talking deeply about one of the oldest things: the way writing works. The issues before them are big and small, and the discussion ferrets into corners and roams across the landscape, some of it about the very center of literary art, some of it about the elements of craft. The writer’s story or poem is on the table in the old perfect format of ink on paper, and it has been read and reread, and the writers arrive in the room ready to find something out in a rich discussion, something that has not been in the daylight before. Omnipresent is the absolute attention they’re all giving the manuscript before them. Three hours later, they will have talked about two or three poems or two stories. The writing isn’t easy and the reading is not easy,
though the pleasures are great. It is the kind of discussion around which universities are built, and it is the kind of discussion that addresses the layered complexities of language and being human. The mission of the writers in the Programs In Writing is to make their work as true and powerful and tender and humorous and challenging and credible and confrontational and honest as they can, and in doing that also gain and develop the character and the skills necessary to carry forward their lives as artists. Two of the first principles of the Program’s design were that it never be advertised, as to do so was
The writing isn’t easy and the reading is not easy, though the pleasures are great. It is the kind of discussion around which universities are built, and it is the kind of discussion that addresses the layered complexities of language and being human.
to appear as though writers could be made or certified. To date, the Programs In Writing’s reputation rests solely on what its writers have created, not on institutional claims. The other principle, perhaps more an ethical stipulation, was that its writers not leave the Program with debt, as writers stood little chance of being able to pay off loans within a reasonable number of years. Though graduate students are all teaching assistants, for which duties they receive a small stipend, due to increased student fees and out-sourced housing which is more costly, this, unfortunately, is no longer true.
writing is as different from eachother as it could be, some serious, some comic, some traditional, some modern, some historical, some ironic, some post-modern, but the thing they have in common is the significant respect for the work, and that is reflected in the quality of the yearlong discussion. Meeting every week in the fall with Latiolais and then a visiting writer in the winter quarter, this year Glen David Gold, author of Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside, and then with Professor Ron Carlson in the spring, the writers roll up their sleeves and speak about the fiction before them.
Professor Michelle Latiolais, (whose most recent book is the collection of stories Widow) directs the fiction workshop every fall, setting the tone for the year to come. There are six first-year writers who join six second-year writers. Their
The twelve poets meet with Professor James McMichael every fall, a visiting writer in the winter, this year Doreen Gildroy, author of The Little Field of Self and Human Love, and then Professor Michael Ryan in the spring.