Fix the Creative Writing Workshop
Are you a writer? In the course of “learning to write,” have you participated in a writing workshop? How did it go? Was it fun? Did it make the piece you were workshopping better? Did you learn something profound that stuck with you? Or were the teachings smothered by the acidic emotions of being “critiqued” by those who did not understand your work? In Felicia Rose Chavez’s, The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom, the goal is to fix the creative writing workshop.
Invert the Creative Writing Workshop
Chavez’s book is an extraordinary invitation to invert creative writing workshops from dominance and competition to participant-led support. I can’t believe the courage it took for Chavez to write the book—just saying we need to fix the creative writing workshop makes me nervous. Oh, they didn’t like your work–poor little thing. Chavez makes it clear a workshop isn’t to be about the reader’s opinions of the writer’s work. It’s about the writer’s vision, and how to help them get there. It’s hard to convey just how different her approach is.
The book begins by defining creative writing as harnessing energy—the heart of an idea. She then tells us how to create, “a ritual of tuning in and listening to the language inside us.” (p. 98) If you believe improving your writing requires a torn heart, this book is not for you.
Chavez has profound trust in each of us as writers, experts in our own rights. Which is why she puts the writers in charge of the learning process. She doesn’t send us off on this voyage alone, of course. The book sets out the stream we are to paddle to reach our goal of being the writer we—not someone else—want to be.
Calling Out the Fix
The adventure begins with claiming on the first day together why we are good at writing. Then Chavez asks us to pick one of our points, stand up, and share it out loud. This is on the first day, remember. Her theory is that we cannot claim our authentic voice without first claiming ourselves as writers. This exercise is followed immediately by making a list of reasons why it’s important to tell the truth about our lives. Her fundamental belief is that the page is where we can best know our lives, which is the point of creative writing: for us to find ourselves so we can add our voice to the collective narrative.
My Heart Sings
So many of my best writing experiences are pinged by this philosophy. My time with Richard Bausch in his Moss Group at the University of Memphis where he spent a semester telling us we were good writers. The eight years at the Door of Hope writing group where we met each other where we were in our writing, from not being able to read to mind-blowing complexity. My years-long practicing of the Parker Palmer method of listening with the Memphis School of Servant Leadership. The self-examination and discovery of contemplative writing. And on and on. I can’t believe someone has written a book saying what resonated with me is valid, preferably even.
If your heart quickens as you read this, get the book. Study it. Find a way to practice its philosophy. The anti-racism effect is when facilitators ditch their control over the “right” (read: white) artistic way and empower the writers to find it themselves. I just love it.
anti-racism, Decolonizing the Creative Writing Workshop, Felicia Rose Chavez, Fix the creative writing workshop, How to teach creative writing, student-led creative writing
Joanne Corey
While I haven’t been in a creative writing classroom, I have been in what is, I think, the traditional style of workshopping where the writer is silent and everyone else talks about the work. I find that style of limited usefulness. I’m fortunate that most of the workshopping I have done is more of a dialogue, where the writer can ask questions and answer questions from others in the group. I find that much better for helping with edits and deepening understanding of style, craft, and voice.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
For most of my writing life, I’ve been devoted to the traditional “silent” workshop. I thought that was the professional way to do it. I’ve repeatedly led those workshops. Once I step away from it, though, I see the dynamics of it, and the denigrating assumptions (your opinion about your own work doesn’t matter; we don’t want you arguing with our opinions; you aren’t mature enough to engage in a non-emotional dialogue about our opinions.) I’m glad you’ve experienced the more mature form of workshopping.
Marie A Bailey
Thank you for this wonderful review, Ellen. You conjured so many memories of my writing workshop experiences.
When I was working on my Master’s in English at Florida State University, I took two writing workshops. One was in fiction and it was the kind of workshop that Joanne describes: the writer sits silent and while the work is dissected. (Our writing was submitted anonymously but you could always figure out who the writer was because he or she or they were the one not talking during the critiques.) That workshop could be brutal; the pretense of anonymity allowed the students and the professor to be negative and unconstructive (and, yes, I was one of the writers whose story was ridiculed).
But the other workshop, based on the essay, was organized differently. For each essay, we were put in small groups and openly discussed our drafts with each other. Then a final draft was presented to the whole class. No anonymity. Instead, collegiality was emphasized. I was devastated when my group admitted to finding my essay (a book review) boring, but they were kind and emphasized that they found it boring because I was not present in the essay. I had written it in the standard academic third-person voice. I started over, writing in first person, and it was a “hit” with the class. Eventually it even found its way to publication in a literary journal.
So … a tale of two workshops. One where students were competing to be the professor’s next Golden Boy or Golden Girl; the other where students worked together to help each other achieve the best in their writing.
novagiant
What a case study, Marie! And look at the differing outcomes: ridicule vs. publication. And the energy in the groups: unacknowledged hostility vs. assistance. I just love it. Thank you for validating what I felt to be true. ps I did not know you had a Masters in English–so impressive.
Marie A Bailey
Thank you for your kind words!
Ellen Morris Prewitt
🧡