How does a writer improve? In this episode, two prominent writers and writing professors from North Carolina State University’s graduate program in creative writing share their insight into the creative process. With over 50 years of teaching experience between them, poet Dorianne Laux and fiction writer John Kessel offer advice to all levels of writers, reminding us to always try “once more, with feeling.”
Podcast Notes:
Writing allows people to open the mind and the heart. Encourages expression of things that are not encouraged in their social groups. Teaches people how to express themselves. We all have some capacity to write and to respond to it. Fans out in their lives beyond just writing. The teacher’s job… knows things that do and don’t work and why. Try to understand what the writer is trying to say and help them say it. Can’t break the rules until you know how to play the game. Help writer make it interesting to the reader (the “heat”).
North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC)
Creative Writing Master of the Fine Arts: http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/graduate/mfa Creative Writing Undergraduate Major: http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/undergraduate/
California Poets in the Schools Program (K-12): http://www.cpits.org/
Pablo Neruda: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/pablo-neruda
– Letter to Miguel: http://www.amazon.com/Letter-Miguel-Otero-Silva-Caracas/dp/B0006YN9O4
Ursula K. Le Guin: http://www.ursulakleguin.com/
Herman Melville: http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/herman-melville
Andrea del Sarto by Robert Browning: “Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?“: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173001
Sharon Olds: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/sharon-olds
Stag’s Leap: http://www.amazon.com/Stags-Leap-Poems-Sharon-Olds/dp/0375712259
Karen Joy Fowler: http://karenjoyfowler.com/
We are all Completely Beside Ourselves: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Are-All-Completely-Beside-Ourselves/dp/1846689651
E. M. Forester: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._M._Forster
Aspects of the Novel: http://www.amazon.com/ASPECTS-THE-NOVEL-E-M-Forster/dp/0156091801
Producers: Ray Crampton and Abigail Browning
Produced by: tatestreet.org: http://tatestreet.org
Music Provided by: Jonathan Stout and his Campus Five featuring Hilary Alexander: http://www.campusfive.com
Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tatestreetorg
Podcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/tatestreetorg
Podcast Email: mailto:writeus@tatestreet.org
