Think globally and act locally.  So many wonderful stories here to tell–and to share with the world.

Harry Ricketts, a poet who has also written a celebrated biography of Rudyard Kipling, gave me a copy of his mini-chapbook, “How to Live Elsewhere.”  This is part of the Montana Estates Essay Series Titles, featuring Damien Wilkins, Bill Manhire and Simon Morris, along with other prominent New Zealand writers.  The chapbooks have been discontinued by its sponsor, Montana Estates vineyards, but this is a great idea and a lovely series.

I actually did a back to back interview from the ABC studios–first with Ramona and then with Lynn Freeman in Wellington, New Zealand.  Another terrific interview–this time focusing on the new Creative Nonfiction Magazine and my new memoir, written with my son Sam, TRUCKIN’ WITH SAM.  It’s the story of our travels around the world–and my struggle to be an effective “old-new dad.”  Sam and I are actually in New Zealand together right now.  I will be doing a master class at Victoria University, Wednesday, followed by a reading (with Sam) at the City Gallery at 600 p.m., Thursday.

She conducted a great interview on ABC Radio.  I was in Sydney and she was at her headquarters in Melbourne, but she talked with me as if we were seated side by side.  Mostly we discussed my new creative nonfiction anthology, “Becoming a Doctor.”  Also the new magazine–formerly the journal, Creative Nonfiction.  Heard from a number of people after the interview, including the writer-physician Leah Kaminsky, former writer-in-residence at Bar Ilan University.  She’s the editor of a collection of nonfiction and fiction stories by prominent doctor-writers called “The Pen & the Stethoscope,” which will be published this year by Scribe Publications.  Not many doctor-writer anthologies around–which is odd–because physicians and writers are a great deal alike–both living solitary existences, both dealing with the everyday drama of life and death.

The 12 recipients of this fellowship award–selected from 177 applicants–will be announced on the Consortium for Science Policy & Outcomes website (www.cspo.org) and on this blog–tomorrow.  To Think, To Write, To Publish will bring together “next generation” writers interested in science and policy with “next gen” science policy scholars in a unique collaborative creative nonfiction writing project.  Editors, agents will work with writers for publication possibilities.  More about To Think, To Write, to Publish soon.

In what may or may not be a scathing review in the June 21 Times Book Review of Reif Larsen’s first novel, the Times television critic Ginia Bellafante indicates that she knew that Larsen had an MFA simply by reading his prose.  “It would not be necessary to consult the author bio,” she says.  The novel, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, Bellafante says, is “sometimes” beautifully written, but “plagued by that sense of writers workshop insularity: it doesn’t aim to mean much.” 

I should say that I am not in any way a fan of writers’ workshops.  I believe that MFA writing teachers find it easier and less demanding to workshop than having to present useful craft lectures, and that students appreciate and often crave and covet the ego trip that workshops provide.  But workshops, in moderation, are often quite useful, providing a literate reading audience to emerging writers.  Even accomplished writers—very prestigious authors—are part of writing groups with readers that provide feedback, criticism and support.

So I think it is basically unfair and ill-conceived for Bellafante or any writer to arbitrarily write off the contribution of workshops.  And her idea that workshops focus on style (creativity) without substance (meaning) is equally off base.  Effective workshops—and I have been a part of quite a few of them—focus equally on style and substance.  Style first, perhaps, because style (narrative) will often lead to substance and meaning.   I think a problem with workshops is that they are not long enough. and they lead young writers to believe that, because the term is done and grades have been posted, they are finished with their work.  Workshops are beginnings—months and sometimes years of revision and development should follow.

Besides, I think that book reviewers like Bellafante can suffer from the same kind of insularity, writing prose that lacks meaning.  For example, her review begins:  “A relatively short time ago, short time ago [repetition is either mysteriously stylistic or a proofreader’s error], in what was to some that heavenly stretch predating the fall 2008 financial quarter, people spent money on things.”  As examples she names: “executives on gilded office renovations; uptown women on Restylane and luxury retail; and publishers, occasionally, on fiction by the young and unknown.”  Her point, which she eventually gets around to, is that Larsen “with his explorer’s name and brief history promoting a Botswanan marimba band” was paid a million dollar advance for this book. 

So why begin a review with such snide and irrelevant information—speaking of meaning?  She is obviously annoyed, as we all are, by the ineptitude and shallowness of the publishing industry, but it is not Larsen’s fault.  The book should be judged on its merit—not on its advance.  And, speaking of meaning, here’s Bellafante’s first description of the book:  “ . . . each page seems a vitrine constructed to exhibit the author’s discursive, magpie imagination.”

After you figure out what that means, you can Google Restylane.

Recently, I was interviewed by a writer doing an article about the effectiveness of creative writing critique groups–which are a lot like formal workshops, except, perhaps, they are not attached to university based writing programs.

Read more…

Recently, I recieved the following correspondence from Kathy Tarr, administrative director of the low residency creative writing program at the Univeristy of Alaska:

"Yesterday," writes Tarr, "I was reading NEA’s new report which came by mail to our office. The report ‘Reading on the Rise: A New Chapter in American Literacy’ was a welcome one, indeed! Americans are reading MORE, the NEA says. What writer wouldn’t be jumping up and down with this kind of news?

"But when I looked over their KEY FINDINGS on page 3, here’s what I found:

"’In this report, "literary" reading refers to the reading of any novels, short stories, poems, or plays in print or online…’

"But wait! Where is NONFICTION? What are essays and books of narrative nonfiction–chopped literary liver?"

Tarr believes that in the eyes of the NEA, there appears to be "a hierarchy of genres" and nonfiction is on the bottom, behind poetry, fiction and drama."

And she’s right. In fact, the NEA did not even include creative nonfiction as part of its creative writing fellowship program until 1985; meanwhile, they’d been giving money to poets and novelist since the 1960s!

Tarr says that the NEA claims that "FICTION is responsible for the new growth in adult literary readers. But, " she continues, "if the NEA had only asked their survey respondents if they’d read any good NARRATIVE NONFICTION lately, I think they would be surprised to discover that Americans are really reading at HIGHER rates than their latest report shows!"

Her comments are a wake-up call to the literary world. Nonfiction is the fastest growing genre in the publishing industry and in the academic writing community. Why is the NEA so far behind on this?

Scott Whited, who teaches creative nonfiction at Colorado State University in Pueblo, recently contacted me to discuss the "role of persuasion" in creative nonfiction, saying:

Standard rhetorical essays usually take a position in the form of a Claim (Academic Argument, I think we call it in our freshman Comp classes here) and then support it with logos, pathos, and ethos. My sense is that this is not a primary–or possibly even legitimate–goal for CNF.

Any insight you can give will be, as always, much appreciated.

Here is what I told Scott:

I would say that almost all creative nonfiction has an objective that is persuasive. What is the point of writing an essay if we don’t want to impact on a reader–shed light, change minds, confirm ideas, whatever? The challenge in creative nonfiction is how to get to the moment of impact–the persuasive aspect. And that is through narrative. We show–we don’t tell–or at least we don’t tell too much. The idea is to observe or learn about the experiences of others and communicate all of that in scene and narrative. The stories we tell–the pictures we draw in prose–should be vivid and graphic enough for us to persuade without having to beat our readers over the head. This doesn’t mean that we can’t add to the pictures with a bit of reflection–though not too much. The story should make the difference. The story should reflect what we, or the people about whom we are writing, think.

Scott’s reply:

Would I be on the right track if I interpret your remarks as saying that CNF seeks to persuade through narrative, but stops short of outright advocacy?

Absolutely.

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For more information on persuasion in creative nonfiction, check out KEEP IT REAL: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT RESEARCHING AND WRITING CREATIVE NONFICTION.

This is an article from Sunday’s Post-Gazette:
 
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SUNDAY FORUM: MAKING THE GRADE
 
When educators set no standards, they teach our future leaders to cut corners, says professor LEE GUTKIND
 

The grad student told me that she hadn’t been able to focus recently on the work assigned for my class and asked what she could do to improve her grade.

More work and better work, I told her — and fast. Three days remained before final projects were due. But she had other projects to which she was committed and little time remaining to fulfill my assignment, she said.

Then came the question I was hoping she would not ask: Was there any way she could get an A? She was used to getting As, she said. People expected her to get all As. And if she had been able to focus, she would have earned an A easily. Not getting an A would not jeopardize her teaching assistantship funding, but a B may cause others/colleagues to question her suitability for academic life.

Generally speaking, B is supposed to mean "good" while A is excellent/outstanding and C means average. In grad school, the meaning, technically, doesn’t change, but the stakes are higher. Grad students are supposedly the up-and-coming intellectual elite, accepted into the academy as the new generation of scholars. This is especially true in humanities-type departments and programs like the one in which I was teaching. So evidence of excellence was expected, not only by mentors, but by the students themselves.

The grading scale has also been skewed for undergraduates. Mostly, Ds and Fs punish lack of attendance or a total disregard for course assignments. If a student goes through the motions, Cs are relatively easy. But most undergrads eschew the C. Either they don’t believe that they should be considered average — or they realize that if they have future ambitions for grad school C is a kiss of death.

When I started teaching, I used to tell my undergraduate students, on the first day of class, that I would not hesitate to fail them if they did not do work in a thorough and conscientious manner. Now on the first day of class I stand up and declare: "I warn you. I am one of the few professors remaining who actually gives Cs." This invariably scares a few to drop the class.

I did not want to give this particular student with whom I was talking a C. I knew that she was a better student than her work indicated and that grad students need As — not just because people in academia are so judgmental, but also because grad students require constant ego gratification, since rewards in graduate study in humanities-area departments are so meager.

To make matters more complicated, this student was a member of the last class I would be teaching at a university in which I had been teaching for 30 years. What would it matter if I awarded her an A? It would be a gift — a break — for a young person coming of age in one of the worst recessions in our country’s history. A is just a letter — a judgment based on four months work.

But in the end I couldn’t get past the meaning of this action of leniency. Giving her an A would have forced me to give all the students in the class who had earned a B an A. And that would demean the efforts of students who had legitimately earned an A. The student may not have meant for me to do anything untoward, but I certainly could have cut her a break and no one would have been the wiser — maybe.

This year, the scandals engulfing colleges and universities in relation to the awarding of grades and graduate degrees have been in the news across the country. In the past six months, a dean, the provost and the president of West Virginia University and the dean of Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Public Policy and Management were forced to resign when it was discovered that both schools had inappropriately awarded graduate degrees to potential benefactors, including a governor’s daughter. At Virginia Commonwealth University, the former chief of police of Richmond was illegally awarded a bachelor’s degree.

But this low level of corruption has been going on under the radar for years in academic centers — not because most students lack morality, but because we encourage them into taking desperate and artificial measures by not having the courage and backbone to follow the evaluation standards we have established and condoned. Most of the time we are not teaching a work ethic or a quality ethic; it is more an evaluation ethic. A piece of paper or a meaningless symbol from the alphabet is often more important than the blood, sweat and tears gone into earning it.

What happened at WVU, CMU and VCU is only the tip of the iceberg — a precursor of the kind of morality and ethic instilled in future leaders. The lack of regard for rules and regulations in business circles that we now find so horrifying did not start in the banking and investment communities or even in the government. The seeds were planted in our high schools and fertilized in our universities.

Educators must lead the way to take responsibility for the morals and ethics of students by taking a deep look inside themselves and their own actions, drawing their own moral and ethical boundaries and honoring the mission with which they have been entrusted. It begins with honesty in grading — rewarding excellence and valuing achievement.

Harry Truman said, "The buck stops here." It is an old, overused line — but it is right.

The economy is tanking, as you know, and the budgets (and endowments) at colleges and universities are being hit hard. For example, one university writing program in particular had a faculty member retire, another denied tenure and a third resigned—all within the same year. This loss of staff forced the university to launch a search to replace two of the three positions. Then came the across-the-board job freeze experienced by most universities, and the search was canceled. Unfortunately, this is becoming a familiar scenario in writing programs across the country—although perhaps not as profound—so if you are a graduate student and find yourself in a program with staffing issues, here are the questions you should be asking yourself and your department administrators:

Who will be teaching the writing and readings courses you expect to take? Will there be professionals around to guide writing, editing, publication and job-hunting efforts? Do you really want to be guided by part-time faculty or colleagues pulled from literature and composition courses or by writing faculty with experience in other genres? Who will serve as your mentor and who will chair your manuscript committee?

Not to be misunderstood, there are perfectly qualified writers, editors and teachers in English Departments and writing programs, individuals able to fill in for missing faculty for a little while. But in the long run, remember that as an MFA student you are not paying big bucks in tuition or working for slave wages as teaching assistants to be taught by last-minute-replacement faculty for extended periods. MFA students almost always choose their programs based on the faculty they will have the opportunity to work with. Of course, sometimes professors resign or go on sabbatical, but departments are obliged to replace them with alacrity, when possible. Now we don’t know how long the job freezes will last, or how long it will take to fill the faculty positions, but one thing is clear: The people who will be most vulnerable—who stand to lose the most from these job freezes—are the students in the program.

The academic world is so incredibly hierarchical—and writing programs are no different. Graduate students in writing programs are vulnerable on so many different levels: academic (grading), administrative (financially support) and the creative work itself. This triple academic gauntlet can be so intimidating that MFA students don’t often speak out to complain or demand—even when issues as serious as inadequate staffing become prevalent.

But they should. MFA students should organize, approach program directors and department chairs, and insist that competent faculty—real writers—be recruited to mentor and guide them. (As the many successful low residency programs have demonstrated, good writers can be recruited to work with students individually on a one-on-one part time basis). Many writers have no interest in full-time tenure stream appointments. In addition, tuition should perhaps be reduced for grad students suffering from the job freeze. Teaching assistantships, fellowships, work-study opportunities should be extended to make up for the time students may not receive the guidance and mentorship originally promised by the program.

Remember, without you, there would be no program, no inexpensive (yet highly profitable) instructors to teach comp courses, no overqualified bodies to do scut work for senior faculty. Grad students are the heart and soul of English departments and writing programs, and thus have more power than they often realize. Speak out. If your writing program is not giving you what you need and what was promised, find another. Your years studying writing should be a rare and formative moment in your life. Protect your financial and emotional investment. Fight for your future with the same passion and commitment with which you write.