[UA] The Iowa Writer's Workshop

[James McGraw]

And where does McSweeneys' Treasury of Thrilling Tales
(which was specifically aimed at reversing the
aforementioned trend) have to do with this?

(which reminds me, I must get back to that... so much
to read, so little time)

--- Greg Stolze <holycrow at mindspring.com> wrote:
> 
> >It's crazy. Reminds me of my Creative Writing w401
> >teacher...he has won alll sorts of awards that no
> one
> >had ever heard of, published collections of stories
> at
> >you know the Dustbowl Press in Bumbfuck Arkansas,
> and
> >was part of that whole, as Bukowski put, "pat each
> >other on the back club."
> 
> Almost every creative writing teacher in large
> American colleges is a
> product of the Iowa Writer's Workshop.  They're kind
> of the lit-crit Mafia,
> and they have a very firm idea of How Writing Should
> Be.  Kurt Vonnegut
> doesn't fit.  Stephen King doesn't fit.  Jackie
> Collins DEFINATELY doesn't
> fit.
> 
> This is not to completely condemn the IWW, because
> some great writers have
> attended -- W.P. Kinsella (off the top of my head),
> though he made it sound
> like he was kind of a black sheep until "Field of
> Dreams" became so popular.
> 
> However, the stereotypical IWW story is derided as
> "Kitchen Sink Realism"
> and is something about a middle-aged college
> professor who teaches creative
> writing, and the Volvo needs a new transmission, and
> he's not as attracted
> to his wife now that she's had a couple kids and
> can't seem to lose the
> weight, and there's this vivacious and lovely girl
> in his 306 Lit Crit
> class that he feels a real connection with, but he's
> worried that he's just
> being a typical white male colonizer, and then he's
> doing dishes or weeding
> the tomatoes and has some kind of revelation about
> himself, and then the
> story ends.
> 
> So... in UA, what is the IWW up to?  We've got a
> group, exclusive, maybe
> secretive, with a definate agenda about what Fiction
> Should Be, meaning an
> agenda about how stories should be told.  And we all
> know the importance of
> stories and symbols to avatars and the IC...
> 
> -G.
> 
> ...and we also know how soft Greg is for any idea
> that makes Iowa important...
> 
> 
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=====
james the cat

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
                      - G.K. Chesterton

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