June 29, 2009

An Era of Détente for Creative-Writing Programs

An Era of Détente for Creative-Writing Programs 1

Ed Carreon for The Chronicle

Mark McGurl, an associate professor of English at the U. of California at Los Angeles, writes that "the rise of the creative-writing program stands as the most important event in postwar American literary history."

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close An Era of Détente for Creative-Writing Programs 1

Ed Carreon for The Chronicle

Mark McGurl, an associate professor of English at the U. of California at Los Angeles, writes that "the rise of the creative-writing program stands as the most important event in postwar American literary history."

By Jennifer Howard

Complaints about writing programs are legion. Critics —there have been many over the years —tend to reach for sausage-factory imagery to sum up their objections. Stuff raw writing into one end, they say, and out the other comes a string of literary product in whatever shape happens to be in fashion. In the 1980s, for instance, minimalism à la Raymond Carver was all the rage, and writers who emerged from M.F.A. programs were often accused of being Carver wannabes. Even those who

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