, Stuart Dybek; a lot of short story writers, for one thing.
A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.
For example, many colleges in their writing programs teach some of my work.
There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
The general public doesn't expect romance authors to be Harvard graduates. Which is funny, because there are actually quite a lot of us. But this disconnect means that journalists see me as an interesting story. The tricky part is making sure they understand that there are many, many talented writers who don't have 'fancy' educations.
I think it's sort of an outrage that companies should have to hire firms to teach the college graduates they employ how to write.
I wrote a novel for my degree, and I'm very happy I didn't submit that to a publisher. I sympathize with my professors who had to read it.
No opposing quotes found.