FRANK CONROY
The Writer’s Workshop
As far as I know, the term “writer’s workshop” first came into usage some sixty years ago when Iowa University, with the blessing of the Board of Regents, decided to accept “creative” theses in partial fulfillment of the requirements toward earning certain advanced degrees. Quite a radical idea at the time. Write a string quartet toward a Ph.D. in music. Paint paintings for a Master of Fine Arts. Mount a ballet for dance, or write a play for theater. Despite the initial scandalization of the academy, the idea spread rapidly and is now commonplace. The words “writer’s workshop” to describe what all those prose writers or poets were doing in all those university classrooms may have been chosen more for their reassuring overtones of craft guilds, handmade artifacts, etc., than for any descriptive precision.
Certainly writer’s workshops around the country reflect wildly different assumptions about what the work should be, what the goals are, and how progress might be measured. Some are simply therapy sessions, attempting to create a warm, nurturing environment in which writers are encouraged to express themselves, release their putative creative energies without fear, and see what happens. Some have a political agenda—feminist art, black art, social protest art. Some have an aesthetic agenda—minimalism, realism, metafiction, etc. There are writer’s workshops specializing in horror fiction, detective fiction, children’s fiction, science fiction, and so on. There are workshops that have almost nothing to do with writing, where the texts are little more than an accuse for primal scream catharsis on one hand or new age channeling on the other. So it follows that in talking about a writer’s workshop it must be made clear just whose workshop is under discussion. I will attempt to describe my own at the University of Iowa.
Every Tuesday at 4:30 in the afternoon I meet with about a dozen students. We have all picked up copies of the material we’re going to talk about—texts generated by the two student writers who are “up” that week—and have read them several times over the weekend, made editorial comments in the margins, and written letters to the authors attempting to describe our reactions to the texts. These letters are quite important—first because they are written before any public discussion and hence are not corrupted by what may be said in class and second because they tend to be more supportive, more personal, and sometimes more trenchant than what the writer of the letter might say in class. Thus, if a story is torn apart during workshop, the letters, which are read one week later (since I keep them and read them myself during that time), can work to cheer a student up and encourage more work.
We talk for two and a half hours. The author of the text being examined generally remains silent, which some observers find surprising, but which I encourage. If there is a tension between the writer’s intentions for the text and what the text, standing alone, appears to actually be doing to the readers, that is a tension the writer should face and think about. As well, the writer’s temptation to defend his or her work can lead to wasted time.
But let me back up now, to the first meeting, when we have no texts before us and I try to give a general sense of what I think our work should be. I announce right away that I reserve the right to be wrong, because not to do so would severely restrict my ability to talk at all. Narrative fiction is complex, judgments can be subjective, tastes differ, and rules seldom hold.
I further state that the focus of our attention will be the texts, and our goal will be to expand our awareness of how language functions on the page. We will stop with the text and resist the temptation to go through it and talk about the author. Remarks, thoughts, and reactions to a given piece of writing
The Writer’s Workshop
As far as I know, the term “writer’s workshop” first came into usage some sixty years ago when Iowa University, with the blessing of the Board of Regents, decided to accept “creative” theses in partial fulfillment of the requirements toward earning certain advanced degrees. Quite a radical idea at the time. Write a string quartet toward a Ph.D. in music. Paint paintings for a Master of Fine Arts. Mount a ballet for dance, or write a play for theater. Despite the initial scandalization of the academy, the idea spread rapidly and is now commonplace. The words “writer’s workshop” to describe what all those prose writers or poets were doing in all those university classrooms may have been chosen more for their reassuring overtones of craft guilds, handmade artifacts, etc., than for any descriptive precision.
Certainly writer’s workshops around the country reflect wildly different assumptions about what the work should be, what the goals are, and how progress might be measured. Some are simply therapy sessions, attempting to create a warm, nurturing environment in which writers are encouraged to express themselves, release their putative creative energies without fear, and see what happens. Some have a political agenda—feminist art, black art, social protest art. Some have an aesthetic agenda—minimalism, realism, metafiction, etc. There are writer’s workshops specializing in horror fiction, detective fiction, children’s fiction, science fiction, and so on. There are workshops that have almost nothing to do with writing, where the texts are little more than an accuse for primal scream catharsis on one hand or new age channeling on the other. So it follows that in talking about a writer’s workshop it must be made clear just whose workshop is under discussion. I will attempt to describe my own at the University of Iowa.
Every Tuesday at 4:30 in the afternoon I meet with about a dozen students. We have all picked up copies of the material we’re going to talk about—texts generated by the two student writers who are “up” that week—and have read them several times over the weekend, made editorial comments in the margins, and written letters to the authors attempting to describe our reactions to the texts. These letters are quite important—first because they are written before any public discussion and hence are not corrupted by what may be said in class and second because they tend to be more supportive, more personal, and sometimes more trenchant than what the writer of the letter might say in class. Thus, if a story is torn apart during workshop, the letters, which are read one week later (since I keep them and read them myself during that time), can work to cheer a student up and encourage more work.
We talk for two and a half hours. The author of the text being examined generally remains silent, which some observers find surprising, but which I encourage. If there is a tension between the writer’s intentions for the text and what the text, standing alone, appears to actually be doing to the readers, that is a tension the writer should face and think about. As well, the writer’s temptation to defend his or her work can lead to wasted time.
But let me back up now, to the first meeting, when we have no texts before us and I try to give a general sense of what I think our work should be. I announce right away that I reserve the right to be wrong, because not to do so would severely restrict my ability to talk at all. Narrative fiction is complex, judgments can be subjective, tastes differ, and rules seldom hold.
I further state that the focus of our attention will be the texts, and our goal will be to expand our awareness of how language functions on the page. We will stop with the text and resist the temptation to go through it and talk about the author. Remarks, thoughts, and reactions to a given piece of writing
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