Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Should all creative writing courses be banned?

Australian scribe Jenny Sinclair has a fascinating article in The Weekend Australian about why she's a writer, and explains her belief that all creative writing courses and degrees should be banned. Here's an extract to whet your appetite, but read the whole thing, it's not long and her tale harbours a surprising twist.
This multiplicity of courses promises a way forward, a way into print, possibly even that chimera, a writing career. But desire and training don't equal genius or that je ne sais quoi that allows a writer to connect, to slip refractive glasses over a reader's eyes, to say, "see this". They don't give the writer something to say that can be said in no other way.

What they do is provide toolboxes, and with those toolboxes the vaguely talented often turn out the equivalent of high school carpentry projects: a procession of by-the-numbers breakfast trays and carved wooden animals.

1 comment:

Aloysius Munn said...

You make it sound like a bad thing. Wait till you read my novel, "The Plains of 9Naxxa". Never mind carpentry project, this is like a wooden pickle.