“I was a journalism major, and I would take creative writing classes as part of that, but I would also look for opportunities to write stories for some of my other classes. So for my course in Scandinavian history, I asked if I could write historical fiction instead of term papers. Sometimes they’d say yes.” IfsWritingLooksSometimesStoriesCoursesOpportunityTermFictionClassCreativePaperMajorsHistoricalJournalismIf I CouldHistorical FictionPapersCreative WritingScandinaviansTerm Paper Author:George R. R. Martin
“I took a couple of creative writing classes with Joyce Carol Oates at Princeton University, and in my senior year there, I took a long fiction workshop with Toni Morrison. I fell in love with it.” WritingYearsLongFictionClassCreativeCoupleUniversitySeniorCreative WritingWorkshopsCarolsJoycePrincetonSenior YearPrinceton University Author:Mohsin Hamid
“From my years of teaching creative writing, I know that new writers take the setting for granted, as simply a place to set the action, but setting is a vital element in fiction writing and deserves serious treatment.” KnowsWritingYearsActionFictionCreativeTeachingSeriousElementsDeserveSettingSettingsGrantedTreatmentCreative WritingFiction Writing Author:Garry Disher
“I do teach fiction and non-fiction, and usually I'm interested in works that confuse genre, but I'm very new to teaching creative writing, I don't have an MFA, or a PhD, I tend to approach it just through my own practice.” WritingMy OwnFictionTeachPracticeCreativeTeachingApproachGenreCreative WritingNon FictionPhds Author:Kate Zambreno
“I try to tell student writers to read as much as possible, not only literature but philosophy, theory, and to form obsessions. There's a big taboo in fiction creative writing workshops against using the self at all, and I think I try to encourage students to write the self, but to connect the self to something larger, which is to be this thinking, seeing, searching, eternally curious person, and that writing can come out of investigating and trying to understand confusion, and doubts, and obsessions.” ThinkingWritingTryingPersonsSelfPhilosophyBigsFormLiteratureFictionCreativeDoubtSeeingStudentsTheoryObsessionConfusionCuriousCreative WritingTabooWorkshopsInvestigatingWriting WorkshopEncourage Students Author:Kate Zambreno
“In high school, in 1956, at the age of sixteen, we were not taught "creative writing." We were taught literature and grammar. So no one ever told me I couldn't write both prose and poetry, and I started out writing all the things I still write: poetry, prose fiction - which took me longer to get published - and non-fiction prose.” WritingStillsAgeSchoolLiteratureFictionCreativeTaughtHigh SchoolProseGrammarCreative WritingNon FictionSixteenProse And Poetry Author:Margaret Atwood
“When I taught at the University of Houston in the Creative Writing program we required the poets to take workshops in fiction writing and we required the fiction writers to take workshops in poetry. And the reason for that is because the fiction writers seemed to need to learn how to pay greater attention to language itself, to the way that language works.” WayNeedsWritingReasonLanguagePayAttentionFictionCreativeGreaterTaughtPoetProgramUniversityCreative WritingWorkshopsFiction WritingFiction WritersHouston Author:Edward Hirsch
“I know people who've passed every creative writing course under the sun and who are more analytically intelligent and far better-read than I, but who just can't write either fiction or drama. It's like any art-form. In order for talent to be developed, crafted, it's got to be there in the first place.” PeopleKnowsWritingFirstsArtFormOrderCoursesFictionSunCreativeTalentDramaIntelligentCreative Writing Author:Suhayl Saadi