I certainly would hope there are more enlightened programs than the one I was in. Since culture tends to trickle inward from both coasts, I'd say a writing program in the midwest in the early 90s probably *was* about 20 years behind the times, at least, so the negative response Gores received at Stanford Way Back When was very likely the same kind of thinking that caused my friend his problems at the U of A 15 years ago here in the Bible Belt. Sadly.
D.
--- On Thu, 3/5/09, Allan Guthrie <allan@allanguthrie.co.uk> wrote:
From: Allan Guthrie <allan@allanguthrie.co.uk>
Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Gores missed the synedoche
To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, March 5, 2009, 6:00 PM
Depends on the course. There are quite a few crime writers on the course I'm
currently studying at Lancaster. And there's a course starting at Napier
University in Edinburgh where the focus is on genre fiction.
Al
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Lee" <donthepoet@yahoo. com>
> MFA programs in creative writing can be horrible snobs, even today. This
> is probably not news to a lot of people. I was in at the Univ of Arkansas,
> which actually is a "well respected" writing program due to the quality of
> its founding instructors, Jim Whitehead and Bill Harrison -- anyway, I was
> in classes in the early 90s w/ a guy who'd published at least 3 crime
> novels in hardback, and they basically treated him like the hired help. It
> was frustrating for him -- he had an agent and was selling his books --
> but it wasn't "literature. " I gave up on the program after a year and a
> half, partly for that very reason.
>
> Don
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