In this interview, Slate’s Jacob Weisberg talks to novelist Jonathan Lethem, who recently left Brooklyn to go to California to teach creative writing to undergrads at Pomona College—a post once held by the late David Foster Wallace.
Two highlights.
Weisberg starts off by expressing surprise that Lethem, who did not himself attend a writing program, could possibly want to teach in one.
Lethem’s response highlights how silly this question is. To learn to write, Lethem points out, you need feedback on your writing from smart mentors—why would it matter whether that feedback comes through an academic writing program or from somewhere else?
Letham:
"Of course you find mentorship and you find instruction. And yeah I'm a bit of an audodidact. I read a lot of books that weren't assigned to me, and not the ones that were assigned to me, I dropped out of college. But in fact to make yourself a writer, you have to eventually find some kind of echo chamber. People to bounce off of, peers and mentors, people who will tell you what they think of what you're doing, and just encourage you or discourage you in the right way or give you shop talk or opportunities to trade manuscripts. And I did that—informally. So none of what goes on in a writing program seems that alien to me."
Next they discuss the way that creative writing is “mystified,” i.e. the way writing is made to seem like a magical talent you either have or you don’t, rather than what it actually is—something you learn.
Jonathan Lethem:
People who are not participant in this milieu [of teaching creative writing] love to slam [writing programs]… I mean it’s MFA programs that bear the impact of the grudge… and I don’t know what people think they’re understanding about what goes on in a writing workshop…
Jacob Weisberg:
It’s a kind of phony idea of authenticity isn’t it? That a real writer has to come directly out of experiences, not mediated by the classroom?
Jonathan Lethem:
That’s probably part of it. It seems like, “Oh, if you have to try, you’ll never understand.” It’s almost kind of like mystifying something. In fact, to write anything worth reading, you’ve got to organize your craft. You’ve got to learn what the tools are. And you’ve got to read a lot and you’ve got to practice a lot. And all of these things are what’s going on in a writing program.
Watch the interview clip here.