Creative writing, at a university, is a joke.  It is taught by those who majored in creative writing who cannont actually write creatively.  It is taught by those who decided that they should take the higher road and teach the subject – for the better of future creative writing students.

Oh dear God…

They have won awards no one has ever heard of, created by other creative writing professors who feel the need to circle-jerk one another.

The awards are used to compartmentalize collegiate, or “literature” writers, from the mainstream popular, or “money-making” writers.  The awards are used to flaunt to the mainstream, “To bad you can’t have any of these awards.”  Because the “New Age Experimental Feminism in Post-Modern Sci-Fi/Fantasy Award” sounds almost – if not more prestigious than a Pulitzer Price or even the Oprah stamp of reading approval.

We all know millionaire mainstream writers really want to add that kind of award to their fancy mantles.

I would take the Oprah seal any day, please.

Eastern Michigan University recently had its first Bath House reading event.  A series of historically great writers no one out side a university staff lounge would care to know, read, or even interact with.  This event, quiet frankly as riveting as being a riveter, had great writers from nowhere else but Eastern Michigan University’s own faculty.  Eastern Michigan has to pedestalize their own faculty.

I guess they couldn’t ring up Stephen King?  Was John Grisham busy tweeting?

As a student I demand a reading of Stephen King by Stephen King.  Why can we not study one of the most successful writers, not only of our time, but also in American History.

Is there a fear that he may undermine the very foundations of creative writing at a university level?  So what if he does?  Reading forget-me authors of pieces that claim experimentalism when in reality are just bad attempts at being different.

College creative writing classes do offer one beneficial thing – a safe workshop environment.  Sitting in class you have the chance to present your work and receive beneficial feedback on things that are good and things that are not so good.

This is something you would have a difficult time doing if you were writing without that kind of college support.

If you are considering creative writing do it for the feedback and nothing more, please, for the love of god, do not became a creative writing professor.

Below is Stephen King’s take on creative writing: