I often find myself weighing the degree to which the workshops I lead should concern themselves with things other than the manuscript up for discussion. On the one hand, I believe in a workshop—especially at the undergraduate level—that focuses on writing, and not on what one does with the writing once it’s finished. Put another way, there’s no better element of professionalization than learning to write well.
On the other hand, part of being a writer means giving readings and submitting work for publication, and I’m not doing my students any favors by pretending otherwise, or by withholding information or advice that could benefit them. Beyond that, I would argue that the very process of preparing a manuscript for a public reading or for submission to a journal makes one a better writer. When I know that I’ll be reading my work in front of actual, live human beings, I’m suddenly able to see the work with fresh eyes and less patience. I become a better self-editor. Imprecise words, flabby phrases, and lags in pacing—not to mention typos—announce themselves loudly.
Similarly, when I prepare to submit a piece for publication, I find myself reading it through the eyes of someone who doesn’t already know me and who has no reason—or time—to give me the benefit of the doubt. The piece, in other words, must stand on its own, and it must stand out.
So certainly there’s a pedagogical element to professionalization. Yet I value the workshop as a space that encourages ambition, experimentation, and even failure. That’s how we grow as writers, and much of the work we do in workshop is not meant for public consumption. The writer’s apprenticeship is a long one, and to rush the process—to make one’s work public before it’s ready—does the writer no favors.
I’d love for others to weigh in:
- Does your workshop give a class reading? If so, is it made public?
- Does your workshop involve educating students in the submission process?
- Should students in workshop be encouraged—or even required—to submit their work?
I was told by one of my undergraduate professors that I should hold off on submitting anything to any magazine or journal until I was at least 25. He told me, “You don’t want to publish something early in your career that you’ll be embarrassed by later.” That was about the nicest way someone has ever told me my work wasn’t very good.
When I taught graduate students, I did talk about the submission process– these were students who aspired to be professional writers, after all, and as you point, professionalization is something people need to be taught. I don’t think these discussions really discouraged experimentation and risking failure– I can think of at least one student who was quite experimental with his work even while his classmates may have focused on more conventional essays and memoirs (he’s gone on to have several of his “micro-essays” on Twitter published in Creative Nonfiction, interestingly enough).
With the undergrads I teach now, I don’t really talk about publishing– not in the workshop, anyway. Just earlier today, though, I met with a senior English major with grad school ambitions and did suggest to her that an essay she’s presenting in her capstone project might be appropriate for Brevity’s upcoming VIDA-edited “all-women” issue. But I wouldn’t really encourage most of my students to submit stuff– workshops can create enough anxiety; getting a form-letter rejection could break a developing writer’s heart.
I do think that serious student writers should consider audience, though I think requiring them to submit their work to a magazine or journal is just kinda cruel. Instead, I tend to organize a student reading to coincide with my school’s annual undergraduate research conference. I tend to invite all of my creative writing students from that year (or, occasionally, years previous). Usually, I can count on four or five fearless souls to step up and present their work. These are the students who are thinking about writing as a profession, and I think the experience is valuable for them. The undergraduate who is taking the class to improve her writing skills or to fulfill a humanities requirement, though, probably doesn’t need the stress.