A Track of One’s Own
One tall young man scans the white sheets taped to the window, then briskly walks away. Another girl lingers, her brow furrowed as her eyes trail down the register. On the other side of the glass, a disappointed student collapses into an armchair, course guide in hand. “Do you think I should e-mail them? Do you think that would help?” he asks his friend, who looks doubtfully back at him. “I guess I’ll have to start all over again,” he mutters, leafing anxiously through the dense volume.
It’s around 4 p.m. on the day before study cards are due, and tension is at fever pitch in this corner of the Barker Center. For these students hoping to snag a coveted spot in one of the English and American Literature and Language Department’s 11 creative writing workshops, it’s judgement day.
Although there’s no doubt that creative writing courses are popular, some wonder whether they’re as beneficial to students as other English courses. After all, Harvard alums like E.E. Cummings ’15, John L. Ashbery ’49 and Frank R. O’Hara ’50 managed to become literary giants without participating in undergraduate writing workshops. In a department devoted to criticism and analysis, does the creative writing program serve a purpose?
DICK AND JANE
For the many students that apply, creative writing workshops offer the tempting combination of access to instructors who are eminent in their fields and the valuable opportunity to develop their craft. The workshops are seminar-sized courses in which students read and critique one another’s work under the guidance of the instructor. Of course, these aren’t the only classes with limited enrollment. Harvard students often lottery for a coveted spot in one class or another. Visual and Environmental Studies courses, Freshman Seminars, and many popular cores are capped. Such lotteries, however, are a standardized affair in which the major deciding factors are seniority, need, and chance. In the competitive world of creating writing, admission criteria are far more personal.
The applications comprise a cover letter and a three- to five-page writing sample specific to the workshop. Often, the intensely personal nature of writing can make rejection from a workshop a singularly bitter experience, and application a sheer emotional impossibility.
“The creative writing program discourages up-and-coming writers,” says Ashley R. LaPorte ’10, a prospective English concentrator. “It’s unlike applying to any other course. I feel some of the best writers are really uncomfortable sharing their work.”
THE TIME MACHINE
Unlike creative writing programs at other Ivies like Princeton, Brown, nd Columbia, Harvard’s has always existed under the auspices of the English department. The college first responded to the demand for creative writing in 1971 when the “Option III” course of instruction was added to the concentration. Few resources were dedicated to the program, which was only offered to English concentrators and admitted fewer than 20 percent of applicants.
Even after the advent of Option III, doubt about the merits of creative writing lingered. In 1979, Director of Expository Writing Richard Marius cancelled the only fiction offering, Expository Writing 13, even though it was the most popular section. He was concerned that fiction courses failed to teach students how to write expository prose. Although the decision was met with outrage by many students and even some Expository Writing preceptors, the course was never reinstated.
Option III was eventually replaced by today’s creative writing program. The program functions largely as an autonomous body: The creative writing faculty makes most of their administrative decisions independently, and some of the instructors aren’t even affiliated with the English department.
“There is a drastic difference between the curriculum of the creative writing department and the curriculum of the critical and analytical [track],” says Daniel G. Donoghue, the department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies and the Marquand Professor of English. But despite this functional autonomy, the creative writing program remains formally included within the larger English family.
“English concentrators have to fulfill a certain number of requirements and they come [to my courses] very well versed in literary styles,” says Jamaica Kincaid, who teaches fiction writing as visiting professor on African and African American Studies and on English and American Literature and Language. “A writer can’t write without reading and knowing literature.”
HEART OF DARKNESS
Nonetheless, Harvard’s handful of creative writing offerings are drastically different than anything most students have ever experienced. Unlike the novels one may read and analyze in other English courses, the writing discussed in workshops is never considered finished. The process can be challenging for workshop participants, particularly because the courses are focused on constantly tweaking and improving one’s work.
“It’s not about the grades,” says Uzodinma C. Iweala ’04, a creative-writing-workshop veteran. “You’re really trying to go for something else. You can just perform to a certain level in other courses. In creative writing, you have to do your best.”
“It’s like a masochistic sort of joy,” says Mallory R. Hellman ’08 of writing workshops. According to Hellman, creative writing workshops differ greatly from other courses because of the stressful peer review process. In most workshops, participants critique one student’s work as the author remains silent. The experience isn’t usually pleasant. Hellman recalls an incident in a screen-writing course when she presented an autobiographical piece about a traumatic experience as if it were fiction. “I wanted to get honest feedback,” she says. As a result, her peers extensively criticized the main character, not knowing it was Hellman herself.
Although it may be difficult to listen to criticism, Eleanor M. Boudreau ’07 says negative reader feedback is necessary, even if it may be painful. “You have a choice in workshop to make changes or not.” says Boudreau. “Sometimes I don’t agree with what a person says at all. But if they get that from my poem, then maybe I should think about what I want it to convey.”
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
The difficulties faced by students regarding creative writing workshops pales in comparison with the challenge of achieving the elusive holy grail of Harvard creative writing: the creative thesis. Spots are even harder to get because instructors can only advise two or three theses. Only English concentrators with a GPA of 3.4 or higher are allowed to apply, and generally those who have taken creative courses are the only ones who stand a chance. Applicants submit proposals in the February of their junior year and languish for a month before finding out if they got in.
Even the most talented students may not have their proposal accepted. Tracy K. Smith ’00 recalls an uneasy interview for her creative thesis proposal. “I just had one of those jarring moments where you realize ‘I’m not going to get this, am I?’” Still, she didn’t come out of creative writing courses empty-handed. She received a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia and eventually ended up at Princeton, where she is an associate professor of creative writing on a small faculty that includes Joyce Carol Oates and Toni Morrison.
Hellman, who is taking her fourth creative writing course this semester, has been hoping to write a creative thesis for years. She just submitted her proposal for a series of nonfiction pieces that include tales of kidney stones and parental reconciliation.
Hellman first decided that she wanted to write a creative thesis the summer after her junior year of high school, when she took a course under Briggs-Copeland Lecturer on English and American Literature and Language Sven Birkerts at Harvard Summer School. At the time, Hellman was surprised to find that several of the undergraduates who were in the course were genuinely serious about creative writing. “I didn’t think this [focus on writing] possible,” Hellman says. “I thought that writing was just this time-consuming sidebar for everybody.”
A.J. Wolosenko ’06-’07 is writing a collection of short fiction for his thesis. He participated in two fiction writing courses during his junior year after taking a poetry course his sophomore year. After the first course, Wolosenko was sure he wanted to write a creative thesis. Because only English concentrators are allowed to apply to the selective program, the former Literature concentrator made the switch.
“There wasn’t something that I wanted to critically analyze that was driving my academic pursuits. From the people [writing critical theses] I talk to, if it’s not fundamentally interesting to them then they’re going to kind of resent it in the end,” Wolosenko says. “The creative thesis seemed like the perfect thing.”
For others, the ability to work closely with successful writers and poets makes the creative thesis even more enticing. Boudreau is recording a collection of her spoken word poetry for her creative thesis. She describes her thesis adviser, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory Jorie Graham, as “a rock star in the poetry world.”
THE PROFESSOR
Harvard’s creative writing track offers an equally appealing and elusive opportunity to its teachers. Graham’s status as a full professor is rare among the creative writing faculty, mainly composed of Briggs-Copeland Lecturers on English and American Literature and Language. The lecturers are only required to teach two creative writing classes and they must advise at least two creative theses, but they’re free from the research and publishing demands of their peers. However, the cushy position doesn’t last for long, a mere five years. The lack of long-term faculty means that the program has virtually no institutional memory, which hinders the possibilities for growth or reform.
“We’re reluctant to let good teachers go,” says Donoghue on the constant turnover in the department. But he also points out that many lecturers are writers first and teachers second, so the five-year term is perfect for attracting talented authors who still want to continue their writing careers after a brief teaching stint. Donoghue sees this as the reason that the department is constantly able to attract a steady stream of literary luminaries.
In the past, creative writing courses have been taught by literary heavy hitters such as Seamus Heaney. Courses are also taught by members of other departments who have extensive experience in their field. This year Marcus Stern, associate director of the American Repertory Theater, is teaching a screenwriting workshop.
The renowned director has found teaching creative writing courses Harvard to be both rewarding and challenging, albeit markedly different from the theater courses he teaches. “It’s a more expansive and in-depth evaluation of their work on a weekly basis because in theater, the first time I’ll see it is in class,” Stern says. “[In creative writing courses] I do a large amount of the analysis and critique on my own, but then there’s another layer of analysis and critique done in the class, not only by me but by the students’ peers as well.”
A ROOM WITH A VIEW
Despite the intense level of scrutiny that students are held to in the creative track, students who take creative writing courses can’t shake the perception that the courses are easy. “[People] don’t think that I’m here to engage in any real academic pursuit,” Hellman says. “When I go home and say, ‘I’m studying English, I’m going to be a writer,’ they’re like, ‘What? You’re not pre-med?’”
The same goes for creative theses. Boudreau feels that many people don’t believe that creative theses like hers have the same academic merit as critical ones. She recalls a discussion with a housemate who was writing a thesis that dealt with DNA. “He said, ‘Yeah, I could write your thesis, because there’s no way to judge poetry, right?’” Boudreau recalls. “The problem was, he just didn’t understand. I said, ‘I can intellectualize what your thesis is about, and I can understand how it’s challenging, but you can’t even understand how what I’m doing is challenging.’”
Within the department, however, professors and students are supportive and understand the difficult and idiosyncratic demands that creative writing places on students. While critical theses have strictly defined rules and guidelines for writers to follow, creative theses have no such canon.
“It’s very difficult to write a creative thesis,” Kincaid says. “With creative writing, it’s very hard to impose rules on yourself. It’s a very hard discipline.”
A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS
Even if the work is hard and less than appreciated in the Harvard academic scene, for many students the accomplishment of a creative thesis and the close relationship forged with thesis advisers during the process can have extraordinary results.
“Writing a creative thesis was so helpful for me, it really put me ahead of the game.” says Murad Kalam ’95. Kalam’s critically acclaimed novel “Night Journey” grew out of his creative thesis. He cites two of his creative writing instructors—Kincaid and former Briggs-Copeland Lecturer Robert Cohen—as two figures that were an immense influence on his writing career. Cohen even helped the aspiring writer to publish his novel by finding an agent for him and continues to be a mentor. “A young novelist needs a support network of writers,” Kalam says.
Iweala’s senior thesis also had an unexpectedly deep impact on his life. His thesis, a novel entitled “Beasts of No Nation,” was written from the perspective of a child soldier in Africa. Under the guidance of Kincaid, Iweala won several of the College’s prizes for outstanding theses.
When Kincaid asked Iweala if he’d be comfortable with her sending it to her agent, he remembers being honored that she would think his thesis had such promise. “I wasn’t writing it to be published,” Iweala says. But it was: “Beasts of No Nation” exploded into a critically acclaimed, best-selling novel.
Despite his success, Iweala hasn’t changed his previous plans to go on to medical school. Without the opportunity to write a creative thesis with Kincaid, Iweala doubts he would have even attempted to publish his first novel. “Having somebody established pushing for you when you’ve got something of the right quality really helps,” Iweala says.
THE NEVERENDING STORY
Much of what makes the creative writing program a vital fixture at the University is that it offers students like Boudreau, Wolosenko, and Iweala an opportunity to thrive and develop as writers that can’t be replicated elsewhere in the curriculum. From its intensive workshops to its coveted creative theses, the program is the most formative element of their four years at Harvard for students like Hellman who “live and breathe writing.”
Still, the celebrated advantages to the program are arguably overshadowed by its exclusivity. Unlike many other aspects of Harvard life, not every student has access to the program, despite demonstrated student interest both to participate in workshops and to write creative theses. Even the students within the bubble are aware of this major shortcoming. As Hellman observes, “The faculty is illustrious and the faculty is wonderful, but the faculty is limited. I only wish it could be available for everybody.”