I would like to amplify and clarify some of the remarks I made in this conversation, regarding Creative Writing courses, as they appear to have been misinterpreted as evidence of an elitist view on my behalf. I would have no grounds for holding an elitist view, quite the opposite; it's a matter of public record that I left school at 16 with two O Level GCEs, and worked in the Post Office all my working life. I had no thought of writing until my mid-thirties, and my way into the literary world was through a local council evening course in Creative Writing (which I look back on as the happiest time of my literary life, certainly happier than the years battling the literary elite).
So I certainly believe everyone should have the opportunity to both learn and practise the craft of fiction writing.
There was nothing in my comments that was critical of the CW industry as such; a simple matter of fact that more writers are annually entering a diminishing market. The only criticism I would make, although irrelevant to the gist of this Substack, is not of the courses or tutors, but of the universities themselves, who offer the courses but give no thought to the matter of where and how
those students are to see their work in print. How many universities (a genuine question) set up or fund literary magazines? A few do - the Warwick Review was a first class magazine, brilliantly edited by the poet Michael Hulse, generously funded for some years. But when the funding was withdrawn, inevitably it folded.
I have experience on both sides of this matter - for some years in the 1990s I was part-owner, co-editor and sole funder of the magazine Main Street Journal. Funding was impossible to come by, either as grants from the AC or as business sponsorship. As a contributor to magazines, I made a point of subscribing to any magazine that published my work, and many that didn't. But there are far fewer print magazines now than there were then.
It's one thing for writers to read other writers, as they should; it's another to regain the wider readership for fiction that has been lost over they years, as serious readers turn more to non-fiction. Which is partly linked to the loss of Literature's prestige and seriousness within the Humanities. For years, under the sway of Theory, Literature was seen as simply supplying the texts for the Theorists to critique, under the "hermeneutics of suspicion". With the ascendancy of Theory waning, Literature has the opportunity and space to regain its intellectual role and standing. But that involves reforging its links with Philosophy - which is the thrust of this whole conversation.
I would like to amplify and clarify some of the remarks I made in this conversation, regarding Creative Writing courses, as they appear to have been misinterpreted as evidence of an elitist view on my behalf. I would have no grounds for holding an elitist view, quite the opposite; it's a matter of public record that I left school at 16 with two O Level GCEs, and worked in the Post Office all my working life. I had no thought of writing until my mid-thirties, and my way into the literary world was through a local council evening course in Creative Writing (which I look back on as the happiest time of my literary life, certainly happier than the years battling the literary elite).
So I certainly believe everyone should have the opportunity to both learn and practise the craft of fiction writing.
There was nothing in my comments that was critical of the CW industry as such; a simple matter of fact that more writers are annually entering a diminishing market. The only criticism I would make, although irrelevant to the gist of this Substack, is not of the courses or tutors, but of the universities themselves, who offer the courses but give no thought to the matter of where and how
those students are to see their work in print. How many universities (a genuine question) set up or fund literary magazines? A few do - the Warwick Review was a first class magazine, brilliantly edited by the poet Michael Hulse, generously funded for some years. But when the funding was withdrawn, inevitably it folded.
I have experience on both sides of this matter - for some years in the 1990s I was part-owner, co-editor and sole funder of the magazine Main Street Journal. Funding was impossible to come by, either as grants from the AC or as business sponsorship. As a contributor to magazines, I made a point of subscribing to any magazine that published my work, and many that didn't. But there are far fewer print magazines now than there were then.
It's one thing for writers to read other writers, as they should; it's another to regain the wider readership for fiction that has been lost over they years, as serious readers turn more to non-fiction. Which is partly linked to the loss of Literature's prestige and seriousness within the Humanities. For years, under the sway of Theory, Literature was seen as simply supplying the texts for the Theorists to critique, under the "hermeneutics of suspicion". With the ascendancy of Theory waning, Literature has the opportunity and space to regain its intellectual role and standing. But that involves reforging its links with Philosophy - which is the thrust of this whole conversation.