can creative writing be taught

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Learning to write by learning to read

Can creative writing be taught?

It’s a reasonable question, but no matter how often I’ve been asked it, I never know quite what to say. Because if what people mean is: Can the love of language be taught? Can a gift for storytelling be taught? then the answer is no. Which may be why the question is so often asked in a skeptical tone implying that, unlike the multiplication tables or the principles of auto mechanics, creativity can’t be transmitted from teacher to student. Imagine Milton enrolling in a graduate program for help with Paradise Lost , or Kafka enduring the seminar in which his classmates inform him that, frankly, they just don’t believe the part about the guy waking up one morning to find he’s a giant bug.

What confuses me is not the sensibleness of the question but the fact that, when addressed to me, it’s being asked of a writer who has taught writing, on and off, for almost twenty years. What would it say about me, my students, and the hours we’ve spent in the classroom if I said that any attempt to teach the writing of fiction is a complete waste of time? I should probably just go ahead and admit that I’ve been committing criminal fraud.

Instead I answer by recalling my own most valuable experience, not as a teacher, but as a student in one of the few fiction workshops I have ever taken. This was in the 1970s, during my brief career as a graduate student in medieval English literature, when I was allowed the indulgence of taking one fiction class. Its generous teacher showed me, among other things, how to line-edit my work. For any writer, the ability to look at a sentence and see what’s superfluous, what can be altered, revised, expanded, and, especially, cut, is essential. It’s satisfying to see that sentence shrink, snap into place, and ultimately emerge in a more polished form: clear, economical, sharp.

Meanwhile, my classmates were providing me with my first real audience. In that prehistory, before mass photocopying enabled students to distribute manuscripts in advance, we read our work aloud. That year I was beginning what would become my first novel. And what made an important difference to me was the attention I felt in the room as the others listened. I was very encouraged by their eagerness to hear more.

That’s the experience I describe, the answer I give to people who ask about teaching creative writing: A workshop can be useful. A good teacher can show you how to edit your work. The right class can encourage you and form the basis of a community that will help and sustain you.

But that class, as helpful as it was, is not where I learned to write.

Like most—maybe all—writers, I learned to write by writing and, by example, from reading books.

Long before the idea of a writer’s conference was a glimmer in anyone’s eye, writers learned by reading the work of their predecessors. They studied meter with Ovid, plot construction with Homer, comedy with Aristophanes; they honed their prose style by absorbing the lucid sentences of Montaigne and Samuel Johnson. And who could have asked for better teachers: generous, uncritical, blessed with wisdom and genius, as endlessly forgiving as only the dead can be?

Though writers have learned from the masters in a formal, methodical way—Harry Crews has described taking apart a Graham Greene novel to see how many chapters it contained, how much time it covered, how Greene handled pacing, tone, and point of view—the truth is that this sort of education more often involves a kind of osmosis. After I’ve written an essay in which I’ve quoted at length from great writers, so that I’ve had to copy out long passages of their work, I’ve noticed that my own work becomes, however briefly, just a little more fluent.

In the ongoing process of becoming a writer, I read and reread the authors I most loved. I read for pleasure, first, but also more analytically, conscious of style, of diction, of how sentences were formed and information was being conveyed, how the writer was structuring a plot, creating characters, employing detail and dialogue. And as I wrote, I discovered that writing, like reading, was done one word at a time, one punctuation mark at a time. It required what a friend calls “putting every word on trial for its life”: changing an adjective, cutting a phrase, removing a comma and putting the comma back in.

I read closely, word by word, sentence by sentence, pondering each deceptively minor decision the writer had made. And though I can’t recall every source of inspiration and instruction, I can remember the novels and stories that seemed to me revelations: wells of beauty and pleasure that were also textbooks, courses of private lessons in the art of fiction.

When I was a high school junior, our English teacher assigned a term paper on the theme of blindness in Oedipus Rex and King Lear . We were supposed to go through the two tragedies and circle every reference to eyes, light, darkness, and vision, then draw some conclusion on which we would base our final essay.

The exercise seemed to us dull, mechanical. We felt we were way beyond it. All of us knew that blindness played a starring role in both dramas.

Still, we liked our English teacher, and we wanted to please him. And searching for every relevant word turned out to have an enjoyable treasure-hunt aspect, a Where’s Waldo detective thrill. Once we started looking for eyes, we found them everywhere, glinting at us, winking from every page.

Long before the blinding of Oedipus or Gloucester, the language of vision and its opposite was preparing us, consciously or unconsciously, for those violent mutilations. It asked us to consider what it meant to be clear-sighted or obtuse, short-sighted or prescient, to heed the signs and warnings, to see or deny what was right in front of one’s eyes. Teiresias, Oedipus, Goneril, Kent—all of them could be defined by the sincerity or falseness with which they mused or ranted on the subject of literal or metaphorical blindness.

Tracing those patterns and making those connections was fun. Like cracking a code that the playwright had embedded in the text, a riddle that existed just for me to decipher. I felt as if I were engaged in some intimate communication with the writer, as if the ghosts of Sophocles and Shakespeare had been waiting patiently all those centuries for a bookish sixteen-year-old to come along and find them.

I believed that I was learning to read in a whole new way. But this was only partly true. Because in fact I was merely relearning to read in an old way that I had learned, but forgotten.

We all begin as close readers. Even before we learn to read, the process of being read aloud to, and of listening, is one in which we are taking in one word after another, one phrase at a time, in which we are paying attention to whatever each word or phrase is transmitting. Word by word is how we learn to hear and then read, which seems only fitting, because that is how the books we are reading were written in the first place.

The more we read, the faster we can perform that magic trick of seeing how the letters have been combined into words that have meaning. The more we read, the more we comprehend, the more likely we are to discover new ways to read, each one tailored to the reason why we are reading a particular book.

At first, the thrill of our own brand-new expertise is all we ask or expect from Dick and Jane . But soon we begin to ask what else those marks on the page can give us. We begin to want information, entertainment, invention, even truth and beauty. We concentrate, we skim, we skip words, put down the book and daydream, start over, and reread. We finish a book and return to it years later to see what we might have missed, or the ways in which time and age have affected our understanding.

As a child, I was drawn to the works of the great escapist children’s writers. Especially if I could return to my own bed in time to turn off the lights, I liked trading my familiar world for the London of the four children whose nanny parachuted into their lives on her umbrella and who turned the most routine shopping trip into a magical outing. I would have gladly followed the white rabbit down into the rabbit hole and had tea with the Mad Hatter. I loved novels in which children stepped through portals—a garden, a wardrobe—into an alternate universe.

Children love the imagination, with its kaleidoscopic possibilities and its protest against the way that children are always being told exactly what’s true and false, what’s real and what’s illusion. Perhaps my taste in reading had something to do with the limitations I was discovering, day by day: the brick walls of time and space, science and probability, to say nothing of whatever messages I was picking up from the culture. I liked novels with plucky heroines like Pippi Longstocking, the astringent Jane Eyre, and the daughters in Little Women , girls whose resourcefulness and intelligence don’t automatically exclude them from the pleasures of male attention.

Each word of these novels was a yellow brick in the road to Oz. Some chapters I read and reread so as to repeat the dependable, out-of-body sensation of being somewhere else . I read addictively, constantly. On one family vacation my father pleaded with me to close my book long enough to look at the Grand Canyon. I borrowed stacks of books from the public library: novels, biographies, history, anything that looked even remotely engaging.

Along with pre-adolescence came a more pressing desire for escape. I read more widely, more indiscriminately, and mostly with an interest in how far a book could take me from my life and how long it could keep me there. Gone With the Wind . Pearl Buck. Edna Ferber. Fat James Michener best-sellers with a dash of history sprinkled in to cool down the steamy love scenes between the Hawaiian girls and the missionaries, the geishas and the GIs. I also appreciated these books for the often misleading nuggets of information they provided about sex in that innocent era, the 1950s. I turned the pages of these page-turners as fast as I could. Reading was like eating alone, with that same element of bingeing.

I was fortunate to have good teachers, and friends who were also readers. The books I read became more challenging, better written, more substantial. Steinbeck, Camus. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Twain, Salinger, Anne Frank. Little beatniks, my friends and I were passionate fans of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. We read Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, and the proto-hippie classics of Herman Hesse, Carlos Castenada— Mary Poppins for people who thought they’d outgrown the flying nanny. I must have been vaguely aware of the power of language, but only dimly, and only as it applied to whatever effect the book was having on me.

All of that changed with every mark I made on the pages of King Lear and Oedipus Rex . I still have my old copy of Sophocles, heavily underlined, covered with sweet, embarrassing notes-to-self (“irony?” “recognition of fate?”) written in my rounded, heartbreakingly neat, schoolgirl print. Like seeing a photograph of yourself as a child, encountering a handwriting that you know was once yours, but that now seems only dimly familiar, can inspire a confrontation with the mystery of time.

Focusing on language proved to be a practical skill, useful the way sight-reading with ease can come in handy for a musician. My high school English teacher had only recently graduated from a college where his own English professors taught what was called New Criticism, a school of thought that favored reading what was on the page with only passing reference to the biography of the writer or the period in which the text was written. Luckily for me, that approach to literature was still in fashion when I graduated and went on to college. At my university the faculty included a well-known professor and critic whose belief in close reading trickled down and influenced the entire humanities program. In French class we spent an hour each Friday afternoon working our way from The Song of Roland to Sartre, paragraph by paragraph, focusing on small sections for what was called the explication de texte .

On many occasions, of course, I had to skim as rapidly as I could to get through those survey courses that gave us two weeks to finish Don Quixote , ten days for War and Peace —courses designed to produce college graduates who could say they’d read the classics. By then I knew enough to regret having to read those books that way. And I promised myself that I would revisit them as soon as I could give them the time and attention they deserved.

Only once did my passion for reading steer me in the wrong direction, and that was when I let it persuade me to go to graduate school. There, I soon realized that my love for books was unshared by many of my classmates and professors. I had trouble understanding what they did love, exactly, and this gave me an anxious shiver that would later seem like a warning about what would happen to the teaching of literature over the decade or so after I dropped out of my Ph.D. program. That was when literary academia split into warring camps of deconstructionists, Marxists, feminists, and so forth, all battling for the right to tell students that they were reading “texts” in which ideas and politics trumped what the writer actually wrote.

I left graduate school and became a writer. I wrote my first novel in India, in Bombay, where I read as omnivorously as I had as a child, rereading classics that I borrowed from the old-fashioned, musty, beautiful university library that seemed to have acquired almost nothing written after 1920. Afraid of running out of books, I decided to slow myself down by reading Proust in French.

Reading a masterpiece in a language for which you need a dictionary is in itself a course in reading word by word. And as I puzzled out the gorgeous, labyrinthine sentences, I discovered how reading a masterpiece can make you want to write one.

A work of art can start you thinking about some aesthetic or philosophical problem; it can suggest some new method, some fresh approach to fiction. But the relationship between reading and writing is rarely so clear-cut, and in fact my first novel could hardly have been less Proustian.

More often the connection has to do with whatever mysterious promptings make you want to write. It’s like watching someone dance and then secretly, in your own room, trying out a few steps. I often think of learning to write by reading as something like the way I first began to read. I had a few picture books I’d memorized and pretended I could read, as a sort of party trick that I did repeatedly for my parents, who were also pretending—in their case, to be amused. I never knew exactly when I crossed the line from pretending to actually being able, but that was how it happened.

Not long ago a friend told me that her students complained that reading masterpieces made them feel stupid. But I’ve always found that the better the book I’m reading, the smarter I feel, or, at least, the more able to imagine that I might, someday, become smarter. I’ve also heard fellow writers say that they cannot read while working on a book of their own, for fear that Tolstoy or Shakespeare might influence them. I’ve always hoped they would influence me, and I wonder if I would have taken so happily to being a writer if it meant that I couldn’t read during the years I might need to complete a novel.

To be truthful, some writers stop you dead in your tracks by making you see your own work in the most unflattering light. Each of us will meet a different harbinger of personal failure, some innocent genius chosen for reasons having to do with what we see as our own inadequacies. The only remedy I have found is to read the work of a writer whose work is entirely different from another, though not necessarily more like your own—a difference that will remind you of how many rooms there are in the house of art.

Inspiring Ink: Expert Tips on How to Teach Creative Writing

The world of creative writing is as vast as it is rewarding. It’s a form of expression that allows the writer to explore different worlds, characters, and narratives – all within the power of their pen.

But what exactly is creative writing and why is it important? Let’s explore the value of creative writing and how to inspire young (or old!) minds to embark on the curious and exciting journey of writing creatively – it’s easier than you think!

What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing, in its simplest form, is writing that goes beyond the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature.

It’s characterized by its emphasis on:

• narrative craft
• character development
• the use of literary devices

From poetry to plays, scripts to sonnets, creative writing covers a wide range of genres . It’s about painting pictures with words, invoking emotions, and bringing ideas to life . It’s about crafting stories that are compelling, engaging, and thought-provoking.

Whether you’re penning a novel or jotting down a journal entry, creative writing encourages you to unleash your imagination and express your thoughts in a unique, artistic way. For a deeper dive into the realm of creative writing, you can visit our article on what is creative writing .

Benefits of Developing Creative Writing Skills

The benefits of creative writing extend beyond the page.

It’s not just about creating captivating stories or crafting beautiful prose. The skills developed through creative writing are invaluable in many aspects of life and work.

1. Creative writing fosters creativity and imagination. 

It encourages you to think outside the box, broaden your perspective, and explore new ideas. It also enhances your ability to communicate effectively, as it involves conveying thoughts, emotions, and narratives in a clear and compelling manner.

2. Creative writing aids in improving critical thinking skills.

It prompts you to analyze characters, plotlines, and themes, and make connections between different ideas. This process activates different parts of the mind, drawing on personal experiences, the imagination, logical plot development, and emotional intelligence.

3. Creative writing is also a valuable tool for self-expression and personal growth.

It allows you to explore your feelings, experiences, and observations, providing an outlet for self-reflection and introspection. By both reading and writing about different characters in different situations, readers develop empathy in a gentle but effective way.

4. Creative writing skills can open up a host of career opportunities.

From authors and editors to content creators and copywriters, the demand for creative writers is vast and varied. You can learn more about potential career paths in our article on creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

In essence, creative writing is more than just an art—it’s a skill, a craft, and a powerful tool for communication and self-expression. Whether you’re teaching creative writing or learning it, understanding its value is the first step towards mastering the art.

The 3 Roles of a Creative Writing Teacher

Amongst the many facets of a creative writing teacher’s role, three vital aspects stand out: inspiring creativity , nurturing talent , and providing constructive criticism . These elements play a significant role in shaping budding writers and fostering their passion for the craft.

1. Inspiring Creativity

The primary function of a creative writing teacher is to inspire creativity.

They must foster an environment that encourages students to think outside the box and explore new possibilities . This includes presenting students with creative writing prompts that challenge their thinking, promoting lively discussions around various topics, and providing opportunities for students to engage in creative writing activities for kids .

Teachers should also expose students to a range of literary genres , styles, and techniques to broaden their understanding and appreciation of the craft. This exposure not only enhances their knowledge but also stimulates their creativity, encouraging them to experiment with different writing styles .

2. Nurturing Talent

Nurturing talent involves recognizing the unique abilities of each student and providing the necessary support and guidance to help them develop these skills. A creative writing teacher needs to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each student and tailor their approach accordingly.

This means:

• offering personalized feedback
• setting realistic yet challenging goals
• providing opportunities for students to showcase their work

Encouraging students to participate in writing competitions or to publish their work can give them a confidence boost and motivate them to improve. Furthermore, teachers should educate students about various creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree . This knowledge can inspire students to pursue their passion for writing and explore career opportunities in the field.

3. Providing Constructive Criticism

Providing constructive criticism is a critical aspect of teaching creative writing. It involves assessing students’ work objectively and providing feedback that helps them improve .

Teachers should:

• highlight the strengths of the work
• address the areas that need improvement
• suggest ways to make the piece better

Constructive criticism should be specific, actionable, and encouraging . It’s important to remember that the goal is to help the student improve, not to discourage them. Therefore, teachers need to communicate their feedback in a respectful and supportive manner.

In essence, a teacher’s role in teaching creative writing extends beyond mere instruction. They are mentors who inspire, nurture, and shape the minds of budding writers. By fostering a supportive and stimulating environment, they can help students unlock their creative potential and develop a lifelong love for writing.

3 Techniques for Teaching Creative Writing

When it comes to understanding how to teach creative writing, there are several effective techniques that can help inspire students and foster their writing skills.

1. Encouraging Free Writing Exercises

Free writing is a technique that encourages students to write continuously for a set amount of time without worrying about grammar, punctuation, or topic. This type of exercise can help unleash creativity, as it allows students to freely express their thoughts and ideas without judgment or constraint.

As a teacher, you can set a specific theme or provide creative writing prompts to guide the writing session. Alternatively, you can allow students to write about any topic that comes to mind. The key is to create an environment that encourages creative exploration and expression.

2. Exploring Different Genres

Another effective technique is to expose students to a wide range of writing genres. This can include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, fantasy, mystery, and more. By exploring different genres, students can discover their unique writing styles and interests. This variety also offers the chance to expand their writing skills and apply them to various writing formats.

To facilitate this exploration, you can assign writing projects in different genres, conduct genre-specific writing workshops, or invite guest speakers who specialize in different genres. You can also encourage students to critically analyze how different authors approach their work.

3. Analyzing Published Works

Analyzing published works is a powerful way to teach creative writing. This technique allows students to learn from established authors by studying their:

• writing styles
• narrative structures
• use of language.

It also provides a practical context for understanding writing concepts and techniques.

As a teacher, you can select diverse pieces of literature for analysis , ranging from classic novels to contemporary short stories. Encourage students to identify elements they admire in these works and discuss how they can incorporate similar techniques into their own writing.

These techniques for teaching creative writing are effective ways to inspire creativity, encourage self-expression, and develop writing skills. As a teacher, your role is crucial in guiding students through their creative journey and helping them realize their potential as writers.

Creative Writing Workshops and Exercises

One effective method on how to teach creative writing is through the use of targeted workshops and exercises. These interactive sessions can stimulate creativity, foster character development , and help in understanding story structures .

Idea Generation Workshops

Idea generation is a crucial aspect of creative writing. It is the starting point that provides a springboard for writers to explore and develop their narratives. Idea generation workshops can be an interactive and fun way to help writers come up with fresh ideas.

Workshops can include brainstorming sessions , where writers are encouraged to think freely and note down all ideas, no matter how unconventional they may seem. Another method is the use of writing prompts , which can serve as a creative spark.

A prompt could be:

• even an image

Editor’s Note : Encourage children to create a big scribble on a scrap piece of paper and then look for an image in it (like looking for pictures in the clouds). This can be a great creative writing prompt and students will love sharing their writing with each other! Expect lots of giggles and fun!

Character Development Exercises

Characters are the heart of any story. They drive the narrative and engage the readers. Character development exercises can help writers create well-rounded and relatable characters.

Such exercises can include character questionnaires , where writers answer a series of questions about their characters to gain a deeper understanding of their personalities, backgrounds, and motivations. Role-playing activities can also be useful, allowing writers to step into their characters’ shoes and explore their reactions in different scenarios.

Story Structure Workshops

Understanding story structure is vital for creating a compelling narrative. Story structure workshops can guide writers on how to effectively structure their stories to engage readers from start to finish .

These workshops can cover essential elements of story structures like:

• rising action
• falling action

In addition to understanding the basics, writers should be encouraged to experiment with different story structures to find what works best for their narrative style. An understanding of story structure can also help in analyzing and learning from published works .

Providing writers with the right tools and techniques, through workshops and exercises, can significantly improve their creative writing skills. It’s important to remember that creativity flourishes with practice and patience .

As a teacher, nurturing this process is one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching creative writing. For more insights and tips on teaching creative writing, continue exploring our articles on creative writing .

Tips to Enhance Creative Writing Skills

The process of teaching creative writing is as much about honing one’s own skills as it is about imparting knowledge to others. Here are some key strategies that can help in enhancing your creative writing abilities and make your teaching methods more effective.

Regular Practice

Like any other skill, creative writing requires regular practice . Foster the habit of writing daily, even if it’s just a few lines. This will help you stay in touch with your creative side and continually improve your writing skills. Encourage your students to do the same.

Introduce them to various creative writing prompts to stimulate their imagination and make their writing practice more engaging.

Reading Widely

Reading is an essential part of becoming a better writer. By reading widely, you expose yourself to a variety of styles, tones, and genres . This not only broadens your literary horizons but also provides a wealth of ideas for your own writing.

Encourage your students to read extensively as well. Analyzing and discussing different works can be an excellent learning exercise and can spark creative ideas .

Exploring Various Writing Styles

The beauty of creative writing lies in its diversity. From poetic verses to gripping narratives, there’s a wide range of styles to explore. Encourage your students to try their hand at different forms of writing. This not only enhances their versatility but also helps them discover their unique voice as a writer.

To help them get started, you can introduce a variety of creative writing activities for kids . These tasks can be tailored to suit different age groups and proficiency levels. Remember, the goal is to foster a love for writing, so keep the activities fun and engaging .

Have Fun Teaching Creative Writing!

Enhancing creative writing skills is a continuous journey. It requires persistence, curiosity, and a willingness to step out of your comfort zone. As a teacher, your role is to guide your students on this journey, providing them with the tools and encouragement they need to flourish as writers – and most of all – enjoy the process!

For more insights on creative writing, be sure to explore our articles on what is creative writing and creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

Brooks Manley

Creative Primer  is a resource on all things journaling, creativity, and productivity. We’ll help you produce better ideas, get more done, and live a more effective life.

My name is Brooks. I do a ton of journaling, like to think I’m a creative (jury’s out), and spend a lot of time thinking about productivity. I hope these resources and product recommendations serve you well. Reach out if you ever want to chat or let me know about a journal I need to check out!

Here’s my favorite journal for 2024: 

Gratitude Journal Prompts Mindfulness Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Anxiety Reflective Journal Prompts Healing Journal Prompts Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Journal Prompts Mental Health Journal Prompts ASMR Journal Prompts Manifestation Journal Prompts Self-Care Journal Prompts Morning Journal Prompts Evening Journal Prompts Self-Improvement Journal Prompts Creative Writing Journal Prompts Dream Journal Prompts Relationship Journal Prompts "What If" Journal Prompts New Year Journal Prompts Shadow Work Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Overcoming Fear Journal Prompts for Dealing with Loss Journal Prompts for Discerning and Decision Making Travel Journal Prompts Fun Journal Prompts

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Can Creative Writing Be Taught?

• Ethan Gilsdorf

You can't teach someone to be a great writer, but you can probably teach them to be a decent writer.

At least that's what I've come to conclude in my 15-plus years as a creative writing instructor. I've taught poetry writing, fiction writing, essay writing, travel writing, cover letter writing, and book proposal writing. I've taught fourth graders and octogenarians, teens and expats, ballsy college students determined to make a splash, and shy, suburban mothers. I’ve taught doctors, lawyers, bartenders and everyone in between.

Everyone, it seems, wants to write. And publish.

People increasingly harbor dreams of becoming the next breakout J.K. Rowling or John Grisham. They're trawling the twin oceans of idea and marketplace for the next "Hunger Games" or "The Glass Castle." You know the fantasy: write that novel in your spare (ha!) time, get discovered, and a multi-book, multi-million, book-TV-movie-theme-park contract can't be far behind.

Unlike the media of oil paints or musical notation, we all have a background using language. That makes the art of writing seem deceptively simple. It isn't.

The Internet and self-publishing don't help this perception, either, tempting us — almost telling us — Hey, you non-professional, untrained writer, you too can add your voice to the gazillions of words and works out there. Put up a blog, hang out a virtual shingle and readers will be hanging on your every word.

Take MFA programs: 50 years ago, only a handful of them existed. Now nearly every university in the country has one . Then there are literally thousands of literary magazines and small presses in whose pages you can find fame, writing conferences to discover (and to be discovered at), and countless "how to write" books to scour for secret writerly tricks. Can't do it alone? You can hire the services of private editors, book doctors, and publicists.

In short, the creative writing industry — and it is an industry — has sprung up in the rich soil of these wannabe writers' collective dreams, nourished by, one hopes, hard work.

And it is hard work. Success requires years of trial and error, crumpled pages and debilitating bouts of rejection.

Unlike the media of oil paints or musical notation, we all have a background using language. That makes the art of writing seem deceptively simple. It isn't.

People ask me how long it took to write my book and I say one of two things: "Two years" or, when I'm feeling more enigmatic, "Twenty-two years." By which I mean: I could not have written my book as a freshly minted college graduate at age 21. I was a poet then. My book, and my authorial persona, both needed another two decades of festering, stumbling, confidence building, rejection, torment, doubt, and practice, practice, practice. I needed to write poetry for 10 years before I could become a journalist, before I could become an author. I needed to grow up and find something to say.

Which brings us to the questions at hand: Can you teach creative writing? And what is a MFA good for, anyway?

Second query first. I don't think you need a master's level degree to call yourself a writer. But for me, the program helped. When I got my MFA from Louisiana State University in the early 90s, Shaquille O'Neal was an undergrad hoops star there and I was a woefully naive novice. I liked to tell stories and I liked to play with language. But I knew nothing about the craft of a story, or a poem. Or what it felt like to have my work read by my peers and taken apart and put back together again.

Did I have professors who taught me things? Sure.

Today, my MFA degree means little. But back then, it allowed me to try on that pointy hat called "writer" and see how it felt.

As in painting and music and dance, students can be taught fundamentals that will vastly improve their initial efforts, and save them from frustrations and dead ends (but not all frustrations and dead ends) down the road. A drawing student who gets even rudimentary instructions in anatomy or perspective can transform their scribbles into recognizable forms. Same with the neophyte writers in my classrooms. They can learn that the first lines, first paragraphs, and first pages of their work are key to winning over your reader; thus, make them awesome — memorable, suspenseful and full of verve. Or, students can be taught that language like "dappled," "quaint" and "the deep abyss of my despair" is stale and overused. When I implore my students to find fresher language, they find that the clichés in their own work begin to scream at them like, well, hopefully not banshees. How about Bolsheviks? Boom boxes?

In short, keep in mind Malcolm Gladwell's notorious " 10,000-Hour Rule " — mastering any craft is going to take around 10,000 hours of practice. You don't splash color on a canvas today and expect a solo show in Soho in six months; don't expect the same rapid success and recognition for your writing.

What's largely missing in creative writing instruction is schooling in how to be a writer. The marketplace is fickle, baffling, and cutthroat. I loved my MFA program, but it taught me nothing about how to sell my work or make a career as a writer. Fortunately, this is changing everywhere writing is being taught, especially at non-degree writing programs like Boston's Grub Street , where I happen to be an instructor.

Publishing is in upheaval. Writers must be the central engines of their careers. More than degrees and classes, and beyond creating good work, what writers need are ways to recharge, remain hopeful and compete in a literary landscape ruled by social media, diminishing advances, consolidation of the old presses and a vast diffusion of the new.

Today, my MFA degree means little. But back then, it allowed me to try on that pointy hat called "writer" and see how it felt. And, the program gave me thick skin and knocked me down a few notches, both of which I desperately needed.

I didn't ever cry in a workshop (OK, maybe I sniffled), but I often felt eviscerated, which writers need to feel. To be crumpled like a bad draft, survive, and live to write another page.

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Editor's Note : The nation's largest gathering of creative writers and creative writing teachers, the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Annual Conference & Bookfair brings some 11,000 writers to Boston, March 7-9.

Ethan Gilsdorf Cognoscenti contributor Ethan Gilsdorf is a writer, critic and author of "Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks."

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Can Creative Writing Really Be Taught?: Resisting Lore in Creative Writing Pedagogy (10th anniversary edition) 2nd Edition

Revised and updated throughout, this 10th-anniversary edition of Can Creative Writing Really Be Taught? is a significantly expanded guide to key issues and practices in creative writing teaching today. Challenging the myths of creative writing teaching, experienced and up-and-coming teachers explore what works in the classroom and workshop and what does not. Now brought up-to-date with new issues that have emerged with the explosion of creative writing courses in higher education, the new edition includes: · Guides to and case studies of workshop practice · Discussions on grading and the myth of “the easy A” · Explorations of the relationship between reading and writing · A new chapter on creative writing research · A new chapter on games, fan-fiction and genre writing · New chapters on identity and activism Can Creative Writing Really Be Taught? is supported by a companion website at www.bloomsbury.com, including extensive links to online resources, teaching case studies and lesson plans.

• ISBN-10 1474285058
• ISBN-13 978-1474285056
• Edition 2nd
• Publisher Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date July 13, 2017
• Language English
• Dimensions 6.14 x 0.62 x 9.21 inches
• Print length 264 pages
• See all details

Editorial Reviews

Book description, about the author.

Stephanie Vanderslice is Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the Arkansas Writer's MFA Workshop at the University of Central Arkansas, USA and is the Chairperson of the Creative Writing Studies Organization. Her column, The Geek's Guide to the Writing Life appears regularly in the Huffington Post. She publishes fiction, nonfiction and creative writing criticism including Can It Really Be Taught?: Resisting Lore in Creative Writing Pedagogy, Teaching Creative Writing to Undergraduates: A Guide and Sourcebook and Rethinking Creative Writing Rebecca Manery teaches creative and academic writing at Ball State University, USA. A published poet and non-fiction writer she is co-author (with Tonya Perry) of Supporting Students in a Time of Common Core Standards (6-8) (2011).

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury Academic; 2nd edition (July 13, 2017)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 264 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1474285058
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1474285056
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.3 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.14 x 0.62 x 9.21 inches
• #4,029 in Creative Writing & Composition
• #9,201 in Rhetoric (Books)
• #11,694 in Study & Teaching Reference (Books)

About the author

Stephanie vanderslice.

Stephanie Vanderslice's was born in Queens, NY in 1967 and grew up there and in the suburbs of Albany. Her essays have appeared in Mothers in All But Name, Knowing Pains: Women on Love, Sex and Work in their 40's and many others. In addition to The Geek's Guide to the Writing Life, she has also published Can Creative Writing Really Be Taught? 10th Anniversary edition (co-edited with Rebecca Manery) with Bloomsbury. Other books include Rethinking Creative Writing and Teaching Creative Writing to Undergraduates (with Kelly Ritter). Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the Arkansas Writer's MFA Workshop at the University of Central Arkansas, she also writes novels and has published creative nonfiction, fiction, and creative criticism in such venues as Ploughshares Online, Easy Street and others. Her column, The Geek's Guide to the Writing Life appears regularly in the Huffington Post.

Recommended reads include Simon Van Booy's Father's Day, Nicole Krauss's Great House, Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth, and Jesse Lee Kercheval's The Museum of Happiness (all time favorite). Stephanie lives in Conway, Arkansas with her husband, writer John Vanderslice (no, not the indie songster) and two sons. She can also make a mean loaf of french bread.

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Creative Writing

Two programs within the umbrella of the Department of English focus on particular aspects or genres of literary endeavor.

The purpose of the Creative Writing program is to give students a rigorous background in the fundamentals of creative work by providing them with the opportunity to study with established poets and prose writers. The program is committed to interdisciplinary work while also teaching the elements of creative writing that underlie all genres. Creative Writing sponsors events , workshops , and lectures and also schedules many undergraduate and graduate classes in writing. Visiting writers each quarter provide a dynamic component to the curriculum, with authors ranging from George Saunders to Susan Howe. English faculty member John Wilkinson is currently the Director of the Program in Creative Writing and the Program in Poetry & Poetics, and several English faculty members, including Rachel Cohen, Edgar Garcia, Srikanth Reddy, Jennifer Scappettone, and Vu Tran, regularly teach both creative and critical classes.

• Creative Writing Website
• Upcoming Creative Writing Events

Minor in English and Creative Writing

Undergraduate students who are not majoring in English may enter a minor program in English and Creative Writing. These students should declare their intention to enter the minor program by the end of Spring Quarter of their third year. Students choose courses in consultation with the Program Manager in Creative Writing and must submit a minor program consent form to their College Adviser in order to declare the minor. Students completing this minor must follow all relevant admission procedures described in the  Creative Writing  website. Courses in the minor may not be double counted with the student's major(s) or with other minors and may not be counted toward general education requirements. Courses in the minor must be taken for quality letter grades, and all of the requirements for the minor must be met by registering for courses bearing University of Chicago course numbers.

Requirements for the minor program:

• 2 Creative Writing courses (at least one at the Special Topics or advanced level)
• 3 Creative Writing or English electives
• 1 portfolio/projects workshop (or advanced workshop depending on genre) to be taken in the Winter Quarter of the students' fourth year
• A portfolio of the student's work to be submitted to the Director of Undergraduate Studies by the end of the fifth week in the quarter in which the student plans to graduate. The portfolio might consist of a selection of poems, one or two short stories or chapters from a novel, a substantial part or the whole of a play, two or three non-fiction pieces, and so forth.

There is no minor solely in English. The Minor in English and Creative Writing for Non-English Majors is the only minor available through the Department of English.

Poetry and Poetics

This program aims to coordinate the University's various curricular approaches to the creative and critical practice of poetics. The Program supports the History and Forms of Lyric series, an ongoing series of lectures by prominent scholars, and a graduate workshop that focuses on work in progressfrom students, faculty, and visitors. The discussions enabled by the Program are intended to help students at all levels to pursue work that crosses disciplines and discourses. The Program also supports collaboration among faculty members in the form, forexample, of team-taught courses, conferences, and lectures. The Program is overseen by an ad-hoc committee of faculty from various departments, including the Department of English.

The Program in Poetry and Poetics

Affiliated Departments

The University of Chicago in general, and the Department of English in particular, are known for the interdisciplinary and theoretically driven work of their faculty and students. Many English faculty members have joint appointment in other programs at the University, including Comparative Literature, Cinema and Media Studies, Art History, Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS), and the Divinity School, among others. Interdisciplinary work is encouraged in the Department of English--both graduate and undergraduate students take classes in a variety of University departments and programs. Students in these programs, in turn, enliven English classes with their perspectives. Listed below are links to some of the departments with which the Department of English works closely.

• Cinema and Media Studies
• Department of Art History
• Department of Comparative Literature
• Department of Philosophy
• Divinity School
• Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS)

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Can Writing Be Taught?

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By Rivka Galchen and Zoe Heller

• Aug. 19, 2014

Each week in Bookends, two writers take on questions about the world of books. This week, Rivka Galchen and Zoë Heller discuss whether writing can be taught.

By Rivka Galchen

Is it somehow flattering to feel one’s endeavor is more gift than labor, and are writers more in need of such flattery than others?

I wonder if we can really teach someone to be a biologist. I mean, sure, we can say, This is what a cell is, and here’s this thing called RNA, and here’s this thing called DNA, and here’s this technique called agarose gel electrophoresis that will separate your DNA and RNA fragments by size — but will teaching really produce the next Charles Darwin or Rachel Carson or Francis Crick? A real scientist follows her own visionary gleam. Penicillin was discovered when Alexander Fleming returned to his messy lab after a long vacation and made sense of a moldy petri dish most people would have thrown out as contaminated. The structure of the benzene ring came to the chemist Friedrich August Kekule after a daydream about a snake biting its own tail. You can’t teach that kind of dreaming.

Yet we know we can teach biology, we know we can teach chemistry. Or, at the very least, we teach those subjects every day, in every school system and at every level without finding ourselves in sinusoidal crisis about the subjects’ transmissibility. Somehow, with the sciences — with most every subject — we don’t think that the measure of teaching is its production of masters. I remember learning about RNA transcriptase and about the peppered moth that turned black in adapting to the soot of the Industrial Revolution, and although I never found in myself the inner calling or natural talent that would make me a professional biologist, I didn’t think, What’s the point and to hell with the whole project. And even as these were college-level courses, I didn’t get the sense that my teachers were agonized as to why they were teaching this not-a-prodigy-in-biology person. It was as if interest and pleasure were reason enough.

I take the sciences, and in particular the less glorified of the sciences, as an example here not only to counter the common misconception among bookish people that the sciences are for grinders with no imagination, but also because I think it’s illuminating how relatively unconflicted we are in this country about teaching the teachable part of the sciences. I don’t think that’s explainable simply by “usefulness,” since so few Americans work in areas that require scientific expertise. With a similar calm, we teach the magic-infused fields of music, soccer, mathematics, history, even ethics.

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Creative Writing: Can It Be Taught?

Cite this chapter.

• Rudy Wiebe  

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For 21 years I have been working in creative writing classrooms in schools, colleges and universities, both in the United States and Canada; if I don’t think that creative writing can be taught, I’m either a charlatan or an idiot. Now it is quite likely that persons (perhaps even academics) exist who believe me to be either, or both, but I would here like to explain that the teacher — who showed me it could be taught was Dr F. M. Salter, for some time the head of the English Department at this university.

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Wiebe, R. (1986). Creative Writing: Can It Be Taught?. In: Demers, P. (eds) The Creating Word. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07954-4_8

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Can Creative Writing Be Taught?

2015, Mash Stories

A meditation on a very old pedagogical chestnut, arguing in favour of craft over art and the value of practise-based learning, originally published online in Blot the Skrip and Jar It, January 19, 2015.

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The Teachable Talent: Why Creative Writing Can Be Taught

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Stephanie Vanderslice

Author, Professor, Blogger, and Huffington Post writer

Can It Really Be Taught? Resisting Lore in Creative Writing Pedagogy

By Stephanie Vanderslice

• Publisher: Heinemann
• Edition: First Edition
• Available in: Paperback
• ISBN: 0867095881
• Published: February 28, 2007
• workshop practices
• the canon of creative-writing craft books
• the criteria for grading (including the myth of the easy A)
• ways to use the mythologized presence of the writer in film.

STEPHANIE VANDERSLICE

Can creative writing be taught?

By Michelle Barker

It’s a question that strikes anxiety into the hearts of all writers who make a living teaching writing, and doubt into the wallets of all MFA students who spend a fortune on their creative writing degree. Some people believe the answer is, fundamentally, no. There is this intangible quality called talent that you either have or you don’t. It’s true of every skill, be it piano, carpentry, or tennis. But just because some people have more talent than others, I don’t think it follows that a person cannot learn to become a better writer. Writing is a craft. The craft has rules. The rules have exceptions. All of these things can be taught, and it’s essential to learn them if you want to write well. Can everyone become a great writer? No. Not everyone who learns to play the piano is going to be Mozart. Not everyone who learns to play tennis will be Nadal. So what? Just because you might not end up being Mozart, does this mean you shouldn’t take piano lessons? How do you know you’re not Mozart unless you do take lessons? Even if it turns out you’re not Mozart, you can still derive joy from playing the piano. Writing is no different. I believe a writing teacher’s (and an editor’s) job is to take whatever his or her students start with and shape it into the best thing it can be. Each writer is unique. They bring their own material to the table. What they should leave with is the best possible version of that unique material. I would go so far as to say talent is an overrated component. If I was a gambler, I’d put my money on an average writer who knows how to work hard over someone who is supposedly talented but doesn’t know how to apply the AOC rule (Ass On Chair). Talent is a trickster. It makes you think you can get it right the first time—and sure, that might work for a little while. But sooner or later every writer encounters a manuscript that threatens to kill them. They get it wrong, and must revise. It’s wrong again; more revision. Still wrong. In fact, so wrong, the writer must start again. And so it goes, until you want to throw your laptop out the window. If you have not learned how to work hard, this is where you quit. Because it’s hard. It’s hard, and it’s frustrating and demoralizing and it makes you think that in all your years of writing you have actually never learned anything. And if you haven’t learned how to work hard, I would argue that you didn’t learn the most important aspect of writing. Working hard means being open to revision, being humble enough to accept criticism, and being willing to keep working until you get it right. But here’s the problem with writing. At a basic level, we all know how to do it, which makes it unlike learning how to play the violin or becoming a master carpenter. No one would pick up a violin expecting to be able to play it well the first time they try. No one would expect to build a beautiful cabinet without undertaking a long apprenticeship. Yet, because we can write an essay or a letter, we figure we can also write a short story or even a novel. I have heard people say, “I’d like to write a novel one day,” in the same tone they’d say, “I’d like to go to Paris one day,” as if writing a novel was a simple matter of picking up a pen and investing in a notebook. Unfortunately, in one sense, writing is exactly like the violin or carpentry. It requires a long apprenticeship before you can expect to sell your work. If it’s a novel we’re talking about, the apprenticeship is even longer. I believe you have to write a number of novels before you figure out how to write a good one. One million words of crap, one teacher told me. That’s how many it takes before the words start coming out good. Writing isn't only taught in the classroom. I like to think of editing as a form of one-on-one teaching. And as a bonus, I learn just as much from editing as I do from being edited, because quite often the issues I see in other people’s manuscripts also pop up in my own. I don’t think there will ever come a time where I’ll be able to say I know all there is to know about writing. Every time I attend a conference, or edit a manuscript, or have my own work edited, I learn something new. Every time I read a brilliant novel, I realize I need to study more, practice harder, keep working. Writing is a lifelong pursuit of learning how to get it right. As soon as you’ve figured it out, your manuscript is done and you get to start again—invariably with new challenges and at least one character who is determined to turn your hair grey.

Michelle Barker is an award-winning author and poet. Her most recent publication, co-authored with David Brown, is Immersion and Emotion: The Two Pillars of Storytelling . Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in literary reviews worldwide. She has published three YA novels (one fantasy and two historical fiction), a historical picture book, and a chapbook of poetry. Michelle holds a BA in English literature (UBC) and an MFA in creative writing (UBC). Many of the writers she’s worked with have gone on to win publishing contracts and honours for their work. Michelle lives and writes in Vancouver, Canada.

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‘show don’t tell’: what creative writing has to teach philosophy.

1. Discovery versus Recovery

I think I summed up my attitude to philosophy when I said: philosophy ought really to be written only as a poetic composition. It must, as it seems to me, be possible to gather from this how far my thinking belongs to the present, future or past. For I was thereby revealing myself as someone who cannot quite do what he would like to be able to do. [ 5 ] (p. 24e)

Our engagement in language is active only as long as we are finding the universe. When we cease to find the universe, then actually we cease to have the occasion of language. That great proportion of modern poets who have suffered shipwreck in language are really no longer engaged in finding the universe. Language has in a way grown sufficient to them. But we have a searching psyche, a searching mind or simply a longing or a need for language to continue in the universe. Language for me is an engagement in which we are finding the universe. [ 10 ] (p. 81)

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all: The parish of rich women, physical decay, Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still, For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives In the valley of its making where executives Would never want to tamper, flows on south From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs, Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, A way of happening, a mouth.

2. Ode to the Manifest Image

There exists at present a living human body, which is my body. This body was born at a certain time in the past, and has existed continuously ever since, though not without undergoing changes; it was, for instance, much smaller when it was born, and for some time afterwards, than it is now. Ever since it was born, it has been either in contact with or not far from the surface of the earth; and, at every moment since it was born, there have also existed many other things, having shape and size in three dimensions [in the same familiar sense in which it has], from which it has been at various distances [in the familiar sense in which it is now at a distance both from that mantelpiece and from that bookcase, and at a greater distance from the bookcase than it is from the mantelpiece]; also there have [very often, at all events] existed some other things of this kind with which it was in contact [in the familiar sense in which it is now in contact with the pen I am holding in my right hand and with some of the clothes I am wearing]. Among the things which have, in this sense, formed part of its environment [i.e., have been either in contact with it, or at some distance from it, however great ] there have, at every moment since its birth, been large numbers of other living human bodies, each of which has, like it, [a] at some time been born, [b] continued to exist from some time after birth, [c] been, at every moment of its life after birth, either in contact with or not far from the surface of the earth; and many of these bodies have already died and ceased to exist. But the earth had existed also for many years before my body was born; and for many of these years, also, large numbers of human bodies had, at every moment, been alive upon it; and many of these bodies had died and ceased to exist before it was born Finally [to come to a different class of propositions], I am a human being, and I have, at different times since my body was born, had many different experiences, of each of many different kinds: e.g., I have often perceived both my own body and other things which formed part of its environment, including other human bodies; I have not only perceived things of this kind, but have also observed facts about them, such as, for instance, the fact which I am now observing, that that mantelpiece is at present nearer to my body than that bookcase; I have been aware of other facts, which I was not at the time observing, such as, for instance, the fact, of which I am now aware, that my body existed yesterday and was then also for some time nearer to that mantelpiece than to that bookcase; I have had expectations with regard to the future, and many beliefs of other kinds, both true and false; I have thought of imaginary things and persons and incidents, in the reality of which I did not believe; I have had dreams; and I have had feelings of many different kinds. And, just as my body has been the body of a human being, namely myself, who has, during his lifetime, had many experiences of each of these [and other] different kinds; so, in the case of very many of the other human bodies which have lived upon the earth, each has been the body of a different human being, who has, during the lifetime of that body, had many different experiences of each of these [and other] different kinds. [ 14 ] (pp. 106–107)

Addis represents Moore’s propositions as

belonging to the common-sense view of reality. These are propositions which he claimed to know with certainty to be true, but which could not be justified, Propositions belonging to the common-sense view of reality are those which are held by all mankind. [ 7 ] (p. 136)

Nothing could be more remarkable than seeing a man who thinks he is unobserved performing some quite simple everyday activity. Let us imagine a theatre; the curtain goes up and we see a man alone in a room, walking up and down, lighting a cigarette, sitting down, etc. so that suddenly we are observing a human being from outside in a way that ordinarily we can never observe ourselves; it would be like watching a chapter of biography with our own eyes,—surely that would be uncanny and wonderful at the same time. We should be observing something more wonderful than anything a playwright could arrange to be acted or spoken on the stage: life itself—But then we do this every day without its making the slightest impression on us! True enough, but we do not see it from that point of view’. [ 5 ] (p. 4e)

‘You must say something new and yet it must all be old.

In fact you must confine yourself to saying old things—and all the same it must be completely new!

Different interpretations must correspond to different applications.

A poet too has constantly to ask himself: ‘but is what I am writing really true?’—and this does not necessarily mean: ‘is this how it happens in reality?’.

Yes, you have got to assemble bits of old material. But into a Building ’. —[ 5 ] (p. 40e)

How does he know such things? I mean, apart from any philosophical claim into whose service he would press such findings, how can he so much as have the idea that these fleets of consciousness, which is obviously all he’d got to go on, are accurate wakes of our own? And the fact is, so much of what he shows to be true of his consciousness is true of ours [of mine]. This is perhaps the fact of his writing to be most impressed by; it may be the fact he is most impressed by—that what he does can be done at all. [ 23 ] (p. 20)

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

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Share and Cite

Musgrave, D. ‘Show Don’t Tell’: What Creative Writing Has to Teach Philosophy. Philosophies 2024 , 9 , 150. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9050150

Musgrave D. ‘Show Don’t Tell’: What Creative Writing Has to Teach Philosophy. Philosophies . 2024; 9(5):150. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9050150

Musgrave, David. 2024. "‘Show Don’t Tell’: What Creative Writing Has to Teach Philosophy" Philosophies 9, no. 5: 150. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9050150

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A business journal from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Can Creativity Be Taught?

August 27, 2014 • 14 min read.

Can creativity be fostered in the workplace, and if so, how can it be managed?

• Human Resources

The usual image of how creativity happens: A composer inadvertently hears a melody rising from a babbling brook, or an ad agency creative director crumples page after page of aborted ideas ripped from the typewriter until the right one lands. But creativity, some claim, can come from a far less elusive muse — from a structured process, one that opens up the ranks of the creative to a wider swath than the Steve Jobs, Jonas Salks and Franz Schuberts of the universe.

“I think there are individual differences in our propensity to be creative,” says Wharton marketing professor Rom Schrift, “but having said that, it’s like a muscle. If you train yourself, and there are different methods for doing this, you can become more creative. There are individual differences in people, but I would argue that it is also something that can be developed, and therefore, taught.”

Wharton marketing professor Jerry (Yoram) Wind has in fact taught a course in creativity at Wharton for years, and says that “in any population, basically the distribution of creativity follows the normal curve. At the absolute extreme you have Einstein and Picasso, and you don’t have to teach them — they are the geniuses. Nearly everyone else in the distribution, and the type of people you would deal with at leading universities and companies, can learn creativity.”

Does creativity need the right conditions to flourish? Jennifer Mueller, a management professor at the University of San Diego and former Wharton professor who has researched creativity, sees evidence that it does. “Every theorist that exists today on the planet will tell you creativity is an ability that ranges in the population, and I think in a given context, creativity can be shut off — or turned on, if the environment supports creativity.”

John Maeda, former president of Rhode Island School of Design, believes creativity can be taught — though he qualifies that belief. “I wouldn’t say it can be taught in the normal sense of adding knowledge and wisdom to someone. I would say instead it can be re-kindled in people — all children are creative. They just lose their capability to be creative by growing up,” notes Maeda, now a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and chair of eBay’s design advisory board. Creativity in a child, he adds, “is the ability to diverge. In a productive adult, it’s the ability to diverge and converge, with emphasis on the converging.”

Anyone called upon to tap creativity has his or her own method, but photorealist painter and photographer Chuck Close suggests the matter is actually less mysterious than the muse-chasers might believe. “Inspiration,” he has said, “is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work.”

Working with Boxes, Inside and Out

In whatever the sector or discipline — product development, exploitation of networks, music or education — creativity shares certain traits, experts say. Jacob Goldenberg, professor of marketing at the Arison School of Business at the IDC Herzliya in Israel, says creativity has more than 200 definitions in the literature. “However, if you ask people to grade ideas, the agreement is very high,” he notes. “This means that even if it is difficult to define creativity, it is easy to identify it. One of the reasons why it is difficult to define is the fact that creativity exists in many different domains.” Still, he says: “Most creative ideas share a common structure of being highly original and at the same time highly useful.”

“If you train yourself, and there are different methods for doing this, you can become more creative.” — Rom Schrift

In Inside the Box: A Proven System of Creativity for Breakthrough Results , Goldenberg and co-author Drew Boyd make the case that all inventive solutions share certain common patterns. Working within parameters, rather than through free-associative brainstorming, leads to greater creativity, the book says. This method, called Systematic Inventive Thinking, has found application at Procter & Gamble and SAP, among others. “We shouldn’t confuse innovation and creativity,” Goldenberg says. “Creativity refers to the idea, not to the system [product, service, process, etc.] that was built around it. For example, online banking is a great innovation, but the idea [of using the Internet to replace the branch] was not creative. It was expected years before it was implemented.”

Similarly, he adds, “cell phone technology is one of the most innovative developments, but the need was defined years before, and we just waited for the technology. In my view, a creative idea that is still changing our lives is the concept of letting users develop the software they need on a platform [that a particular] firm sells: the apps concept. This means that consumers develop and determine the value of the smartphone and tablets.”

This example, Goldenberg says, fits one of the templates for creativity described in Inside the Box : “Where you subtract one of the resources” — such as engineers and marketers — “and replace them with a resource that exists inside a closure (box), in this case your consumers.”

Schrift has used a different template from Inside the Box in his classes: The idea of building a matrix of characteristics of two unrelated products, and creating new dependencies. Such examples, he says, include an air freshener that changes scent every 10 minutes (remixing the concepts of time and fragrance), or a gym with a fee that is structured to increase if you don’t work out enough (fitness and incentive). “A lot of the time, looking for a new dependency gives you a creative idea,” Schrift notes.

Wind says that in whatever discipline, creativity is primarily “an ability to challenge the status quo and come up with new and better solutions. In art, the most creative figures are those who came up with new perspectives — Brancusi, who broke away from Rodin; Picasso, who broke away from the Impressionists; Duchamp, who took readymades [ordinary manufactured objects, a porcelain urinal being the most infamous] and said, ‘this is art.’ Anyone who primarily breaks the current status quo and creates a new dimension — the first person to think about understanding medicine in terms of a person’s DNA; in advertising it is [William] Bernbach, who came up with the slogan for Volkswagen, [or] Frank Gehry, who basically broke the tradition of the four-wall museum and came up with a dramatically different structure in Bilbao.”

Making Space for the Troublemakers

Corporate culture is no less hungry for creative leaders. Or is it? Any company would eagerly embrace the next iPhone, but it is far from clear that companies tolerate the cost of doing business when it comes to generating creativity. In an IBM survey of 1,500 CEOs from 60 countries in 33 industries released in 2010, creativity was cited as the most important organization-wide trait required for navigating the business environment. And yet, as Mueller found in a 2010 study published in Psychological Science , people often espouse creativity as an abstract goal, but then, when presented with it, spurn it. In The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas , co-authored by Mueller with Shimul Melwani and Jack A. Goncalo, experiments suggest that the desire for creativity is often overshadowed by a need to reduce uncertainty — even as subjects rate their attitudes toward creativity as positive. Moreover, this bias contributes toward people being less able to even recognize creativity.

Additional research underway by Mueller suggests that creative personalities are often dismissed as trouble. “They are seen as difficult, not as efficient or able to present their ideas with focus, and are also seen as naïve,” she says. “People, either rightly or wrongly, have this stereotype that creative people are high maintenance and emotionally volatile. And where it gets problematic, the moment the organization suffers, is when creative people are discounted for not being seen as team players. And that is the dark side of being tagged as a creative type.” And yet: “Why would you want somebody who doesn’t produce creative work [just because] they are less trouble to manage?”

“The stereotype is that creativity just has to be unleashed, and it’s not true. It has to be tightly managed. You have to know how to foster it.” –Jennifer Mueller

The bias against creativity even extends to the classroom, Mueller says. “There is the reality that any teacher needs a rubric in order to give a good grade, and creativity in being new or different creates uncertainty in the mind of the students about whether it fits the answer the teacher is looking for,” she notes. “Teachers think of creative students as disobedient. There is lots of focus on reducing ambiguity, especially in college where the student is your customer. You now have to answer to what the customer wants, and what the customer wants is to get a good grade — and the best way to get a good grade is to reduce ambiguity.”

Americans are not showing the kind of creative expression that might otherwise be bubbling away — in college, but also grade school. Scores from the widely administered Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking have been declining since 1990 among the nation’s youngest students, according to a study by College of William & Mary assistant professor Kyung-Hee Kim of nearly 300,000 test scores between 1968 and 2008. “The decline is steady and persistent, from 1990 to present, and ranges across the various components tested by the TTCT,” the study finds. “The decline begins in young children, which is especially concerning as it stunts abilities which are supposed to mature over a lifetime.”

“There is an understanding that this is happening in China and India as well,” Mueller adds, “and the fact that it is happening in the U.S. is troubling people, but I don’t think they know what to do about it. I, myself, have tried to do stuff students don’t like, and they will hate you. If student ratings aren’t high, then you’re not going to get tenure.”

One environment Mueller admires for its healthy creative process is IDEO, the multinational design consulting firm. Creativity is begun in brainstorming sessions — which is certainly not novel — but it is then shepherded through a more structured route. “They have their initial session, called ‘deep dive,’ and that session is very short. Then they break the problem apart by assigning people specific pieces. Then there is a focus session, so there is chaos and focus, and interplay between these two things is always going on. There is a person whose full responsibility is to structure it, and I think in that process you learn, you ask the customer certain things, you tweak it some more,” Mueller notes. “The stereotype is that creativity just has to be unleashed, and it’s not true. It has to be tightly managed. You have to know how to foster it.”

Creative Safe Haven

The willingness to “foster it” is a challenge in many corporate environments. According to Schrift, one way to manage creative forces is to manage talent wisely. “Maybe we don’t want creative people in certain positions,” he says. “One of the obstacles for innovation is not necessarily the process of coming up with the idea, but is more cultural — a lot of companies do not incentivize employees to do things differently.” Sometimes, workers are evaluated on a relatively short cycle, and “when you are innovating, that involves a lot of failure.”

“Mind-wandering seems to be essential to the creative process, and I don’t think a lot of businesses are aware of that fact.” — Scott Barry Kaufman

Changes in corporate culture, such as giving workers permission to question authority, can be efficacious, says Scott Barry Kaufman, scientific director of the Imagination Institute at Penn’s Positive Psychology Center . The salient question isn’t whether creativity can be taught, notes Kaufman, since everyone is creative, but rather demonstrating faith in the creativity of workers. “I am not talking about rebelliousness, but giving people time for constructive internal reflection and even daydreaming. A lot of research is suggesting that the more that you demand people’s external attention, the less chance you are allowing them to dip into the default mode where daydreams and reflection happen — and lot of great ideas are not going to come from the brute force of work but from personal life experience. Mind-wandering seems to be essential to the creative process, and I don’t think a lot of businesses are aware of that fact.”

Neither are most multitaskers — which means, these days, most people. In a recent New York Times op-ed piece , neuroscientist and musician Daniel J. Levitin made the case that tweeting, Facebooking and emailing your way through the day saps creativity. “Daydreaming leads to creativity, and creative activities teach us agency, the ability to change the world, to mold it to our liking, to have a positive effect on our environment,” wrote Levitin, author of The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload . In other words, we need time to hear the music in a babbling brook.

Measuring Creative Success

Is commercial viability the only gauge of creativity’s success? Wind points out that there are innovations in the arts whose value is best judged by other artists, and Goldenberg says peer expertise is sometimes required. “The only way to measure creativity is to use judges who grade many cases including the idea you want to grade,” notes Goldenberg. “This is a complex process and usually done in a research setup and not in practice. This means that a creative person repeats his or her success, and this is not an after-the-fact judgment of one random event.”

But Wind points out that in general, newness and usefulness are the main indicators of acts of great creativity. “I would take the extreme position that creativity has to have value to be successful,” he says. “You can come up with a lot of ideas, but if you are not adding value to the stakeholders, then they are not creative ideas.”

Airbnb certainly meets the criterion of adding value to stakeholders, and, according to Maeda of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the self-listing lodging clearinghouse stands an example of spectacularly creative thinking. “There are more people staying in Airbnb lodgings on any given night than all Hilton hotels combined,” Maeda notes of the company founded by the young and now-wealthy trio of Brian Chesky, Nathan Blecharczyk and Joe Gebbia. “It showed plasticity in their creativity that went beyond their design training in making physical goods. They recognized the excess capacity available in everyone’s home, and they designed a scalable service to enable anyone to access that capacity. Their successful design for a service solved the trust barriers inherent to a peer-to-peer economy.”

Wind cites Uber as his example. “Uber is a truly creative approach as opposed to the traditional taxi,” he says. “How wonderful it is that you could leverage the network idea and create a new business.” The Uber model is now being emulated and adapted to other sectors — Ubers for laundry, snowplows and even wine delivery. But while imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery, Uber’s success is actually a cue for the genuinely creative types to move on to other ideas. Says Wind: “The first one [to establish the model] is the example of creativity. The secondary companies following Uber — they are not.”

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Can Creative Writing Be Taught? Therapy For The Disaffected Masses

Contributor

Yes, of course, creative writing can be taught, and it is very successfully taught. It might be the most successful humanities enterprise in the American university, if success is to be measured by stated goals. As for "improvement," yes to that too, if by "improvement" we mean internalizing the principles of creative writing. Dramatic and measurable improvement are not only possible but happen all the time. Now, having gotten the provocative answer out of the way, let me be clear. Creative writing is not literary writing as has been understood for all of the history of writing. Creative writing is a subset of therapy, with the same essential modalities -- except, like everything else in our culture, it comes in a stripped, dumbed down version that partakes little of the rigors of psychotherapy. More appropriately, we might call it the Oprahfied mindset that penetrates workshop. Life lessons and living a more authentic life are always just beneath the surface of any workshop discussion.

Students "improve" in the direction of imitating their teacher and the narrow range of models -- Carver? Hemingway? Barthelme? Plath? Glück? Levine? -- she brings into workshop. Students "improve" in the output produced, compared to the beginning of workshop or the graduate program, when they start reproducing stuff that looks like the models.

Literature as we have known it through history springs from genius -- that most politically incorrect of words. By definition, no creative writing teacher can give official sanction to this terminology. And so the literary criticism of Horace or Sidney or Coleridge or Eliot is out the door. All of literary criticism is banished. Creative writing can flourish only in this enormous vacuum. Creative writing is taught with this single most important premise: no criticism, as the word is traditionally understood, can be allowed into the workshop.

In workshop, members judge each other's work according to feeling or desire. Technique is also a big part of it -- judging the story or poem according to how it works, how the plot and characters and narrative are put together to achieve a desired effect, or how a poem's rhythm and line breaks and diction serve a unified emotional purpose -- in other words "craft."

Craft is a very revealing term, as though writing were a matter of figuring out the essential components of a story or poem (the novel is typically not taught in workshop, because it's too hard a nut for craft to crack), and duplicating those elements in the comfort of your home. In that sense, creative writing can absolutely be taught. It's just that it's not literature.

Literature is about having, first of all, a broad humanist understanding of the tradition, how vastly oppositional styles of writing have sought to grapple with the same human problems over time, how history and politics have shaped national literatures, how you can not necessarily learn--for that is too reductionist a term--but be challenged by great writers like Chekhov or Tolstoy or Kafka, to create something utterly unique to yourself.

Literature is not about expressing yourself -- that all-important desideratum of sincerity, so precious in the workshop -- but about penetrating, at the deep intuitive level, what other fiction writers or poets have done in the past, as they confronted aesthetic challenges in their own milieus, and realizing what your specific aesthetic challenges are, both in collective and individual terms, and then going about it, alone and without comfort, in resolving the challenge you have set for yourself.

None of that can ever be taught in workshop, whose whole psychology militates against such an individualist, rather than industrialized, method of learning.

The psychology of the workshop has not yet been thoroughly explored. It is a mild form of hazing, an officially sanctioned sadism in which students eagerly participate. The student sits quietly while his work is read in front of him, not allowed to intervene as peers shred his work or occasionally praise it. All kinds of political, gender, class, and racial subtexts pervade such peer-to-peer "critique." Those criticizing are as ignorant of the art of writing as those whose work is being discussed. They're picking up cues from the instructor as to what is acceptable or not acceptable.

The methods of the workshop lead to "improvement" by subtraction -- since by definition the instructor can't compel the student to produce something that's not within his capability. So you work with what the student has given you, and you make that inherently flawed piece of work look a little better -- make it conform to the Carver or Glück model -- by subtracting, taking away the really egregious flourishes that make the writer appear eminently stupid.

It's not a coincidence that minimalism became so popular in the seventies, or that Carver or the domestic confessionalists became such huge national influences in the eighties; this is the period when the workshop model was getting established. All workshop writing leads to a type of minimalism, even if not strictly in the stylistic sense. For example, everything to do with politics or class must be expunged, since in the politically correct academy (as on Oprah) such subjects cannot be raised without the false consensus, the feel-good atmosphere, falling apart.

What can we agree on, and therefore teach? That you--at twenty-one or twenty-nine--have had some personal experiences: your parents divorced or you had a bad time in high school or your sister had a terrible sickness. You can make a story out of that--or creative nonfiction, that's okay too. Or a short narrative/epiphanic poem. As long as it conforms to the elements of "craft" you're being asked to upheld.

We might make the case that creative writing is what composition ought to be, in allowing idiosyncratic expression. Creative writing also functions in opposition to the rhetorics of literary theory, where everything is politicized (though in an insanely misguided manner, focused only on language) and the author as independent idea and will do not exist.

The remarkable thing--but it shouldn't be so, in our age of conformity--is how malleable, how teachable, students tend to be. All their lives long they've learned to play by the rules of socialization, and creative writing workshop is just taking the social game to a different level, where your experience is validated (but not really, because you must follow the model) and you're given the appearance of having your hands held and being consoled (even as your work is being ripped up, it's couched in the language of therapy).

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It's perhaps also a refuge from self-help (which is where memoir flourishes), as you're told that we're all here to help each other. No wonder creative writing is the most popular scene on campus. Show don't tell, find your own voice, write what you know, sure, you can do that while carrying on a hectic social life and not even feel guilty you're wasting time. Come to think of it, Louise Glück, that Pulitzer winner, doesn't look all that different from what you've been doing. You just need to get the technique down a little better. Maybe in the next poem about your dog that got lost.

Yes, creative writing can be taught. And we're all fucked because of it.

This piece appears in the current issue of Boulevard magazine.

Anis Shivani has just finished a novel, Karachi Raj . His other books are My Tranquil War and Other Poems (May 2012), The Fifth Lash and Other Stories (2012), Against the Workshop: Provocations, Polemics, Controversies (2011), and Anatolia and Other Stories (2009).

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• Stanford is reinstating term limits for Jones Lecturers (former Stegner Fellows) to honor Wallace Stegner’s foundational principles and provide teaching opportunities for new fellows.
• The program will increase its annual courses by 10% starting in the 2025-26 academic year to meet growing student interest.
• New creative writing lectureships (renewable for up to three years) and an associate director position are being established to support additional courses and mentorship. Current Jones Lecturers can apply for these roles.
• The English Department is piloting 10 new lectureships to blend creative writing with literary studies, aligning with students’ desires to combine creative expression and critical thinking.

Amid unprecedented growth and evolving student interests, Stanford University’s Creative Writing Program in the School of Humanities and Sciences is implementing significant changes to restore its original vision and meet the increasing demand for creative writing courses. 

The program, renowned for cultivating some of the country’s best writers, is recommitting to its mission by restructuring key fellowships and expanding course offerings.

Central to these changes is a return to the foundational principles set by Wallace Stegner, an English faculty member and 1972 Pulitzer Prize winner, when he established the Creative Writing Program in 1946. 

Moving forward, Jones lecturers – all former Stegner Fellows – will be term-limited and rotate out regularly. This shift ensures that new Stegner Fellows can become Jones lecturers, maintaining a fresh flow of perspectives within the program. 

This change continues a reform process initiated in 2019, which limited newly hired Jones lecturers to four-year terms. While many of the current Jones lecturers are expected to continue teaching for the next four to five years, they will eventually cycle out. This will make room for new lecturers, who will be eligible for terms of up to five years each. Importantly, Stanford anticipates maintaining the same number of creative writing lecturers to keep the program’s teaching capacity robust. 

“The Jones Lectureship offers Stegner Fellows the opportunity to teach our undergrads,” said A. Van Jordan, a former faculty co-director of creative writing and professor of English and African and African American Studies. 

“When the Jones Lectureship operates as it was designed to, ideally, with the imprimatur of Stanford on their CVs and new book publications, they will go on – as many have over the years – and begin their careers as faculty at other institutions,” said Jordan, who is also a Humanities and Sciences Professor. 

These changes will not only help ensure the program honors Stegner’s original vision, but also address the evolving landscape of writing in the digital age. In an era where AI can generate content instantly, the importance of human creativity and inspiration is more significant than ever, said Debra Satz, the Vernon R. and Lysbeth Warren Anderson Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences. 

"Drawing inspiration is a competence computers don’t have; we do," Satz said. "We want every Stanford student to have the opportunity to make their own choices, guided by some of the most gifted writers of our generation." 

Wallace Stegner, a Stanford English professor and Pulitzer Prize winner who established the Creative Writing Program, is the namesake of the Stegner Fellowship program. | Chuck Painter

Honoring a legacy of excellence 

Since its founding, Stanford’s Creative Writing Program has become a cornerstone of literary excellence, producing Stegner Fellows who have achieved national and international acclaim. "There have been times when I thought I was seeing the American literature of the future taking shape in my classroom," Stegner once wrote. 

Inspired by Stanford students who were World War II veterans with compelling stories to tell, Stegner envisioned a program to nurture emerging writers. He collaborated with Dr. E. H. Jones, a physician and the brother of the English Department chair, who provided initial funding and later established a permanent endowment. This support led to the creation of the prestigious Stegner Fellowship – a two-year residential fellowship for promising early-career writers in poetry and fiction – and the Jones Lectureships, which provides Stegner Fellows with teaching opportunities while they complete their manuscripts. 

Nearly 80 years later, the Stegner Fellowship remains highly competitive, attracting nearly 1,400 applications last year for just 10 slots. In addition, creative writing is the most popular minor with Stanford undergraduates (music is second). The COVID-19 pandemic intensified this trend, as students sought connection and expression during isolating times. 

“We were all living the same Groundhog Day over and over, and in those terrible pandemic years, reading and writing didn’t feel like a luxury or a frill but a vital form of connection,” said Patrick Phillips, professor of English and former director of the Creative Writing Program. 

Looking ahead 

To accommodate this surge in interest, the program will increase its course offerings by 10%, from approximately 100 to 110 courses annually, starting in the 2025-26 academic year.

To staff the additional courses and provide enhanced support, the Creative Writing Program is establishing new positions: 

Creative writing lecturers: Beginning in 2025-26, two new lectureships (renewable for a maximum duration of three years) will be available to outgoing Jones lecturers. These positions will allow them to continue teaching and mentoring. A reduced teaching load will allow them to focus on administrative responsibilities like professional development, curriculum assistance, and collaborating with colleagues on innovative course design and teaching strategies.

Associate director of creative writing: The associate director of creative writing, who will also be a senior lecturer, will also commence in 2025-26. They will teach courses, help with administrative responsibilities, and provide leadership support to faculty and lecturers. A national search will be conducted for this role, with current Jones lecturers eligible to apply. 

These new positions aim to maintain the quality and variety of course offerings, ensuring that popular classes like the Graphic Novel Project and Novel Writing Intensive continue to thrive. 

“It is common for popular classes to change hands,” said Nicholas Jenkins, faculty director of the Creative Writing Program. “In setting the curriculum, the Program always pays close attention to student views. Nothing that draws enthusiastic undergraduates is likely to go away. The influx of new Jones lecturers into the Program will also produce innovative course offerings that will become must-haves.” 

The future of creative writing and the English major 

While arts practice and theory are typically separated at U.S. universities, Stanford houses them together. “In H&S, the Creative Writing Program is housed within the Department of English,” explained Gabriella Safran, senior associate dean for the humanities and arts, the Eva Chernov Lokey Professor of Jewish Studies, and professor of Slavic languages and literatures. “Students benefit from the synergy of practice and theory, making and analysis, rather than needing to choose between one and the other.” 

Recognizing students’ evolving interest in merging creative expression with critical thinking, the Department of English is also piloting ten new lectureships, renewable for a maximum duration of three years. Starting in 2025-26, five lecturers will begin teaching, with the other five joining the following year. These positions are anticipated to be filled by current Jones lecturers. 

Gavin Jones, chair of the Department of English, emphasized the importance of bridging literary theory and history with the practice of creative writing itself. “Students increasingly want to write creatively as well as think critically about literary texts,” he said. “This is a good time for new pedagogical practices that reflect this change by merging creative expression with literary analysis.” 

The English Department lecturers will teach some creative writing courses alongside new gateway courses that are part literature seminar and part creative writing workshop, and they may occasionally co-teach with English faculty. In the process, they will help the department rethink English pedagogy for new generations of students. 

“When our writing workshops are good, they’re not just undergraduate classes, but extraordinary gatherings in which people can talk and write about what matters most in their lives,” Phillips said. “I feel lucky every time I walk into a room of undergraduate writers.”