JAC Volume 10 Issue 2

In the Preface to Creative Writing In America, Joseph Moxley reminds his readers of an unfortunate situation: “At present, no debate rages in professional journals as to whether creative writing programs are providing stu­dents with the necessary writing skills, knowledge of the composing process, or background in literature needed to write well.” Those who hope for better things—an innovative creative writing pedagogy, informed writing teachers, strong support for student writers—should be interested in this volume.

Creative Writing In America consists of twenty-three essays, divided into four categories: Assumptions, Problems and Prospects (four articles); Craft and the Creative Process (fourteen articles); Editing and Publishing (three articles); Maxims, Methods, and Goals (two articles). The appendix includes Marion Perry’s “America’s Master of Fine Arts Programs: Course Require­ments.” Contributors include Eve Shelnutt, George Garrett, John D. MacDonald, Stephen Minot, Donald Murray, David St. John, Alan Ziegler, and twenty-one other authors. Although all the essays provide thoughtful reading, this review will focus on the six essays, in particular, that create new spaces for dialogue on difficult issues and often ignored subjects.

The first two essays, “Notes from a Cell: Creative Writing Programs in Isolation” by Eve Shelnutt and “Tearing Down the Walls: Engaging the Imagination” by Joseph Moxley, are well paired. Shelnutt explores problems in writing programs and Moxley offers far-reaching pedagogical suggestions. In particular, Shelnutt feels members of creative writing programs have intentionally stunted their own intellectual development, in part, by becoming isolated within the discipline of English studies, by engaging in a workshop method that assumes students already know how to write, and by placing MFA students in the untenable positions of producing “publishable” work while learning the traditional canon of literature and undertaking heavy composition teaching loads. At the same time, MFA students are not being encouraged to write academic prose; Shelnutt finds MFA students feel untutored in the ways of scholarly writing due to a lack of critical theory in their programs and course work. She also feels that hiring in creative writing remains too exclusively in the hands of creative writing faculty and that these faculty members often refuse to critique their own programs: “Debate is not encouraged.” Not every reader will agree with Shelnutt’s definition of a modern intellectual or the directions she claims are being taken by creative writing programs, but there is room for productive debate on the issues she raises.

Moxley, too, regrets department divisions. While Shelnutt advocates a stronger grounding in literary theory, Moxley suggests an interdisciplinary approach that would rebraid the currently unraveling strands of English studies: creative writing, literature, critical theory, and composition. He pays particular attention to the growing field of composition studies, suggesting that knowledge in that field will redefine our understanding of creativity as “the natural consequence of learning, involvement, and commitment.” Moxley discusses language studies and composing research; he looks at the scientific method, hemispheric brain research, and writing productivity. In doing so, he claims that it is possible to develop theories of teaching creative writing, and he begins to map out the resources for developing a theory-based pedagogy.

While Moxley and Shelnutt engage in large-scale professional critique, Ron Carlson provides an example of a classroom-based exploration. In “Assignment,” Carlson describes an experimental semester in fiction writ­ing. He combats the “easy,” creative writing course by requiring early, significant drafting, leading to compilation of a class book of fifteen short stories, and class critique of that significant body of student writing. In doing so, Carlson creates a new workshop model: “It is the third week and we have all written a story and a version of our credo. It was a lot to bite off, but the semester, now, is a given. We have a strong tone, and tone is crucial to fiction classes, and we are taking each other seriously.... We have ‘started tight.”’ Those interested in designing new workshop variations would be well-advised to read Carlson. And professional organizations, like the Associated Writing Programs, would be well-advised to start collecting examples of the teaching expertise of its membership, perhaps by compiling a collection of exemplary course guides that go into this much, or more, detail.

In “‘Midwifing the Craft’—Teaching Revision and Editing,” Alan Ziegler, like Carlson, asks teachers to look more intently at the writing workshop. He describes five types of literary feedback: reactive, descriptive, prescriptive, collaborative, and no feedback. He discusses these types of response in terms of literary writing and the habits of literary editors. He also explains how such response functions in the creative writing classroom, pointing out that teachers and editors and (student) writers have preferred styles of feedback and that feedback should vary, depending on where the student is in her or his writing process. Ziegler’s suggestions mesh well with composition research on writing response and could be augmented by Peter Elbow and Pat Belanoff’s short volume Sharing and Responding, which uses similar response categories. Ziegler’s categories and suggestions will help teachers orches­trate revision and offer editing suggestions as effectively as possible.

Valerie Miner’s essay, “The Book in the World,” describes an innovative seminar titled “Social Issues in Publishing” which includes theoretical and practical discussions on literacy, publishing economics, and minorities and publishing. In addition, students “follow a book from author’s conception to reader’s bookshelf” and participate in a publishing internship. The seminar was not designed to commercialize a writer but to allow a writer to under­stand the forces that are already at work in the publishing world and to explicate the “society” she or he wishes to enter. Miner’s seminar intentionally challenges important assumptions: the belief in individual authorship, the belief that good writing will always get published, and the belief that failure to publish equals failure to write well.

In “Wearing the Shoe on the Other Foot,” Mimi Schwartz suggests that teachers of writing benefit from retraining in creative writing. In her essay (which was also published in College Composition and Communication), Schwartz tells of her return to the classroom as a student learner, participating in two creative writing courses at Princeton University. Released for a semester from full-time teaching, Schwartz found she had as much to learn in these seminars—conducted by Russell Banks and Carolyn Kizer—as did students in her own writing classes. She (re)learned the pitfalls of sharing and the variables of classroom response; she came to value inventiveness and experimentation, and she explored “the power of form to stimulate or inhibit creativity, depending on the circumstances.” Additionally, Schwartz felt that this long-term engagement with creative writing enhanced her own academic prose. In this, she supports the observations of Shelnutt: both claim that creative and academic writing do, can, and should mix.

In fact, most of the authors in Creative Writing In America suggest there is room for innovative and much needed change—change in the ways we conceptualize creative writing instruction in American schools and change in the ways we perform that instruction. In his closing essay, “A Creative Writing Program Certain to Succeed,” Moxley reminds concerned professionals that there is a need “to foster a continuing dialogue about the creative process and pedagogy,” and he feels we need a journal which publishes not only poems, stories, and reviews but also pedagogical and theoretical articles. This type of “writing about writing” will educate creative writers alongside the best creative writing—our much valued literature-in-process. While important dialogue on these issues begins in this volume, it is up to the readers of Creative Writing In America to continue the conversation.