Writers and Their Workshops

Abstract

In Literary Rebels, Lise Jaillant puts forward a trans-Atlantic study of the cultural history of creative writing programmes. This slim volume introduces material drawn from considerable archival research and oral history interviews to show how the current creative writing landscape came to be, from the ongoing tensions between creative writers and literary scholars in many university English departments to the writing course options available outside of university settings. While not a specific focus of study, Jaillant points out ways in which women and writers of colour remained on the margins of academic creative writing programmes throughout much of the twentieth century. She frames much of the book around three broad creative writing models: informal mentorship; academic programmes focused on writing workshops and professionalization; and a third model she calls ‘radical individualism’ (230), which values creative freedom over the income stability of academic employment. Divided into two sections, the book first examines the development of creative writing programmes in America before focusing attention on Britain. Chapter one investigates ways that regionalism and internationalism shaped Paul Engle’s vision for teaching creative writing and his continued influence at the University of Iowa in both theWriters’Workshop and the International Writing Program. The second chapter follows a trail of letters in the archives to uncover a tale of the unsuccessful overtures of an aspiring writer to secure William Faulkner’s support as a mentor. The next chapter explores Wallace Stegner’s influence at Stanford University’s writing programme and how his time there reveals both the chasm between creative and academic departments and the growing tension between the faculty and a more politically radical student body starting in the 1960s. In the last two chapters of this section, Jaillant looks beyond academia to consider ways that organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Famous Writers School contributed to the proliferation of creative Lise Jaillant, A History of Creative Writers in AngloAmerican Universities, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022, 288 pp., £30 hardback, ISBN: 9780192855305