My first writing workshop was also my best experience with the form. I studied literature in college and decided I wanted to try writing fiction and poetry in my last semester of undergrad. Most of my required classes were finished, so my course load was a literature capstone, an ice skating class, and a writing workshop. (Typing that br…
My first writing workshop was also my best experience with the form. I studied literature in college and decided I wanted to try writing fiction and poetry in my last semester of undergrad. Most of my required classes were finished, so my course load was a literature capstone, an ice skating class, and a writing workshop. (Typing that brought on a rush of newfound appreciation for that time in my life.) The teacher for the course was a poet, somewhat well-known, with a few books and some poems published in the New Yorker. On the first day, he encouraged us to call him Coach, and went on to explain that his approach to these workshops was to encourage all of us to write in our own way and that reading and practices (walking in the woods, being attentive to our senses) would support our development as writers. I don't know if this approach would work for every teacher, but it felt like an authentic expression of his being. He was warm and gregarious and the class felt like a place where our writing and our ideas about writing were accepted and treated with care. What I loved most about that workshop was the loving assertiveness of Coach R. He let us go on some tangents but let us know how to come back to the story or poem that would be of benefit to the writer. There's some vague recollections of this done with loving humor. I've gone back and read what I wrote for that class. I cringe at the earnestness of that new writer but also see in the writing a risk-taking (it doesn't seem like it at the time) that comes from a beginner's efforts, and I feel especially grateful that I sat in classroom with a teacher (coach) who oriented us to what was best and unique in our work and encouraged us to continue our efforts.
My first writing workshop was also my best experience with the form. I studied literature in college and decided I wanted to try writing fiction and poetry in my last semester of undergrad. Most of my required classes were finished, so my course load was a literature capstone, an ice skating class, and a writing workshop. (Typing that brought on a rush of newfound appreciation for that time in my life.) The teacher for the course was a poet, somewhat well-known, with a few books and some poems published in the New Yorker. On the first day, he encouraged us to call him Coach, and went on to explain that his approach to these workshops was to encourage all of us to write in our own way and that reading and practices (walking in the woods, being attentive to our senses) would support our development as writers. I don't know if this approach would work for every teacher, but it felt like an authentic expression of his being. He was warm and gregarious and the class felt like a place where our writing and our ideas about writing were accepted and treated with care. What I loved most about that workshop was the loving assertiveness of Coach R. He let us go on some tangents but let us know how to come back to the story or poem that would be of benefit to the writer. There's some vague recollections of this done with loving humor. I've gone back and read what I wrote for that class. I cringe at the earnestness of that new writer but also see in the writing a risk-taking (it doesn't seem like it at the time) that comes from a beginner's efforts, and I feel especially grateful that I sat in classroom with a teacher (coach) who oriented us to what was best and unique in our work and encouraged us to continue our efforts.